What if we think of design as not what something looks like, but rather how it works?
> Again, this might work for the target audience, developers.
Why?
> So having a very spartan design (unless it's a brand new project) just looks incomplete to me.
Why? What's wrong with something that "looks" incomplete if it meets all goals that you want to achieve? If the layout is clear, documentation is accurate and the website loads fast, works across various screens, it is accessible, what more do you want?
I don't think you've substantiated the refutal of source hut besides "It looks like a side project that sometimes is proud to not care about design". I suggest taking a hard look at why we design things instead of surrendering to your experiential biases (aka this is how its done and that's how it should be).
As a developer with a poor design sense I noticed all that, also (the rest applies to my mac display, FF developer):
things are not perfectly aligned, the menu on the top is a little out of alignment with the button on the right.
the white box in the middle of the blue area is moved out of alignment with everything else, also the text above the white is a little smushed.
quotes could use some padding.
If all these things were fixed I would say Spartan design, I like it.
As it is now I find it a little annoying and ugly, of course without this post to add to I would never have tried to figure out what exactly I didn't like but that's how it goes I guess.
I just spent the last year or so doing WCAG2 work for a large government project. Everything you point out is something we got dinged for and had to change in the app we were building.
There was a lot of myself and the other dev saying to each other, "Really? Is this really a big deal?" Now you just see it all over the place because you have an eye for it.
Is this how you feel about your home or office? Completely spartan, only the necessary objects and nothing else? I suppose some people do only want a purely spartan, necessities only environment. But I like a little pizazz, a little splash of color here and there a little comfort. And I feel the same way about the software I use. As long as the decoration doesn't get in the way of course.
I'm much more skeptical of decorations on web sites because of how hard it is to exert control over them compared to how hard it is to exert control over the decorations in my home or office.
If I don't like my houseplant, I can move it or get rid of it.
If I don't like your little splash of color or little pizazz, maybe even find it distracting and in the way, what can I do?
In both cases, the userbase's opinions matter. My home has a very small userbase I can pretty easily poll quite thoroughly. Is the same true of a public website?
> What's wrong with something that "looks" incomplete
If this is where you are starting from, then I'm not sure what kind of conversation you are hoping for. Requiring that we substantiate our definitions of good design while you try to pass off "looking incomplete" as inconsequential to design is an unfair offer.
I second that source hut looks like a boring, bland website. Sure, it's spartan, the menus work, and it explains exactly what it's doing but it really doesn't scratch that itch of a beautiful website. It's functional, but not beautiful.
Sourcehut looks like an engineer made it. Same with building design.
So design is not purely about function, for that is engineering. Design is not purely about aesthetics, for that is Art.
Design, as I understand it, is to produce pleasing interactions with a function that empowers you to achieve what ever task is at hand.
In the example cited by the OP, and by you, there is a clear and obvious difference between the two.
Let's start with a simple cross compare
Brief: I, as a user, wish to visit the home page to understand what it is.
Stripe's page manages that in about a second. The visual hierarchy makes the two core messages stand out and directs my eye to them. "the new standards in payments" and "the complete toolkit for internet business" - should those messages trigger a need, a job to be done, a want, an urge then it very effectively functions.
As I scroll through, the messaging is clear, the design is delightfully simple, but with lovely, unnecessary touches, that communicate quality, care, craft and respect towards the customer.
Sourcehut however draws my eye to announcing the source hut project hub, but i'm not yet sure what sourcehut even is. I scroll a little more. I read a lot of words I understand as a developer, but the answer of "what is it?" elludes me. I scroll back to the opening paragraph "Welcome to sourcehut! This suite of open source tools is the software development platform you've been waiting for. We've taken the wisdom of the most successful open-source communities and turned it into a platform of efficient engineering tools." Okay, so jargon word soup aside, and given that both sites are engineer focused, why is this so hard to parse? What tools do i want? Or not know I want?
I see website that has been made simply, quickly, and for one purpose, which seems to be to exist as a page for those who know and understand what it is, already, to live somewhere. It does not communicate care, craft, ease of use, and it seems to look like the sort of sites we downloaded printer drivers from back in the day.
The purpose of beautiful sites, software, apps, whatever, is to celebrate the world, to create something wonderful, to be empathetic to our users, our fellow humans, to make something that makes us smile, that delights for no reason than it can.
This is not an experiential bias, it is a core element of society, that aesthetics matter to many for a multitude of reasons, and perhaps, it is a bias that you have that chooses to reject it, for reasons I can only hope are not rooted in rejecting it's purpose within humanity because "it doesn't make sense to you".
> Again, this might work for the target audience, developers.
Why?
> So having a very spartan design (unless it's a brand new project) just looks incomplete to me.
Why? What's wrong with something that "looks" incomplete if it meets all goals that you want to achieve? If the layout is clear, documentation is accurate and the website loads fast, works across various screens, it is accessible, what more do you want?
I don't think you've substantiated the refutal of source hut besides "It looks like a side project that sometimes is proud to not care about design". I suggest taking a hard look at why we design things instead of surrendering to your experiential biases (aka this is how its done and that's how it should be).