Ask HN: Visual Design for Hackers - DanI-S Take a look at the Rails Rumble 2010 entries: http://railsrumble.com/
There's a whole stack of apps there, developed within 48 hours by small groups of people. They're not all beautiful, but there is (to my eye) a pretty high standard of presentation for most of them.
I am sure I am not alone in feeling like there's this chunk of knowledge I'm missing - in terms of how, and when, to go about making something beautiful.
I'm fascinated by the concept of optimizing user experience - it certainly has the potential to make or break an application's popularity. If you can spend valuable time tweaking code to make it more appealing to the compiler, why can't it work in the other direction too? Though I don't think it's reasonable to expect myself to be incredible at both, I'd like to be able to put together a prototype that looks nice. After all, I wouldn't show people code that I knew was bad and ugly.
Part A - I would love to know - how does this aspect fit into the flow of the project? At what point do you start turning things from black-text-on-white-background into a beautiful and intelligent layout? I'm sure it's usually incremental, but is there a specific point at which you decide to shift focus over to implementing your UI? I know I usually go through many notebook pages of UI ideas even before I've written any code. Is it worthwhile doing mockups in photoshop at this stage? Showing different designs to people and asking for feedback? Or do you usually do this after your core functionality is built? And where do you draw the line, say 'this is ready enough for now!' and release the thing?
Part B - In terms of user interface and usability, there's a lot of information out there. Much of it, however, is from the early days of graphical computing and the web. There are still great things to learn from stuff like Joel on Software but I'd like some good information about user interactions and expectations in the AJAX era. There must have been some more wisdom accumulated in the last decade! I'm looking for some shoulders to stand on - 'our experience showed us that you should never do <xyz> because users find it confusing'.
Part C - I've always been curious about how small teams of people manage to cope with the graphical elements of web application building. Does a team of 2-3 people in an early days startup usually contain a designer/artist? Is that something you can reliably outsource? Is it ever a good idea to have your design done by someone else and then shoehorn your view code and javascript into it (for a prototype/beta), or should it always be a closely collaborative process?
Part D - Finally - I'm interested in any of you people who can see BOTH sides of the coin. If you started off as a programmer and then learned how to make stuff sexy and usable - what put you on that path? Where did you start learning? What were your major obstacles, and how did you overcome them?
Looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say.
Dan <comment><AUTHOR> I am myself a professional programmer that has some basic design skills, but I'll try to answer your question as well as I can.

A - I'm pretty sure most people design the UX/UI before they start coding (at least mock ups). If you have already coded all your backend, you might feel constrained when designing the UI or might realize too late that you oversaw some critical parts of your system. Let me illustrate:

Let's say you are building a "C.V. builder app". You might start coding with the assumption that the user has to be login to start building his C.V. However, if you imagine the UX first, you might realize that it would be nice to ask the user to register only once he wants to save his newly created C.V. That simple detail might have a huge impact on your code base.

B - Some resources & inspiration: <http://uxmovement.com/>, <http://ui- patterns.com/>, <http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/inspiration/>, <http://www.dribbble.com>.

C - If you're good at UX/UI design but lack the Photoshop skills to bring your vision to life, it should be safe to outsource. In any case, make sure your designer really "gets" your vision.

D - I started learning to design and program at about the same time. Since then, I've put most my time into programming and although I consider myself pretty good at designing user interfaces, I lack the technical skill and experience to make them look beautiful. If you're the same as me, I would suggest spending some time trying to really master Photoshop or such tool. Also, some color/typography theory can't hurt.

<comment><USER2> > I lack the technical skill and experience to make them look beautiful.

It's called practice. I've known designers who have each won handfuls of AIGA awards. The common thread was that they never stopped designing things. Talent is a leg up only for the first few steps.

HN people have weekend programming projects; these designers had _daily_ side design projects, in addition to their daily design duties. The amount of time dedicated to this was staggering. I think their only real talent was being able to self-immerse themselves so deeply in the subject without burnout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm about to go to sleep, but I just want to drop a few of my favorite rules of thumb. (I love UX and constantly bitch about bad interfaces, FWIW.)

\- Visual hierarchies. Color theory. Understand both of these, and use them.

\- Don't use the words "me" or "my" in your interfaces (with rare exceptions like "✓ remember me", which is _de-facto_ standardized)

\- Native controls/widgets give users lots of free platform-specific and accessibility functionality that they expect. Don't implement your own text box / dropdown / scrollbars without a damn good reason.

\- Use color sparingly, to convey meaning and/or draw attention.

\- What is the purpose of each and every design element? Can it be removed, or does it have no purpose? Then remove it. (Maybe keeping one exception to the rule gives your site a touch of personality / a brand).

\- Reading the OS X HIG is eye-opening. Don't try to follow it _online,_ though!

\- Can stuff line up? It probably should.

\- When should you show a throbber or "Loading…" message? The answer is _not_ "whenever something is loading". It's "whenever the user _must_ wait for something to load, or whenever an update or change of view as a result of a direct user action is not immediately visible." And this should be minimized.

\- Don't half-ass buttons. If they hover or have an active (depressed) state, then the hover ("over") state should look like a slightly lighter or darker version of the normal ("up") state; the depressed ("down") state should look physically depressed, if applicable; invert the gradient, swap the borders, or whatever.

It looks like I'm starting to list pet peeves instead of the big ones, so good night!

<comment><USER4> \- Always show a useful fallback for empty views. Preferably visually distinct and "subordinate" to actual content (e.g. centered gray text instead of left aligned black text).

\- Try to minimize the impact of destructive actions and try to offer the possibility to rollback potentially dangerous actions. Make dangerous actions look dangerous (e.g. make delete buttons red).

\- Think about visual distance and distraction, especially in flowing text. Columns look good, but forces the eye to scan for the start of the next column when reaching the end of the previous. Don't place two equally important things right next to each other, etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi. I am a designer that is trying without too much zeal to learn to program. Here go some advice, no idea whether it helps.

First, i believe that "looking great" and "being good user experience" are actually very, very different things. Designers are good just at the first. The second remains a dark art for programmer and designer alike.

For example, thinking about which user input you need or could do without, which order to ask for them and so on, falls i believe neither there nor here. Which effect you should apply to the input box is utterly immaterial, and i would venture that a competent designer can make any kind of use-process beautiful to look at.

As for making beautiful, i have found no way to develop this except by endless boring practice. The best illustrator is generally the one who has done more illustrations. Rules or techniques (as in crutches) tend to give good results in the very short term and become stifling very quickly.

If you lack the stamina or interest to simply draw, i guess this is not a bad thing. The other way to see the thing is that you'll eventually get better at it.

That said, designers do tend to develop a variety of manias and sensibilities that, well, _seem to be related_ , vaguely, to their craft. If you're willing to try to get that, i would recommend a very, very old book. I know this goes directly against what you were looking for, but, again, that is my opinion: Symbols and Signs, by Adrian Frutiger. (Amazon has it, not sure if it is bad form to put an amazon link here... Also, i do only know the Brazilian edition so i can give no advice about that...). Maybe this book can come out sounding like full of rules, but that is not the point.

Another, more recent book that is also incredible, but even more paranoid (the guy goes pages and pages discussing commas, then semi commas, then colons, and i just love it!) is The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst.

Finally, designers always do end up getting a bit of cognitive psychology, and it is a good thing, but no self-respecting psychologist could purport to understand the human cognitive system, so i would say avoid the ones who are too sure of themselves like how-to guides to Gestalt, those are just gimmics. Find something that is serious about cognitive science, but not serious enough that you'll sleep, and that is it. You can always go back for more...

</comment><comment><USER6> As a friend of mine says - marketing and good UX is like laying grass out for the goats. It must be easily reachable and in digestible chunks.

1) Mock-ups. Supposed to be mocked upon. Take a good page design you like, import it into Photoshop (or w/e) and start boxing the important elements. A lot of well designed sites are on the 960px width bandwagon (even Apple's homepage + most YC startups). Short answer - look up Blueprint CSS framework and 960px grids on Noupe.com

2) Mockingbird is awesome! Just worry about the creative flow first, then put it on a grid.

3) Like a special effect or design on a site, google "jquery site-name effect- name" will usually net some good plugins. Learn and repeat. Don't know what effect-name is? Firebug it :-)

I am by no means a true designer, but I feel that the only thing stopping you/me/anyone is the labeling. When you feel that happening, just think of Iron Man, he designs the whole stack ;-)

</comment><comment><USER7> Some Quora questions I was looking at yesterday that you might find helpful (I plan to comb through these and pick out books and blogs to read more of):

What are the best books on UI/UX design for software engineers? [http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-books-on-UI-UX- design...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-books-on-UI-UX-design-for- software-engineers)

What are the best resources for learning bleeding-edge web UI and UX design? [http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-resources-for- learnin...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-resources-for-learning- bleeding-edge-web-UI-and-UX-design)

What are the best design blogs? <http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best- design-blogs>

What are the best books written on design? [http://www.quora.com/What-are-the- best-books-written-on-desi...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-books- written-on-design)

</comment><comment><USER8> Hey Dan, I would definitely recommend reading these sources for getting a comprehensive understanding about general design principals and core ideas:

The Gestalt Principles The guiding theory in understanding how the human brain process images and visual data. [http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gest...](http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm)

Web Typography Great resource for understanding typography and especially for the web <http://webtypography.net/>

A List Apart I am sure you are already familiar with this awesome publication by the Happy Cog crew and other contributors. To me this covers most of the on screen design issues in today's world and it keeps on evolving which is awesome. <http://www.alistapart.com/>

I Hope this help!

</comment><comment><USER9> Part A - I always make few screens in Photoshop before coding. These screens include form, items listing and generic text page. These are not complete and finished designs, they just help me to visualize stuff upfront, and to design some common elements (buttons, form controls etc). After that I customize every screen based on content it displays.

Part B - There are many sites that write about UI and UX, they should be googleable :)

Part C - I'm doing both development and design of our apps. I think that designers that don't code can't really design good app because you must have all of the interactions under control, and for that you must understand how things work both on server side and client side. I don't think they should know how to setup server and deploy app, but there must be some understanding of how things work.

Part D - When I started working as a developer, I worked in web studio that also did great design. But they also gave me the ability to try and design stuff along them. They taught me about typography, layouts etc. I even did some print stuff because I wanted to learn it. Little by little pieces started to fall in place. I'm far from great designer, but I can design things that are nice and usable. The biggest problem is that I really like boxes. When I'm designing stuff I'm automatically placing things so they can be easily sliced. But I'm working on it.

My advice is to just start working on some designs, and to find some friendly designer that will help you with constructive criticism.

</comment><comment><USER10> I very impressed with level of design work of Rails Rumble winners. Are any blog posts from contestants about design process, tools, resources they used (stock images, templates) and so on?

</comment><comment><USER11> I do both and I am trying to help other hackers figure out more about design as well.

A: I usually have a vision in mind for the project or the feature. To do this I try and break it down into smaller parts and optimize for the one thing I want the users to do for that part. For complicated designs I go through ideas on a notepad before I settle on something. The most important part of this process is to understand why a certain design element needs to be put in. If my design elements lack purpose I take them out.

Once I have that then I go about building stuff. Sometimes the end result will differ from the vision in which case it might literally be "back to the drawing board".

B: I haven't found too many recent ones. But I generally prefer patterns like these - <http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/>

C: I'm generally against outsourcing UI/UX. I think specific icon and graphic design work can be outsourced. To me UI/UX is the app itself and early on you don't necessarily have a clear view of what it is going to be.

D: I started off as a developer and found the need to incorporate better design. I started by trying to understand what I like and why I like it. I found a couple of big problems: there weren't too many good resources that catered to our type, most design advice wasn't practical enough and improving my taste took a long while.

I'm putting together a series of posts on what I learnt, hopefully that helps people out. Feel free to get in touch via Twitter or email.

</comment><comment><USER12> As the designer in a three person startup (the other two are coders), I can give some information on our process.

A - Our design process starts with a discussion of feature ideas and requirements from the code side. Then work goes in parallel until each team has a workable mockup/prototype. This period of work alone is critical to the development of the app from the visual and user experience side of things. It also gives me freedom to try lots of new ideas. I'll usually do a couple of revisions based on comments from my co-founders, and then get some outside opinions.

B - I fear that user interface and usability comes more from trial and error than reading. I haven't found a good resource for the technical side of design, but olalonde's link to uxmovement.com looks great.

C - Our startup has 2 coders and 1 designer. We're a rails shop, and I know enough ruby to implement my designs. This mix usually works really well as far as delegation of work. I'm not sure how standard this is.

D - Can't say much here since I started on the design side and have more recently been programming.

As an aside - if you're comfortable in css and are adding a new page or feature to an existing site, I've found that it can be fast to prototype in html rather than Photoshop/Illustrator.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think that all _developers_ should be able to design layouts that make sense. Pure programmers (writing algorithms, optimizing, scaling, etc.) don't really need design skills.

You definitely need product developer(s) on your team if your startup is consumer facing at all. In such a small (2-3 person) team, everyone needs to do multiple jobs, so if none of you have decent design skills, then start practicing now.

Part A - Usually a proof-of-concept happens first either in basic wireframe mockups or basic/ugly code. Once you'er clear on the product you want to build, then full designs are done in Photoshop or, once in a while, direct HTML.

Part B - I would mostly ignore that stuff. Simply look at great/big sites and see what the do right, but _more importantly_ look at what they could improve and do that yourself. Basically, make your interface design as simple as possible while having the minimum feature set to make your product useful - finding that balance is where you become a great product developer.

Part C - Don't outsource your design. If you commit to design as a core competency in your development team, then you understand that design is not just visual - design encapsulates everything that the user experiences with your product.

Part D - I started off as a cartoon animator in college, but found I was better at coding, then I realized that to make great products, I need to have great design. I didn't have a design monkey, so I started creating my own designs (poorly at first) taking inspiration from products I enjoyed. To overcome obstacles in design, I simply take the worst part of a page/workflow and fix that first... repeat until the product is due or there aren't any cringe-worthy features.

</comment><comment><USER14> A fun way to learn a little or at least get inspired is to check out LayerTennis on fridays:

<http://www.layertennis.com>

Each round, each layer, ask yourself "do I like that or not"? and then try to articulate why or why not. Why is this layer: <http://layertennis.com/100910/07.php> not as effective as the next volley: <http://layertennis.com/100910/08.php> For example, I didn't notice at the time that the quote had six letter 'O's in it, but now that I see it it's hard to miss. They create a lot of repetition a rhythm that ties them to the shape on the other side. The symbol and the text relate to each other even before considering the meaning of the words.

Seriously, one of the hardest parts of design is to learn how to form strong opinions and understand your reasons for them, without being arbitrary. Design is just a million tiny decisions.

</comment><comment><USER15> Part A - I am on the side of completing as much UX up front as possible. Bad visual design is something that no one can ignore. I think that ideally before you even have done the "black-text-on-white-background" prototype you start with UX.

Part B - Steve Krug has a couple of simple concrete usability books. Other than links I have seen mentioned. <http://ilovetypography.com/> learning good type will help a ton with design <http://www.useit.com/> Jakob Nielsen is kind of the godfather of usability, some people love him, some hate him, either way you will learn something from this guy. Also, going through tons of websites and critiquing them by yourself or with peers, writing down everything that works well and doesn't work well, that you would change. Do little usability tests on your sites, even on sites that aren't yours with family or peers.

Part C - I don't know as much about startups. I do know that having a designer on hand is much nicer to work with than outsourced. Ultimately I think it would be like dealing with anyone else outsourced in terms of reliability.

Part D - I actually started as a designer, and IE 6 crushed my soul. I am still very interested in UX though. I think starting as a programmer, I would just try to recreate designs you think are appealing. I would also try to learn the grid system. Use CSS frameworks as training wheels that have a solid grid, and decent typography (eg. Blueprint). I started constraining myself to HTML and CSS, and I think you should too, leave Photoshop alone until you can make decent designs in just HTML and CSS. Then, when you are completely comfortable using the two, then look to PS to add details that you can't achieve otherwise. The big obstacle you will run into, is that you will feel like you aren't making as good of designs as designer X. Design in my opinion is much more personal and emotional than programming so don't let that get to you.

Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER16> A) I start with mockups, then the polished design and at last the programming. For users, the interface is all that they have, then the UX stuff needs to be defined very early (in my case). I like 37signals "epicenter design" approach. Start with the more important pages and with the more important information chunks of these pages.

B) useit.com and my collection maybe <http://www.delicious.com/egogol/ui>

C) have someone good for design in your team. If you can't, exchange your programming hours vs design hours. Ideally it should be a collaborative process.

D) The important thing is that the user gets the things done. The UX determine how the programming process should work.

BONUS) Test a lot. Test your mockups, test your design, test your running app. Every step will reveal different problems.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am a programmer with fairly advanced photoshop skills. I am not a good designer. I know this because when I see good designs, I realize I NEVER could have come up with that.

If you're a programmer, you should be able to nail the science half of the equation. As for the art half, I would just shamelessly rip cool things you find when searching "css inspiration" or whatever ["great artists steal"].

It's easy to go overboard reading about UX and all the articles completely over-analyzing the topic. Unless your product is centered on revolutionary interface like hipmunk, you're probably safe just using established interaction patterns and getting feedback from "normal people".

Just see if your non-techie friends can handle it. If so you probably have enough to launch. Most big sites were ugly at launch...

</comment><comment><USER18> I work both sides of the coin. I have a degree in fine Arts, but have been a software guy for many years.

I put in an initial design when I make a HTML mock-up. I tweak it until I think it is good, then start to code the actual functions.

As I work with it, within a few days, the constant usage and testing show me what is wrong with my design. I then often iterate, updating the design whenever it starts to annoy me. At the start of the project, this is often once a week. After a few revisions, I slow down, and by the time I've been working with an app 6 months, it is fairly stable.

In terms of how you actually make your design, the KISS principle remains valid. It is much easier to add small UI elements to make a page more interesting than to scale back from an over-engineered design.

</comment><comment> DanI-S I've been working since posting this and haven't had time to properly read or reply to your comments, but wow - some really fantastic stuff here, from some very respectable people. I am going to have a great time reading and exploring what people have said, once I get a moment to sit down...

It seems a shame that all this expertise be confined to the bowels of the HN news list (which isn't search engine indexed, right?) - would it be acceptable to make some attempt to compile it into a (properly referenced, ofc) blog post or something that the rest of the world can see? What do people think about that?

Thanks for your responses, I am very impressed.

Dan

</comment><comment><USER19> Also, why Ruby project pages mostly look beautiful or at least like someone tried to make it look pleasant, and every Java project (except Octobot) has absolutely no CSS?

<comment><USER20> One reason that Rubyists are Rubyists and not Java developers is because they care how stuff looks rather than solely how it _works._ Given this, there's an aesthetic culture that doesn't exist so greatly in other spheres.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You should check out this talk that Jason Putori, the designer for Mint gave titled "10 Things: Design for Non-Designers".

<http://vimeo.com/15066599>

</comment><comment><USER22> These are great questions. Exactly the ones I am asking myself right now as a non technical guy trying to work out which piece of the puzzle to start with in building out my project .

</comment><comment><USER23> There's Jakob Neilsen, of course: <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/>

For your part B advice, it's almost a one-stop shop.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hi Dan,

First off: I gave a talk on this very topic at DjangoCon EU 2010. Video: <http://djangoconeu.blip.tv/file/3685673/>, slides: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/32311867/Design-for-Developers>.

A) there always comes a point in any project when I have that "fully baked" feeling -- a stage where I feel like I have spent enough time putting myself in the users shoes to understand how they can best accomplish their goals. Sometimes this comes quickly, and sometimes not -- it truly depends on the project. I don't go further than sketching until I've reached this phase; sketches are cheap and I don't need the high resolution which photoshop affords. Generally, I'll spend some time in photoshop after the sketching stage to work out a visual design "langauge" -- what's the colorscheme, what visual conventions am I going to use throughout the site, etc. I'll take one or two "core" parts of the site and mock them up in photoshop to figure out how the visual aspects affect the design, but I won't do every single page in photoshop -- it's a waste of time.

B: I don't know. There's general stuff about performance from Steve Souders, and overall I think resources like ALA are probably a good starting point.

C: It depends on your product, but I'd argue that good design is something that happens primarily _before_ code gets written. The frontend of your app should inform your backend, and vice-versa -- ergo a designer co-founder is an extremely important asset, IMO. Every project with design "added later" looks like it had the design added later, not baked in from the start.

D: I'm a designer/developer combo, coming from a formal background in computer science.

I guess I started getting into graphic design and photography during high school. Learn about graphic design for print since it has a lot of history; the web is still in its adolescence and is heavily informed by this history. Don't neglect to learn a little about typography. In the end the web is mostly about reading words, so it behooves you to learn the art and science of arranging words on a page so as to maximize legibility and beauty.

The biggest obstacle to learning this stuff is a broken understanding of design. It's a discipline like any other; you might not have the aptitude to become a master but you can learn the basics and become proficient, just like you did with code. It took you a decent amount of time to become a proficient coder; don't assume that three weeks of reading will turn you into a proficient designer. Stick with it, learn the terminology so you can start to read things written for an audience of designers, and don't forget to actually do stuff yourself -- like in code, there's no substitute for sitting down and grappling with some work on your own.

</comment><comment><USER25> A) At what point? From the beginning. You said it yourself, you go through notebook pages with UI before even writing code. You need to have a structure in place before you begin anything. Sure you can morph it as you go, but you need a direct connection to what you are trying to achieve. At the same time you're coding some functionality, you should be thinking about how this is going to be displayed. It's of course not necessary to do any of the graphics or styling at this point, but it works better if you give it some thought and try to form some type of layout and broad design ideas as you go. It's worth doing photoshop mockups when you reach a point where the application development can benefit from being graphically beautiful (which can vary immensely... every project is an island). You draw the line at the first moment you can. If and when you reach a minimum point where your application could be used by the masses, freaking ship it. You can fix and add features later, but the moment you have enough to ship that thing out the door - do it. Software is never "finished" anyways, so you'll need to keep going at it anyways.

B) Almost all the information regarding UI usability and user experience holds up regardless of age. The concepts are the same now and when it was written. There are also a LOT of resources written in the last few years, so I'd disagree that all the information is old. In any case, it really doesn't matter, you're still going to need to come up with your own conclusions for your specific case. No amount of UI/XI reading is going to allow you to skip having to do you're own testing and to draw your own conclusions on what works for you.

C) In the web industry the designer/artist is generally also the guy that codes your Html/Css/Jquery. A front end developer is generally the person that designs interaction and pretty screens. The back end guy is the one doing the algorithms, database work, etc. You can outsource everything, though the results are usually not even on the same league as the worst results you can get from a good team that clicks working together. You can always have a contractor come in and work with you or your team if needed, and that can sometimes be a better compromise than outsourcing per se.

D)I started as a programmer at an early age, but I was also an artist. What put me on that path is that I wanted to know how to do everything. From Photoshop to Rails to C to server security and deployment. I started learning by doing. Don't look for guidance man, just work on a project and when you need something you're not comfortable doing, freaking do it anyways. Need to do graphics, test layouts, a/b testing? Read on it and start doing it asap. At some point you'll become decent at it, and then one day you're actually good at doing it too! Obstacles? There are no obstacles, only challenges. Challenge yourself and you'll come out a winner.

</comment><comment><USER26> We participated in the Rails Rumble with Splendid Bacon <http://splendidbacon.com> and I did the design and most of the fronted ui. (I wrote a summary about the process: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803155>)

A) - Usually in our projects or in my projects, I try go with the design first, starting with describing what we are doing, why, for who and how.(The Five W's Of <http://52weeksofux.com/post/890288783/the-five-ws-of-ux>). The concept, being 5 lines or 5 pages, sets the background for the whole project.

From there I try to go with sketches, or wireframes to iterate the views or the interaction flows. Then start doing the ui in Photsohop. When I'm quite set with the UI I start implementing that and iterating the interface along the way. After that, or about in the same time we start coding the features.

B) - I'm not sure how much wisdom we have accumulated. About some things sure, but natural multitouch interfaces or multimillion user web services are still quite new. If we would have followed Jacob Nielsens advice on everything, we woudn't have sites we have today.

I think the best way is to keep updated what's out there and from there you can get inspired to find your own solutions. That's why I have iPads & iPhones, try to use most of the new services to understand how they work and how they're built.

I try to learn from other people and their process (like with simple todo app, Cultured Code produces a lot of sketches and mockups <http://culturedcode.com/things/iphone/makingof/> and one of other Rails Rumble attendees described their process: [http://www.thevisualclick.com/notebook/2010/10/2010-rails- ru...](http://www.thevisualclick.com/notebook/2010/10/2010-rails-rumble-the- design-process-of-commendable-kids/)

C) - In our company we usually have 2-3 person teams, where one of them is a designer, which is something I would recommend. Personally I think the best is if the designer can also implement the design, because Photoshop mockup is not the actual design, the app or it's interface is. For best result, you need to be charge of the whole interaction.

D) - I'm not that sure which way around I got started, I had some classical arts education as a kid, and later started making websites and developed some web services. I'm quite bad programmer, altough in addition to html&css I can handle javascript, rails and php.

I think the first step is to know what's is great and what isn't so you know how well you're doing in your own projects. So develope your taste by surrounding yourself with great design. And like in any other learning, the key is just practice. If you have coded hundreds of features, then by the same time I might have done dozen of designs.

For me the hardest part still finding the right process for some cases. Sometimes I'm able to see the whole thing right way, and sometimes I'm just stuck or feel that something is wrong with the design without knowing what.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hi Dan

I also think that the stuff that came out of Rails Rumble looked pretty awesome especially done in 48hrs. I created ShelfLuv in about that timeframe as well and see both sides of the coin to use your terminology.

Part A: To me the design and UX is first and foremost. Especially w/ a hackathon - think of your product like a runway fashion show. On the front side it just needs to look and work perfect. Under the hood for me, out of the gate doesn't matter as much as long as it works and isn't slow to the point that it affects the user's perception of the product. I typically try to think of the user's interaction/perception/experience first. Mockups in Photoshop are pretty useful to me, but so are HTML mockups. It all depends on what I am trying to achieve. A visual experience - playing around w/ that would be best served to me by toying around in Photoshop. An interaction experience, mocking variations of that in jquery is best because I can click around. I can touch and feel my app. However I mostly start everything with sketches on pieces of paper or my notebook. I try to draw different variations. I look at how other webapps/apps do them. With ShelfLuv there werent many ideas or variations. I didn't start having variations until I had something working to show. If there's nothing to show yet, I feel that people have no baseline with which to compare. It's a lot easier for most people to say A is better than B, than to just show them B and ask them if this is any good.

Part B - I find that a layperson is immensely useful in this arena. One of my sounding boards is my wife. She's very intelligent but is not what you would call a techie or designer type. Alot of times I just want to use icons but many nontechie people will have no clue what these icons mean. Of course it's a compose icon - it's a pen and paper.

Part C - I would say you can outsource visual design, but it would be hard to outsource the interaction design and how the app works. Interaction is a process that can be very iterative. You try something, it doesn't work and you try it again.

Part D - I am an engineer by training but started focusing on user experience and interaction about midway in my career. I felt like I could have the most impact on users through a great product experience. I started by reading a lot of blogs and sites of great designers. I look at and try a lot of web apps and sites. I also buy a lot of iphone/ipad apps to see how they work and what they've done. Major obstacles for me is that I'm not a graphic artist and I can't design from scratch. I know designers who like to create textures and stuff from scratch and to me I feel more like a cobbler of design elements rather than an original creator of design. I will put this design element together with that element. I'm basically pretty handy at tweaking and modifying in Photoshop but ask me to create stuff in Photoshop and Illustrator from scratch using the pen/brushes/paths and I'm lost.

</comment><comment><USER28> Actually, I'm doing this thing where I'm offering hackers around 5-10 hours of design work per week (plus additional direction help and the like) for a percentage of the company. Normally around 1-5%, depending on a bunch of things including valuation.

I think it's a great deal. If I get 3% of your company, and my design help increases the value of your company by 10% (that's ridicolously easy, too!) you've already made a net profit out of the deal.

What do you think?

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure if this comment is quite appropriate on this thread (as it is a borderline commercial offer and quite possibly off-topic for the OP's question), but I think your model is interesting and I'd love to know a little more.

1) Is your 5-10 hours/week offer indefinite or for some fixed period? Are you capping the number of start-ups you are working with? (This offer doesn't seem to be infinitely scalable.)

2) Do you see this role more as employee-working-for-stock or as angel- investor-contributing-design-skills-instead-of-money? Maybe another way of asking that is: are you taking direction from the founders/owners or are you offering advice/support as you see fit? Are you OK with a founder who only wants you slice up a PSD she designed or are you looking for an adviser role?

3) I think there is a lot of sense in pg's advice around giving up a small percentage of the company in exchange for a much greater chance of success, but I'm not sure it is obvious that your offer is a "great deal" for the founders as you state.

I'll accept that in some cases a good design can increase the value/success of a company by 10% or more but I think in this specific scenario (early stage start-up, possibly with long-hanging fruit design challenges):

a) A 10% improvement in the _current_ value of the company probably isn't worth 3% of the _eventual_ value of the company if it is successful. That is, it may be easy to take a company from $1000/mo to $1100/mo through 5-10 hours of design, but barring major oversight I think it will be a lot more difficult to take a company from $10M to $11M through graphic/web design alone.

b) On the founder side of the equation whether or not the design work will increase the value of the company more than it cost is really only half of the question. The other half is comparison shopping: is there a cheaper way to do this?

For instance, if you assume a modest $500,000 exit then 3-5% is $15,000 to $35,000, which may be a roughly competitive rate for design services (e.g., that's $60 to $100/hr if you assume 50 5 hour weeks). Obviously if you assume a $1M exit those rates double. If you assume a $5M exit those rates grow by an order of magnitude, and I hope I'm not a cheapskate in thinking that $600 to $1000/hr is a disproportionately high rate for all but the most remarkable web designers and even then is probably only appropriate for the most design sensitive web apps (whichever those are).

I may well be wrong, but I have a hard time believing that for most start-ups a bit of early stage design work really provides an additional 6-7 figures of valuation in the long run. Is that what are saying is "ridiculously easy"?

c) A moderately successful start up should be able to afford market rates for design services, and I'd guess that it is rare for great rather than merely acceptable design to be the difference between moderate success and failure. Why shouldn't a firm just limp along with an acceptable design until they can afford a great one? (And if they don't have an acceptable design yet they can certainly get one for less than 3% of the company.)

In other words, I think the major challenge to your offer isn't about whether or not design can offer a 10% improvement but more about whether or not 3% of the company is the easiest/cheapest/lowest risk way to get that improvement.</comment></comment>


Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/living-in-sf/article/Coyotes-are-being-seen-on-the-empty-streets-15159105.php <comment><USER2> What we think of wild nature is nothing compared to what used to exist.

Schools of fish so dense they would bring boats to a halt in the middle of the Atlantic. North America had more large wildlife than Africa. Whales as far as the eye could see all day long. Walruses in the Thames in London.

I did a couple video essays on what I learned from a wonderful book _The Once and Future World_ :

My video essays: [https://youtu.be/ZLAvBiols2Y](https://youtu.be/ZLAvBiols2Y) and [https://youtu.be/U4NZdciDozI](https://youtu.be/U4NZdciDozI)

The book: [https://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-World-Nature- Could/dp/030...](https://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-World-Nature- Could/dp/0307362183)

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of a quote from Charles Eisenstein. He cites _The Once and Future World_ and then channels Steve Nicholls in _Paradise Found_ :

"Atlantic salmon runs so abundant no one is able to sleep for their noise. Islands "as full of birds as a meadow is full of grass." Whales so numerous they were a hazard to shipping, their spouts filling the entire sea with foam. Oysters more than a foot wide. An island covered by so many egrets that the bushes appeared pure white. Swans so plentiful the shores appear to be dressed in white drapery. Colonies of Eskimo curlews so thick it looked like the land was smoking. White pines two hundred feet high. Spruce trees twenty feet in circumference. Black oaks thirty feet in girth. Hollowed-out sycamores able to shelter thirty men in a storm. Cod weighing two hundred pounds (today they weigh perhaps ten). Cod fisheries where "the number of the cod seems equal that of the grains of sand." A man who reported "more than six hundred fish could be taken with a single cast of the net, and one fish was so big that twelve colonists could dine on it and still have some left."

I used the word "incredible" advisedly when I introduced these images. Incredible means something like "impossible to believe"; indeed, incredulity is a common response when we are confronted with evidence that things were once vastly different than they are now."

(I posted the MacKinnon section here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22064787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22064787))

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure exactly what those quotes are referring to, but many reports of European settlers to the New World, while technically true, were greatly misleading.

Prior to arrival of the Europeans, the continent was full of Native Americans who lived in an ecological balance with wildlife.

When the Europeans arrived, the diseases they brought wiped out 90+% of the indigenous population, according to some estimates. By the time they explored the continent, the population was mainly gone, far in advance.

So there's a strong theory that the incredible over-abundance of wildlife the Europeans saw was actually a huge ecological _imbalance_ , as many animals had lost their natural (human) predators.

And that phenomena such as millions of passenger pigeons blocking out the sun overhead weren't "natural" at all, but actually severe ecological imbalance.

(This isn't to say, of course, that now we haven't swung way too far in the other direction. But just that the tales of abundance aren't necessarily a naturally balanced state either.)

<comment> orbital-decay _> the continent was full of Native Americans who lived in an ecological balance with wildlife_

Native Americans weren't a monolithic group, and the balance with wildlife is just a part of the noble savage myth, for most of the groups. Maya, Toltec, and Aztec societies deforested Central America quite significantly before collapsing (and before Columbus).

<comment><USER5> > Aztec

> before collapsing (and before Columbus)

In the alternate universe you come from, who was fighting Cortez?

<comment><USER6> They weren't referring to Columbus as the person who conquered South/Central America (there were quite a few conquistadors involved there... not just Cortez).

They were referring to the arrival of Columbus as the watershed moment that signal the arrival of Europeans en masse to the Americas.

<comment><USER5> I'm not saying they were referring to Columbus as the person who conquered Central America. I was amused by GP's insinuation that the Aztecs had somehow collapsed before Columbus.

> Maya, Toltec, and Aztec societies deforested Central America quite > significantly before collapsing (and before Columbus).

On a second reading it seems that GP had most likely meant that they were deforesting before Columbus, not that they had collpased before Columbus, but it's still strange to refer to getting conquered as a "collapse".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> as-j As an early morning runner in SF, I see coyotes in SF every week or two, including at Twin peaks as mentioned in the article. One morning in Golden Gate Park I warned a few people walkings dogs since there were about 4 coyotes around the corner.

From my first hand experience, I'd assume any wooded area with cover in SF has a coyote living there.

<comment><USER7> What advice do you have for dealing with coyotes when jogging? I've learned the hard way that running away tends to trigger their fight-or-flight reflex, which isn't good.

<comment><USER8> Do like Texas's former governor, Rick Perry—shoot it dead.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20100501095227/http://www.chron....](https://web.archive.org/web/20100501095227/http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6978352.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here in Santiago, Chile, where many neighborhoods are in complete lockdown, a wild Puma was seen roaming the streets[1]. This was their natural habitat before the city was established, and many of them still live in the mountains, which are not far from the busiest streets of Santiago.

[https://www.france24.com/en/20200324-wild-puma-captured- in-d...](https://www.france24.com/en/20200324-wild-puma-captured-in-deserted- chile-capital)

<comment><USER10> Seattle has occasionally gotten mountain lions and bears in the city.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/discovery-parks- co...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/discovery-parks-cougar-is- captured-released-into-wild/)

<comment><USER11> I used to live in Olympia before living in Seattle and wash pretty shocked to see a coyote casualty walking down the street one morning when I was drinking coffee. Turns out it is pretty normal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I grew up in LA and while I don't live there anymore I've seen pictures from the last few days.

Never in my life have I seen such blue skies over LA. And my parents don't ever remember it being clearer either.

At least this shows what some stricter climate controls can do to both the climate and the economy and the tradeoffs involved.

<comment><USER13> Walking around my neighborhood and the silence is absolutely sublime. Airplanes, cars, highway noise, all diminished. The birds and chirps and friendly "Hellos" are amplified. It's bee n marvelous.

<comment><USER14> That reminds me about stories of people trying to record nature untouched by man-made sounds.

It has become increasingly difficult to find locations which are purely nature. I wonder how much easier it has become since the number of people generating "work noise" has fallen so much?

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/24/machine-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/24/machine- natural-sound-bernie-krause)

<comment><USER15> Maybe in Europe, but in the US there is a ridiculous amount of untouched space a <20 miles from almost every major city with the exception of California and the north east.

<comment><USER12> It turns out there is no where you can go in the United States that is more than 20 miles from a paved road.

<comment><USER16> Is there a citation for that? I'd guess there are large parts of northern Maine that only have logging roads.

<comment><USER12> There are a bunch of articles about it but nothing scientific. For example:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-42104894](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894)

And it turns out I was wrong. There is one spot 21.7 miles away from a road deep in Wyoming.

<comment><USER13> This is highly dubious. Logging roads might be considered "roads" but some are passable only by heavy equipment. If you have to stop and repair the road every few hundred meters then I don't think it counts as a road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is really cool! (but not unexpected) On the east coast, there is a species called 'Coywolves'. They are a hybrid of pure coyotes and timber or grey wolves.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf)

They are known to be incredibly smart and stealthy. They are adept at adapting to, and living in urban environments.

Like domestic dogs, they understand line of sight, as in, they are keenly aware of what direction a person is looking. This helps them remain unseen, while surviving in _very_ close proximity to humans.

We know coyotes are living in virtually every corner of the US at this point. I wonder if these are pure bloods, coywolves that have migrated to the west coast, or maybe a new hybrid or sub species?

PBS Nature has an amazing documentary describing the Coywolf. Check it out if you have PBS Passport!

[https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/coywolf-meet-the- coywolf/860...](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/coywolf-meet-the- coywolf/8605/)

[https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/meet-the-coywolf- infographic...](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/meet-the-coywolf-infographic- a-field-guide-to-the-coywolf-or-eastern-coyote/8663/)

</comment><comment><USER18> The same thing is happening in Barcelona but with boars coming from the forests outside the city, seems to have no correlation with the lock- down/quarantine that is happening (streets of Barcelona are basically empty right now, except for ambulances, police and delivery services) [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/04/wild-boar- sigh...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/04/wild-boar-sighted-near- barcelona-city-centre-looking-for-food)

<comment><USER19> Fun story about this.

I once did a night "hike" up to Tibidabo. This wasn't organized or anything, just a few friends and I took a commuter train out of the city to the base of the mountain, semi-stranding ourselves. Then we walked up to the top, slept outside on the hilltop and enjoyed the sunrise the next morning.

Tibidabo has an amusement park and a cathedral, so there was a night security guard who was _very_ confused by the 4-5 tourists hanging out outside his gate at night, although he didn't complain much.

The relevant bit here though is that on the walk up the mountain, we saw more than one wild boar out on the roadside, including a whole family. It was unexpected and frightening.

<comment><USER20> Joey?

<comment><USER19> No, my name is pretty obvious ;)

<comment><USER21> Mort?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Perhaps appropriate: The famous poem by Sara Teasdale, about a different context, which also lent its name to a short story by Ray Bradbury:

There will come soft rains

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

<comment><USER23> Let's not romanticize this too much. Coyotes are literally all over North America, so it's not like they've suddenly reappeared or something. We also accidentally let them overpopulate by exterminating so much of the wolf population.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are mountain lions in downtown Boulder: [https://twitter.com/mitchellbyars/status/1242110542317096960](https://twitter.com/mitchellbyars/status/1242110542317096960)

<comment><USER25> I should hope so too. Boulder is in a bloody huge mountain range.

<comment><USER26> I live _on_ a mountain with mountain lions all around, but I've only seen one twice in 20 years. So seeing three in a city is really unusual.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The first time I saw a Coyote was in broad daylight up on Corona Heights in San Francisco.

I'd never even seen a photo of one before, but I knew what it was straight away because its face looked like Wile E Coyote!

<comment><USER28> I grew up in the rural deserts of Eastern California where coyotes are abundant, and never directly saw one once. Just the occasional rustling in the brushes and darting glances, and sometimes the flick of a glowing eye.

And then I come to San Francisco and one just walks past me and sniffs my hand while I'm going to the 7-11. Didn't even register that it wasn't just a dog until it had walked past.

It's crazy how much more comfortable around humans animals become in urban environments.

<comment><USER29> Anecdotally, I think they have better instincts for how to stay concealed in natural environments. Wildcats are the same way. Bobcats are everywhere in the lower 48 of the US, but most people have never seen one, and may not even be aware that they're around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Those little guys are so cute. Our Eastern coyotes are about twice that size, having hybridized with timberwolves.

<comment><USER31> Domestic dogs too, which has resulted in less fear of humans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> There are multiple documentaries about "What if people suddenly leave earth?".

All those movies show how fast nature will take over. Within 10-14 days animals will be walking everywhere.

So I am not surprised we see animals moving into cities.

And it is also true a lot of animals are already around but are very shy. So we don't notice them but they are already around.

<comment><USER33> Can you recommend a good one? (Or two? I've suddenly got lots of time this weekend...)

<comment><USER32> Maybe this one: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath:_Population_Zero](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath:_Population_Zero)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wish the article contained more than 1 image of a coyote on a SF street. Nonetheless, very "12 Monkeys"-esque.

<comment><USER35> Coyotes are terrorizing the once inhabited city.

<comment><USER36> If you are a grown adult, coyotes aren't that dangerous or scary.

They aren't very big. They will attack small pets and children that are alone, but they typically leave adult humans alone.

I used to go for six mile walks in the High Desert for exercise. I routinely ran into coyotes. They never bothered me.

I did tell my children to not go out alone at night. There had been two or three attacks on children in the previous five years.

I have a dog phobia due to things that happened when I was about four years old. I'm not similarly afraid of coyotes.

Of course, I wouldn't want to run into a large pack in the dark either. They can and will take down deer as a pack and did so sometimes within earshot of my tent when I was homeless.

So, I mean, don't be stupidly cavalier, but lone coyotes are known to not be particularly dangerous to adult humans.

<comment><USER37> > lone coyotes are known to not be particularly dangerous to adult humans

This is an important qualifier; they are not always alone.

<comment><USER36> Yes. It probably bears repeating. The pandemic seems to be causing people to gloss over important details in comments.

So thank you for pulling that out and highlighting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've seen a coyote dart across the street in SoMa in the middle of rush hour. Nature's a bit closer than we think.

<comment><USER39> You mean the rest of nature. We are also nature :)

<comment><USER40> What do you call a place with no 7/11?

<comment><USER41> Boise, ID - the only one we had closed down some time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just wait until the mountain lions and brown bears start prowling around looking for snacks :-)

For folks further out into the 'human/wildlife interface' as the Forest Service calls it (or the 'cafeteria' as I call it) sightings of all wildlife is up. Some friends who retired out in Brentwood[1] (not the LA neighborhood, the town outside of Livermore CA) They now have nearly continual deer presence and multiple daily sightings of Coyote and Fox around mid-morning and dusk. They have heard mountain lions but haven't seen one yet, and no bears so far.

[1] [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brentwood,+email@example.com...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brentwood,+firstname.lastname@example.com,-121.9017665,10.08z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x808ff999f087c8cd:0x7e19835b56d29a02!8m2!3d37.931868!4d-121.6957863)

<comment><USER43> For what it's worth, there aren't thought to be any brown bears left in California; the closest ones are in Washington or maybe Idaho.

<comment><USER44> This is largely a matter of local lexical confusion. In the US, "brown bear" can mean two things: a black bear with a brown coat ( _ursus americanus_ ), or a grizzly ( _ursus arctos horribilis_ , which makes me giggle every time).

Across the pond, "brown bear" probably means _ursus arctos arctos_ , a cousin of our own more foul-tempered beasties.

But when a Californian says "brown bear", usually they just mean a brown- coated black bear ([https://bear.org/black-bear-color- phases/](https://bear.org/black-bear-color-phases/)).

<comment><USER45> > But when a Californian says "brown bear", usually they just mean a brown- > coated black bear ([https://bear.org/black-bear-color- > phases/](https://bear.org/black-bear-color-phases/)).

Well that's confusing. Whenever I hear brown bear (in hunting contexts, etc) I assume grizzly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Here in England we don't have coyotes but just today I saw a pheasant walking down a deserted road nearby. It looked slightly confused.

<comment><USER47> Is that unusual where you are?

Over the past few years I've seen the odd pheasant within ten minutes walk of the centre of Basingstoke as well as the occasional deer sprinting across the ring road dual carriageway.

Hopefully we all get to see more wildlife as life quietens down a little and, at least in the UK, we can be sure not to encounter anything even remotely dangerous.

<comment><USER46> We're not far from the edge of town and the fields, and it's common to see pheasants out there but not where I saw that one, which was quite a distance from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I walk a lot all over San Francisco, including at night. I've been seeing coyotes in the streets for at least a year now. Several times in North Beach, a couple times in the dogpatch/China basin area by the ballpark, etc. My phone doesn't take great photos in low light, but I posted what photos I can on my Twitter [1] and Instagram and Facebook to try and get the word out. At this point I kind of just assumed everyone realized they are around.

[1] [https://twitter.com/okgodoit/status/1082425011388829696](https://twitter.com/okgodoit/status/1082425011388829696)

<comment><USER49> I was walking around the Marina in SF about 15 years ago at night. I heard a rustling in a front yard and stopped to look. It took me a second to focus on what I was looking at in the dark. It was a skunk in a defensive posture with it's tail raised. I slowly backed away, and fortunately didn't get sprayed, although that would have made for a better story.

<comment><USER50> I had a similar encounter 10 years ago around 24th street and Mission. Was a raccoon though. Very cute one too and quite fat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I live in the PNW. Every few days someone gets on nextdoor.com freaking out about having seen a coyote. My response is always the same. They were here long before humans were ever here and will still be here long after we are gone.

<comment><USER52> > ... in the PWN

I think we all got PWNed this time.

<comment><USER51> Ha ha! Fixed ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Here in Vancouver there are social media accounts of cougar tracks on a beach and in a park. Unconfirmed. Unlike coyotes here (common)[1], or bears and deer (occasional), cougars are virtually unheard of near populated areas so this is notable if true.

Yes, yes, cue the "preying on young men in bars" jokes... :-P

[1] [http://stanleyparkecology.ca/conservation/co-existing- with-c...](http://stanleyparkecology.ca/conservation/co-existing-with- coyotes/coyote-sightings-map/)

<comment><USER54> A security camera in SF caught a cougar on video a few years ago.

<comment><USER55> We've had quite a few cougar sightings up here in the north bay but its rarer now with all the watering holes closed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I've seen coyotes in Buena Vista, and in october, Anza Vista (the hill just west of lower fillmore district). Seems like there is plenty of food in the area. In Dallas, Texas I would regularly see coyotes in the park.

Coyotes are generally quite meek around humans. You weigh 150 lbs and are 5' tall (or taller) they are perhaps 70 lbs wet and 26" at the shoulder. If you so much as make eye contact with them, they'll generally leave immediately.

</comment><comment><USER57> Coyotes come out after dark. It takes about 20 minutes for them to figure out people aren't around. Mangy jerks.

Once I was walking through some brush in a city park in Calgary, AB and a siren went by. The whole area around me lit up with howling. Little unnerving, although coyotes are pretty cowardly out West (in the East they've interbred with wolves and will once in a blue moon take a hiker down).

<comment><USER58> Here in southern Ontario the coyotes are still pretty cowardly. I live rural (but close to town) and I might see them from 100 feet away before they skitishly run off. Except for one time there was one that brazenly marched down our driveway in broad daylight. Not sure how long that one lived for, never saw it again...

The ones in town are a bit less shy.

What's strange is last night our chickens were attacked by an eastern red fox. Usually they're super skittish and shy around humans, but as I (along with 3 other people) was rescuing my rooster from under a car, this one kept circling around, thinking he was going to get his prey back from us. Not scared at all.

(FWIW roosters are amazing animals... this one seems to have charged the fox to get it to drop one of the hens, and then fought with it and decoyed it away from the hens a good 200 feet down to the road, then it hid under a car of some people who passed by and witnessed this all happening and stopped. All birds survived, just missing some feathers. Rooster gets lots of treats today.)

<comment><USER59> Good boy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> In Berkeley we have these, plus bobcats, foxes, and mountain lions. One of the interesting things about California is that even though humans have stepped all over the ecology of the American West, that hasn't been going on long enough to extirpate literally every wild species. Compared to places that have been settled for 1000s of years, California can seem wild.

</comment><comment> mark-r I live about a mile from the Minnesota river, and I see coyotes occasionally. Once right in our back yard, I even got a picture.

</comment><comment><USER61> Toronto for example was full of Coyotes last summer. No need for COVID to see them around. I saw quite a few on my own.

</comment><comment><USER62> I wonder how many peoples cats are missing right now.

</comment><comment><USER63> Seeing nature flourish as humans pull back... I wonder if we are the virus

<comment><USER64> There's no need to wonder. Humans are.

Right now the planet is drawing a great big sigh of relief.

Yet we have politicians that are just busting to get things ramped back up to the crazed consumption-driven frenzy that we treated as normal until a few weeks ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> When I was living in Daly City I saw them regularly if I went for a night walk in the Lake Merced area close to the Olympic or Thornton park. I once went pass one on the other side of the street, he glanced at me but was more interested in inspecting a trash bin. They usually ran away.

Plenty of raccoons too. For some reason those are more comfortable around people. One night I met one walking towards me on the sidewalk. First I thought it was a fat cat. I stepped aside as he strolled by me, he stopped, gave me a greeting stare and proceeded on his business.

</comment><comment><USER66> Not surprised one bit. I definitely heard them (but never saw them) when I was living in Daly City. Also once nearly hit a deer while I was driving along Skyline Blvd, speaking of unexpected wildlife.

Coyotes pop up pretty regularly in Sacramento, too (which is somewhat unsurprising given the proximity to farmland and other open areas, but somewhat surprising given the degree to which Sacramento's suburbs sprawl and would be expected to push wildlife further away from Sacramento itself).

</comment><comment><USER67> Here is a rarely seen Malabar spotted civet roaming the streets of Kozhikode city in India: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t9IC1s2tbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t9IC1s2tbk) . Endemic to Western ghats and critically endangered, most of us have only heard about it in books. Kozhikode along with the rest of India is currently in a lock-down.

EDIT: It could be the small Indian civet instead. Needs someone to identify

</comment><comment><USER68> Do not coyotes bring in ticks and all the tick-borne diseases as well? perhaps public health priority #2 is to humanely remove these animals sooner than later.

<comment><USER23> I thought that was deer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I wonder how much of this has to do with the lack of development in the bay area. With a huge amount of undeveloped area all over the bay area, there's probably a lot of places for coyotes to live, since so much living space has been zoned and allocated for them and other wild life. It's too bad, we're not this kind to human beings.

<comment><USER70> So kind of you to leave them a smidge of their former territory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Chicago has lots of urban coyotes. [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wbez.org/shows/wbez- news/ch...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/chicago- coyotes/306a6c78-34ba-47c0-a02c-b0f0086b64ec/amp)

<comment><USER72> Yep, the Chicago subreddit has a photo of one wandering around this week. We also occasionally get deer that make it into the city; usually walking down some of the long bike trails from Skokie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> The city of Chicago employees coyotes for rat control. They're seen all over the metro area and have become familiar faces.

<comment><USER72> They use coyotes? I thought it was just cats. Huh ... I guess some of those photos of them on the street this week may not have been of wild coyotes like I thought.

<comment><USER70> Mainly feral cats but there are rats too big for them to go after. The coyote project started around ten years ago, it's been a great success: [https://cei.org/blog/chicago-coyotes-control-mice-and- rats](https://cei.org/blog/chicago-coyotes-control-mice-and-rats)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> How about critically-endangered animals reappearing -- e.g. the Malabar large- spotted civet: [https://www.ibtimes.sg/this-critically-endangered-animal- was...](https://www.ibtimes.sg/this-critically-endangered-animal-was-spotted- road-amid-covid-19-lockdown-india-video-41806)

</comment><comment><USER74> Stuff You Should Know did a podcast about coyotes recently

[https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should- know-269...](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should- know-26940277/episode/how-coyotes-work-58984374/)

</comment><comment><USER75> In suburban upstate NY, coyotes, deer, and turkeys are pretty normal for many years. They wander across your lawn, eat your shrubbery and your pets, and generally seem to be well aware of where hunting is and isn't permitted.

...I showed a snapshot of a "coyote" once to someone who insisted it was actually a wolf.

</comment><comment><USER76> There have been several reports going back at least a few months of a coyote wandering around Noe Valley at dusk, I think around 25th & Sanchez or that general area.

So this isn't new although perhaps more are venturing out for longer periods of time due to the streets being emptier.

</comment><comment><USER77> I live on Mt Davidson and I see em running down the street at least once a week...

</comment><comment><USER78> It's not just San Francisco. I was driving onto the 406 in here Niagara (Canada) and I had to avoid one that had died after being hit by a car. In my entire life I've never seen coyote road kill.

</comment><comment><USER79> There are large flocks of pigeons flying around the streets all day, like I've never seen before. I wonder where they get their food now the terraces and plazas are empty.

</comment><comment><USER80> This makes me very happy. I wonder if we could some day come up with some way to coexist with nature instead of blindly blanketing it with asphalt and concrete.

<comment><USER81> Coyotes have already done an excellent job of coexisting with humans. They are one of the most successful species at adapting to human civilization. Pigeons, rats, roaches, etc. also quite successful.

<comment><USER80> > Coyotes have already done an excellent job of coexisting with humans

I have only seen them being 'successful' if are large tracts of land around the cities that they can live at. Would they be able to live in, say, Manhattan?

If not, as we expand the urban sprawl, they might become less successful... And coyotes are not the only species we should be worried about.

<comment><USER81> Manhattan is quite the edge case. It's one of the densest areas on the planet. I don't think that's a good model for development. Sprawl in the U.S. is more of the suburban variety and there coyotes do thrive quite well. They don't even need large tracts of land. They are fully capable of burrowing in little pockets of green space. See: [https://urbancoyoteresearch.com/coyote- info/general-informat...](https://urbancoyoteresearch.com/coyote-info/general- information-about-coyotes)

<comment> frosted-flakes That is such a neat website, and very interesting research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Ah they finally made it in that city. I would see them often walking around late at night in the Silverlake and Los Feliz neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

</comment><comment><USER83> I live down by west portal and have been seeing coyotes long before the shelter in place happened. Probably started a year or so ago.

</comment><comment><USER84> Last year I saw one at night in San Diego walking down the boulevard. It trotted right past me like 5ft away!

</comment><comment><USER85> I see them pretty regularly running GGP.

<comment><USER86> I saw one in GGP when I was running there a few months ago. Scared the hell out of this East Coaster!

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I see coyotes up on Bernal Heights park all the time. Harmless, they tend to stay in their lane.

</comment><comment><USER88> The other day I saw a video of a spotted Malabar civet walking through urban streets of Kerala, India. It is an endangered species [https://twitter.com/DGrieshnak/status/1243077554224787457?s=...](https://twitter.com/DGrieshnak/status/1243077554224787457?s=20)

</comment><comment><USER89> I live roughly in the middle of the Seattle metropolitan area, and coyotes, deer, eagles, wabbits, etc., are a common sight. Last year a mom coyote and her 5 pups were often playing and hanging out in my front yard. (I didn't bother her and she didn't bother me, aside from stealing my Acme Rocket Sled.)

</comment><comment><USER90> And I see thousands of storks flying on a deserted airport since few days.

</comment><comment><USER91> There are also some unconfirmed sightings of mountain lions. Probably.

<comment><USER92> Are you being literal or is it a reference to something? This sounds awfully familiar, but I cannot remember where I heard that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> This isn't all that rare, lots of coyotes live in the parks

</comment><comment><USER94> Once upon a time

I was of the mind

To lay your burden down

And leave you where you stood

</comment><comment><USER95> Please donot feed them.

</comment><comment><USER96> Finally some good news

</comment><comment><USER97> They need to be careful not to step in human poop.

</comment><comment><USER98> They are riding dolphins through the crystal clear canals of Venice, hunting swans.

<comment><USER99> This article literally cites dolphins in the Venice canals as fake news. Please read the article before you comment.

<comment> mark-r Please turn up the sensitivity on your sarcasm detector.

<comment><USER100> I believe HN shorts out when the sarcasm detector reaches about 30%

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> The "earth is healing, we are the virus" narrative is overblown (and ecofascistic), but it's good to remember that humans are not special. We push other life forms out of our spaces, but many of those life forms continue a marginal existence. The end of humanity would not be the end of life and being reminded of that is a useful check on our tendency to put ourselves at the center of "the" world (instead of just the center of our world).

<comment><USER102> Taking comfort in the potential extinction of humanity because at least there would be some non-sapient critters still around strikes me as an odd value system. Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe?

<comment><USER103> Major extinction events have historically paved the way for new and interesting forms of life, including humans.

<comment><USER104> But easy access to energy is gone. This is Earth's last chance to bootstrap to the stars.

<comment><USER105> I'm not sure I follow. How is it gone? We have fusion (solar) and fission. And we may find out how to more directly harness energy as we progress. I think our access to energy is limited by our lack of knowledge.

I agree though, we should get out on some new space vessels soon to buy some insurance and project ourselves into the far future.

<comment><USER104> If we go extinct, the next intelligent species (if there is one) won't have the easy reserves we used to get started. You can't jump directly from fire to fusion.

<comment><USER102> Give it a few million years and they'll have hydrocarbons the exact same way we got them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> They're not empty. They're full of coyotes.

</comment><comment><USER107> Bit weird to see them in broad daylight, but we definitely have an urban coyote problem in the US.

I swear the most common "crazy story from my vet" is the soccer mom that rescues a litter of puppies that she found on her run...

<comment><USER108> Probably something they heard from another vet, who heard from another vet - sounds very close to the classic "Mexican Pet" urban legend.

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-mexican- pet/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-mexican-pet/)</comment></comment>


Two Experts Weigh in on Etiquette of Centuries Past - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/books/review/how-to-behave-badly-elizabethan-england-ruth-goodman-what-would-mrs-astor-do-cecelia-tichi.html <comment><USER2> Men have their gonads outside of their bodies and they need to be below body temperature to function properly. When they are too hot, they send the signal of pain to brain. Hopefully this causes an action that reduces the temperature of the gonads and prevent damage. Some men probably have other physical characteristics that exacerbates this heat problem that makes them to want to have their legs spread more than other men. If seats are empty to one side, the spreading of legs should not be seen as some attempt of male dominance, if the man brings them together when someone else comes to sit next to them.

How the term "manspreading" is used, while so many other words are forbidden as offensive, puts on clear display the double standard that many feel is held by mainstream media.

<comment><USER3> I have never felt pain from overheating of my testicles. Are you sure this is a thing?

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure it's a thing.

The worst I experience is sweat-related discomfort, the same manner of discomfort with any sweating body area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> current title for this on HN is "Two Experts Weigh in on Etiquette of Centuries Past (nytimes.com)" \- yet when clicked on, the heading says "Manspreading, Renaissance-Style: 2 Experts Weigh In on Etiquette of Centuries Past"

I know there are char limits and these things change for various reasons. I did read the comments first, so I guess that could have been a clue, however,

I had assumed this was going to be about many etiquette things and perhaps include some the me too and maybe consent things that might be interesting to read some research into past cultural expectation of various behaviors from times past and perhaps places distant and compare to things today, a few years ago and going forward.

Unfortunately from seeing the heading on the page I clicked back so hopefully visiting the page does not count against my monthly free article limit at NYT - as it's not something I would have wasted a monthly visit counter on had I seen the full title of the article before clicking.

</comment><comment><USER6> manspreading is a sexist term. i am also unsure as to why it gets so much attention. if it must be broken down into a gendered attack, I rarely witnessed it and I use to ride the philadelphia subway everyday. however, I did witness on a daily basis women putting their bags and purses on an additional 1 or more seats.

<comment><USER7> It gets attention because it is rude and annoying and subway riders would like it to stop, and, despite your experience, very common, and indeed almost exclusive to men.

I see one or two men "spread" every day on the subway in Boston. Some even do it while someone is seated next to them, forcing their neighbor to sit sideways or be squished. The subway seats _are_ narrower than they ought to be, and many people simply don't fit, but spreading is an act apart.

Never have I seen a woman sit like that on the subway. Granted, it's possible the reason women do not do this is merely one of propriety or upbringing and not conscientiousness. Likewise it's possible the reason men do this is merely obliviousness and not inconsiderateness, posturing, or entitlement. But it is absolutely a predominantly male behavior.

<comment><USER8> > Never have I seen a woman sit like that on the subway

I see it nearly daily on trains in Brisbane. I also see idiots "manspreading" about as often. Shit people are shit people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> barrow-rider Misleading headline.

It should read: Manspreading, Renaissance-Style: 2 Experts Weigh In on Etiquette of Centuries Past

NYT clickbate

</comment><comment><USER9> These stories are fun byput _why_ etiquette? Some of course is for gratuitous exclusion and some just to keep people from killing each other (or simply so that you can often know what to do without having to think about it).

But another important factor is hygiene (a form of not killing each other I suppose). As antibiotic resistance increases and vaccination decreases I wonder if there will be a return to serving spoons, butter knives, not wandering around with food etc. Hand washing has already seen a rise in the west over the past couple of decades, with thinks like MRSA bein one of the drivers.

<comment><USER10> Etiquette is just discipline. once we start dismissing manners as pointless, then we're degrading as a species. We as individuals value certain disciplines over others, or we accuse certain disciplines to be excluding others, but manners is the universal discipline. Being polite has gone out the tube. Parents verbally abuse their own kids, smoke in front of them. Imagine how they treat other peoples. Why? Because they are petty. They are jealous. They hate the rich, hate the poor, hate the black, hate the white, hate the muslim, hate everyone. Why? This is a lack of etiquette. I am not saying we should be militant, but why don't we try to be nice to each other? Why don't we walk in each other shoes?

<comment><USER11> Because others are violating social contracts and there is a profound and wide spreading feeling of helplessness and futility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm actually not a huge fan of etiquette. Instead, I value kindness, which in general is universal.

I've found that this attitude of kindness + always trying to be mindful of others feelings to the best of my abilities, I've done well.

Some people wield "etiquette" like a weapon, to look down on and demean people with good intentions.

I'll never shame someone for using the wrong fork or forgetting to take off their shoes or something - but if you call someone out for some petty cultural misunderstanding in front of me, I'll forever remember you as a bully.

<comment> crooked-v > forgetting to take off their shoes

It's hard enough to keep the floorboard gaps of my old wooden floor clean without somebody actively tracking more dirt in.</comment></comment>