Top all-time · #1150
David Kadavy
Personal blog · kadavy.netdesignwritingstartups
David Kadavy's personal blog at kadavy.net covers design, writing and startups. Since 2008, 62 different Hacker News readers have linked it 125 times, most often “A/A Testing: How I increased conversions 300% by doing absolutely nothing”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Bestselling Author David Kadavy on creativity, productivity, and self publishing. Also home of the Love Your Work podcast.
Most-linked posts?
- A/A Testing: How I increased conversions 300% by doing absolutely nothing6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2015-02-12
- Thank HN: Design for Hackers 4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-11-30
- Design for Hackers: Why Monet Never Used Black, & Why You Shouldn't Either3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-09-28
- Design For Hackers: Why You Don't Use Garamond on The Web3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-08-12
- Why You Hate Comic Sans3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-02-28
- Design for the Coder’s Mind: Reverse-Engineering Visual Design 2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-07-06
- David Kadavy(Best Selling Author) On Color Theory2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-06-09
- Make things out of stuff2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-04-24
- A/A Testing: How I increased conversions 300% by doing nothing (2015)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-09-10
- This weird keyboard may be the biggest thing since your standing desk2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-02-11
What Hacker News says?
Avoiding black definitely causes you to make color choices that add more dimension and realism to your interfaces. Interfaces, after all, are representations of reality. One helpful tip: "warm" colors jump out at you, and "cool" colors recede away from you. You can use this to your advantage when designing buttons, or even when working with typography. More detail in this article, "Why Monet Never Used Black": http:…
Comment linking /blog/posts/d4h-color-theory/
on “Design Tip: Never Use Black”Submitted Design for Hackers: Why Monet Never Used Black, & Why You Shouldn't Either as a story · 428 points
HN discussionHere's an explanation about why it's objectively bad: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/ I think the reason the Internet hates it in general is mostly because of its use in inappropriate places (I even saw a picture of a funeral announcement that used it).
Comment linking /blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/
on “Comic Sans, meet Comic Neue”Submitted Design For Hackers: Why You Don't Use Garamond on The Web as a story · 224 points
HN discussionThis forthcoming book ("Design for Hackers") might be helpful: http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/d4h-the-book/
Comment linking /blog/posts/d4h-the-book/
on “I'm a designer who learned Django and launched her first webapp in 6 weeks”Submitted Permission to Suck as a story · 166 points
HN discussion"Design for hackers" also has an interesting section about comic sans that can be found here as a blog post: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/ Especially interesting is the discussion that comic sans is actually a good font when it comes to aliasing. ("Comic Sans isn’t Used as Intended")
Comment linking /blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/
on “Why I created Comic Sans”Submitted Everything You Already Know About SEO as a story · 147 points
HN discussionI started a new podcast called "Love Your Work." I'm trying to make it free of posturing about "killing it" and such – just people who have defined success for themselves. My first episode was an in-person interview with Jason Fried, and was a real honor. He just spews brilliance – very easy to interview: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/jason-fried-basecamp/ Another popular interview is with a neuroscience who studies…
Comment linking /blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-8-creating-aha-moments-with-neuroscientist-dr-john-kounios/
on “Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it awesome? Please include URL”Submitted Design for Hackers (the book) is here as a story · 142 points
HN discussionI prefer IKEA’s Tunhem Bookcase which is unfortunately discontinued. It is deeper and the shelves are thicker which helps prevent bookcase sagging. http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/vinyl-record-shelf/ http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/
Comment linking /blog/posts/vinyl-record-shelf/
on “How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world”Submitted Thank HN: Design for Hackers as a story · 142 points
HN discussionThe "delineation" is a non-issue to me. I think this short article on the use of whitespace gets to the point: http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/whitespace-113/ The discoverability of the interface is always a trade-off. They probably have enough data to assume that users will in fact learn this interface from daily use. I preferred text too.
Comment linking /blog/posts/whitespace-113/
on “Why Gmail's new design is unsuitable for heavy use”Submitted Design for Hackers: Why You Hate Comic Sans as a story · 136 points
HN discussionActually, while Georgia is a good font overall, the design is Georgia is optimized for the screen. Because of this, it has some peculiarities, such as a very large x-height (so the pixels in the counterforms can be read). Here's a little more about what I'm talking about: http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/design-for-hackers-why-you-...
Comment linking /blog/posts/design-for-hackers-why-you-dont-use-garamond-on-the-web/
on “The effect of typefaces on credibility”Submitted Minimum Viable Movie: How I Made a Feature-Length Film for $0 as a story · 98 points
HN discussionI got really excited about something similar, in 2011, when I read this post about the DIY-MBA movement: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/i-started-a-diy-mba-group-youre... I haven't done it yet, but I am still contemplating the idea. One of the biggest problems that can arise with not actually attending a university in person is the lack of relationship and teamwork education. That can be partially mitigated via videoc…
Comment linking /blog/posts/i-started-a-diy-mba-group-youre-not-invited/
on “I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own”Submitted Mind Management, Not Time Management (2012) as a story · 75 points
HN discussionJust to add a +1 to point #2, I didn't even really like writing when I started my blog, and my first blog post sucks[1]. 9 short years later, I'm an author of a book that has done pretty well[2], and I LOVE writing. 1. http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/my-first-blog/ 2. http://designforhackers.com
Comment linking /blog/posts/my-first-blog/
on “You should blog even if you have no readers”Submitted How I reduced Page Load Time by 75% - WordPress Optimization as a story · 62 points
HN discussionhttp://www.kadavy.net/portfolio/ looks like it.
Comment linking /portfolio/
on “David Kadavy's "Design for Hackers" now on Amazon”Submitted "Design for Hackers" now available on Kindle as a story · 38 points
HN discussionDon't miss out on the hacker spirit of David getting this book published chronicled in his blog eg http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/d4h-the-book/ All instructive reading in bending a system to work for you, getting things done, and building a business. PS - Congrats David, I'll take the fact that Amazon went from "19 in stock" to "13 in stock" in the time it took me to order as a good sign :)
Comment linking /blog/posts/d4h-the-book/
on “David Kadavy's "Design for Hackers" now on Amazon”Submitted My self-published book: 11,000 copies, $19,000 royalties, only $3,000 profit!? as a story · 36 points
HN discussionBlog post: http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/design-for-hackers-the-book...
Comment linking /blog/posts/design-for-hackers-the-book-is-here/
on “David Kadavy's "Design for Hackers" now on Amazon”Submitted Designing with White Space: Why 1+1=3 as a story · 33 points
HN discussionWasn't this just on HN a few days back? Why you dont use Garamond on the web - http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/design-for-hackers-why-you-...
Comment linking /blog/posts/design-for-hackers-why-you-dont-use-garamond-on-the-web/
on “Ask HN: All startup websites look the same”Submitted Google Crawls My Site 90% Faster - Speed is Important as a story · 32 points
HN discussionI redesigned my blog recently[1] and purposely made the type slightly bigger than intuitively felt comfortable. The funny thing is, plenty of people complain about it being too big, but nobody complained when it was way too small. [1] http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/reverse-engineering-redesign/
Comment linking /blog/posts/reverse-engineering-redesign/
on “Stop Using Small Font Sizes”Submitted This weird keyboard may be the biggest thing since your standing desk as a story · 26 points
HN discussion
