Coolest Websites
Many more cool websites exist that I need to discover. The list is subjective and opinionated. You might share the same ideas, or you might not. I'm open to discussion, though. Let me know if you agree or disagree or think any other websites belong on this list.
What Metric is used for this list?
As mentioned, since 'cool' is subjective, it's primarily personal feelings. However, I will be breaking it down into parts: aesthetics, usability, optimization(speed), content, and overall thoughts on the website.
Why do I care?
Discovering new things and exploring them could be fun. Well, except if you don't like what you found. Lucky for you, though. I've already sat through all the things I wouldn't say I enjoyed seeing and compiled a list of all I wanted. And I hope you feel the same way. I'm very sorry if not, but please let me know why.
The List
xkcd.com
This is a webcomic website; it has loads of webcomic about many things. People like to post one of their comics and say "relevant XKCD" or something along those lines because there's usually a comic from them that's relevant to the discussion.
Aesthetic
It is a very simple-looking website. Their primary colors are black and light blue. The font they use all looks like a capital letter, which bothers me, but it's no dealbreaker. It doesn't look that great to me, but it's passable.
Usability
It's pretty user-friendly—simple heading on top and the comic in the middle. Arrows to change the comics and a random button to get a random comic; fun! One thing I'll say, though, is it's tough to find a specific comic. They're not organized, and there are thousands of them, which is a bummer.
Optimization
It's remarkably optimized. That's probably easy since there's not much going on on the website. But it's good regardless.
Content
Very, very good content. Their comics are a lot of fun to read and sometimes a bit thought-provoking.
Overall
It's a great website with excellent and enjoyable content. Simple UI. If you want to read through their comics, you'll find many exciting things.
archive.org
Archive.org, a.k.a. the Wayback Machine. It is an internet archive. Want to know what Google looked like in the year 2000? They've archived it! Go ahead and take a look. They don't archive anything and everything since they're mainly from the users' uploads. But they have a lot of things, and looking at some old websites is very interesting.
Aesthetic
It's like Google, with a logo and a box for entering text. But with much more stuff going on, which could be better since I wouldn't say I like clutter.
Usability
Except for some parts, it's okay in terms of UI. You put in the website you want to look at, pick the year and the date, then the time, and you'll be looking at it. Not the most straightforward, but for something like this, it's pretty hard to make it more explicit.
Optimization
The website itself is fine. But some of the archives take a while to load. I don't know what's happening there, but keep that in mind. It's not your Internet.
Content
The content is super interesting. We can look at the same website developed and changing over the past 20 years. Sign me up.
Overall
It's an exciting website for the historians out there. Here you go if you're curious about a website's appearance at a specific time.
mynoise.net
myNoise is a website that will play randomly generated sounds based on your pick. This website is perfect for shutting out the outside noise, or it might even help you sleep. I love listening to the rain when I want to go to sleep. So, I can play this and go to sleep. Setting a timer for when it should turn off is also convenient.
Aesthetic
I like their aesthetic; the background could be a more solid color. It changes after a while. It's not like flashing colors, just a smooth transition. I'm sure they're going for calmness, and it is very calm.
Usability
The site and its UI are easy to navigate. You would scroll around and find the sound you want. You can do things with sounds that might be more complex, but most people would keep that simple, regardless.
Then, you can adjust it with sliders and other options represented by icons. If you hover over the icons, it will show what they do, which is a good design,
Optimization
The website loads fine, although the sound generation doesn't start working immediately and takes a while to get started. That is not too much of a problem.
Content
I have tried many of them, and most sound generators are well-made and pleasing. The content is just the noises you can generate. You can choose from a lot; I'm sure you can listen to a different one every day for a year without repeating the same one. And it's low in quantity but inferior in quality.
Overall
Great website for white noise. There are a lot of options. The website can be easily navigated, and you can adjust what you want to hear.
unsplash.com
Unsplash is a website that provides free images for non-commercial use. These images are provided by their user-based creators. I use this website a lot whenever I need an image. As a college student, sometimes you don't have the money to afford stock images, so this website is beneficial.
Aesthetic
It's a website about visuals, and their visual presentation is fantastic. It doesn't get more simple than black and white. And the way things are placed is just very pleasing to look at.
Usability
It is a user-friendly website. The search box is correct in the middle if you want to look for something specific. You can filter it by image theme to look at people's work. Optimization
I can't complain. It loads fast; the images don't pack their full resolution in the thumbnails, but that's fine to optimize data usage. A lot of other websites also do the same thing.
Content
Sometimes, I look at the images posted by people here. They're fantastic. It makes me aware that many talented photographers are out there. But if you need anything specific for a project, tons of images are posted here that you can use.
Overall
It is a helpful website for image-related things and an excellent tool for finding and appreciating talented people.
wolframalpha.com
As a consumer of Math, WolframAlpha is a fantastic website. Well, what's so special? It's a calculator. You can input human-spoken sentences into it, which will output the result. Awesome, right?
Aesthetic
I don't like the color scheme; I think orange and red on white are too bright for my taste. But it is a matter of taste; some people might like it. But I love my darker, more relaxed color schemes.
Usability
As good as it sounds, nothing is perfect. Sometimes, you will need help understanding what you're trying to say, and you might need to adjust your sentences. But the user interface is simple. The only issue is that finding some math symbols takes some getting used to.
Optimization
Apart from taking a while to process the input. The website and its elements are pretty simple and need to be data-hungry. So it loads quickly.
Content
This is my favorite website on this list. The content here is the amount of math it can do. It can be instructed to derive, integrate, graph a function, and solve for a variable. And who knows how much more. And you can learn from its process.
Overall
As a student always taking math classes, Wolfram has helped me multiple times. It allows me to check my work and can give me hints whenever I'm stuck. If I'm ever truly lost, there's a step-by-step function—an excellent math website. But since Wolfram is here, I'll also mention Desmos and its graphing calculator.
Closing thoughts
Though there are many websites, some may provide you with additional resources. If you already know about these or all these websites. I hope you find them as practical and enjoyable as I do! Whether you are a web designer, SEO marketer, graphic designer, or just curious, I hope these websites will help you.
