Task #1 PG
Problem
If you’ve had anything to do with startups, there are high chances that you’ve heard about Paul Graham. He’s one of the founders of the prestigious startup accelerator Y Combinator and is considered very knowledgeable on the topic of how to start startups. Startup enthusiasts and entrepreneurs swear by the essays he writes on his personal website paulgraham.com.
Now, his website was designed in the 90s using the state-of-the-art tech of the day. But the design hasn’t been updated ever since. So while the website is very fast and minimalist, it can definitely use a design overhaul.
Some major design problems that plague his website are:
- Some elements, such as the primary site navigation, header, titles, etc. do not look optimal on modern high-resolution displays or large screens.
- The mobile version of the website, although functional, looks visually different from the desktop version. There are several unnecessary elements in the mobile version as well — such as the cart option.
- A few sections of the website, such as Books can be designed better, assuming the goal of these pages is to optimize for getting viewers to buy a book.
Paul’s content is considered highly influential among the tech startup crowd. Making this content more readable and accessible to readers will bring value to current and future readers. Your job as a product designer is to redesign the entire website. Use the real content from paulgraham.com and create a Figma Prototype for both the desktop and mobile versions.
Inspiration
- Farnam Street Blog
- Stripe’s Blog
- Linear’s Readme
- Brian Lovin’s Blog
- The Atlantic
- Airbnb’s Design Blog