Much better now, after implementing the excellent suggestions above! Kudos to the team for listening to their viewers.
I hope to contribute with a few more suggestions:
* How about compressing the top logo and sections image by ~50 pixels or so? It takes a lot of room on the screen, and much of it is empty space.
* I would like to see the news section given a more prominent placement. Given that you don't update the articles more than a few times a week, it's the news that get me to come back every day.
The number of articles on the front page is just right now. 5 is great. Plus the links to the older reviews right next to them is perfect!
I thint Anand Blog should be above Anand Picks, as it's more important (in my opinion). The AT Dealfinder should be at the Bottom!
There does seem to be a lot of adware. That's not such a problem... I mean you guys have to make money too! The two banners in the Product Coverage section are badly placed... sitting in the middle of the categories. Why not move CPU and Chipset below the upper banner... so that banner is at the absolute top of the section. and move Systems and Tradeshows above the lower banner... so that the banner is at the absolute bottom of the section. I think this would make it a lot easier to read and give a better overview.
lastly... what happened to the little welcome message at the top, with the little country flag? I quite liked the little south african flag up there welcoming me... it was a nice touch.
Site is looking great! If I sound too critical.. ignore me! they're just ideas and suggestions.
Hey, I just noticed that you updated the site with all of the asked for changes. Now it looks spectacular! I love the new layout! Keep up the good work Anand and co.
One more thing: I noticed that a password is no longer required to post comments. Does that mean that anyone could post a comment with someone else's username? If so, that is something that should be fixed ASAP. Thanks!
Thank you for listening to reader input and implementing a lot of the suggestions. The site redesign is looking a lot better now. I'm still seeing a couple issues with Mozilla Firefox 0.9.1:
1. still having to scroll in the comments windows
2. the banner for Top Inside Stories is stretched over into the news on the RHS
Both are minor issues and will hopefully be fixed in the future. I'm still not crazy about all the flashy, animated ads but other than that, keep up the good work!
Generally I like the redesign, especially since it's reflected the reader input.
One further change I would make is to the new section: rather than display one day at a time, display the last 15-20 news items. Right now there are no news items for today, so when I click on the news section, I get no news. It should show the most current news and not require me to click on every day I want to read about.
Man, that RSS site looks good - Just need some graphics around an voila!
Anand, I know content is king and it costs money to pay people and bandwidth, but... I think some balancing needs to be done. Banners should not be on top of banners (ie, vertically).
Too many flashy adds.
Anands picks arent really very good deals.
In fact, I dont believe Anand even "picks" the stuff.
Lose em. Move the blog link on the right side down below the news, and/or remove one of the redundent ones.
The old site was just as bad with all the adds but I still liked it better than this.
I agree with mostly everyone.
There are so many active ads I start to get motion sickness. I must force my mind to ignore the distractions - a real pain.
Anands stuff sould be somwwhere else.
Kids putting firecrackers in a dog's mouth on a computer site??
News items are #1 item in visit.
Do you REALLY have to hustle your viewers THAT much???
Why not just completely separate forum from Anandtech - give it a diff name. Maybe you are trying to be too many things to too many people.
Here's an experiment. I've written a PHP script that uses the Anandtech RSS feeds to generate a page with a full list of articles and news, a bit like how the old site used to present it.
I'm sending off an email to Anand to see if he approves; Anand might not like my use of his logo, or that I mimmick his design, or he might not like the whole thing, and ask that I take it down. But I figure, it is a big improvement over the new layout.
BTW, what you see is a static page that is generated every 5 minutes with the newest content.
I like the look of the new Anandtech - a good job in my view
I am an overseas visitor to the site and can't help but notice the international welcome text at the top of the page. At the moment it reads "Welcome, from Australia it's 7:10 PM EDT on July 6, 2004"
The problem is what does this mean:
a. "Welcome, in Australia the time is 7:10 PM EDT on July 6, 2004"; or
b. "Welcome, visitor from Australia, here in the US, the time is 7:10 PM on July 6, 2004".
If the welcome message is meant to be a., then the time check function is wrong because this text appeared when it was 9:10 AM EDT on July 7, 2004 here in Canberra Australia.
If it was meant to be b., then I sugest you reword the message.
I agree with many above in that: Move the News articles up to the top on the right column, I don't come here for your blog (or anybody else's enywhere else that matter)...or for your picks, both are 100% your personal choices/opinions and 100% meaningless to me, and most definately not more important then the news.
Also there either seems to be more stupid flashing ads or the layout makes it seem that way, either way, its extremely annoying.
i'll say again, ease on on the delivery of the world, sites like that end up sucking cuz they tend to get watered down eventually.
NOBODY goes to one site for everything they need on the net (unless they're an AOL user perhaps), so stop trying to throw up a bunch of content in hopes of keeping everyone glued here for hours on end.
I really don't like the new site at all. I'm sorry. I appreciate wanting a refresh every so often, but there are waay too many ads, the ads at the bottom duplicate (triplicate).
I don't like the Anand's Pick's to the right. What happened to keeping it simple? Too much flash and now even more difficult to find the information that drove me back here. I'll still keep checking back but much less often. I like the reviews and the hard work. I'd almost wish you would just change it back.
I'd have to agree with everyone about the number of advertisements. It's totally ridiculous. We all understand that you need to make money off of the site, but 10 advertisements is just crazy. As far as the “Anand’s Blog”, “AT DealFinder”, and “Anand’s Picks”, I really don’t think that they need to be so prominent. The “Latest News” should be the most prominent, as this is one of the reasons many people visit the site.
The look of the homepage of the old design was so much better. The one thing that would make the homepage a lot better is to make the reviews more like how the old design had them as well as killing a majority of the banner advertisements.
Comments require horizontal scrolling in Mozilla 1.7. It sucks very much having to read the comments so wide; the eye does not follow lines that long very well.
I'm not going to say anything that hasn't already been said, but:
- It's a *little* presumptuous to put the Anand blog and "picks" on the top, scrolling News off the visible page. Move the News bar back up to the top. The Blog link is redundant (remove), and the "Picks" are glorified ad links. Move them to the bottom.
- Anandtech is known for News and Reviews... but now we have "Top Insider Stories." I don't understand what that means. "Stories" has a News-based connotation that doesn't match the content. If it's the site's most popular articles among the entire site, then it'd be better understood as "Anandtech's Top Articles" plain and simple.
- I'm gonna agree that I'd like more Latest Reviews with graphics before archiving them to the column to the right. I'll go one step further and say that the "More Reviews" column also takes too much focus away from the "Latest" content. Too cluttered.
- The "Product Coverage" section does what the tabs SHOULD be doing. I like that it is targeted by subject, rather than by date. The tabs should be organized by subject, and then there's no need for Product Coverage.
- The location/date/time stamp... I'm not sure why this might be useful. But it's not in the way, so hey whatever. :)
Anand's Blog, Anand's Picks, etc. should be on a separate page, not the home page. This isn't Anand's personal web page is it? It's a hardware review and news site.
I don't like that there's only 2 items in the "Latest News" section. Maybe if "Latest News" was articles from the past week it would be better.
AnandTech Product Coverage is very THG. That's not necessarily a bad thing... I like the sub-categories. But instead of making that "THG-like" section at the bottom, make them drop down lists from the tabs at the top... similar to how nVidia has their's. Of course then you'd have to cut the number of tabs down so they fit in a single row along the top.
Maybe it would be better to organize the tabs along the left side using buttons since there's so many of them. Then put the items that are on the left side on the top, since that's like, the basic layout of the site. like... Home, Forums, My AnandTech, About, Reviews, News.
AnandTech just has too much content to jumble up a summary of every category on the home page.
I still don't like how the search function works. I find it difficult to find old articles that I'm looking for. It would be nice if it was possible to get a complete list of all articles in the order they were posted.
For example, just yesterday I was looking for Far Cry benchmark results and couldn't find the ones I was looking for... I still haven't found them, but I gave up and looked on another website.
I wonder if there would be an easier way to search for benchmark results... like... put a "tag" on articles that have benchmarks in them to eliminate the articles without any testing done in them.
I think it is a mistake to start doing digital camera reviews. There are plenty of excellent sites already available. The resources used for DC reviews would be better put towards displays (CRT and LCD) and storage (HD, DVD, etc.)
Also, there's an issue of having to side-scroll on your blog comments for me in Firefox...anyone else having this one? It opens up in the normal window size, but the text does not wrap correctly.
I'll back U up on the 56k Modem bit. While I do have broadband @ home, I more often visit Anand when I get 2 work each morning... which is @ DialUp speeds :'( It always took a good bit as U said 4 the front page 2 load as U C'mingly put everything but the logo @ the top in 1 enormous table (The entire table has 2 load B4 it would display).
On the other hand, even tho I Blieve the new layout is a step in the right direction, I have 2 agree w/ every1 that the old layout was MUCH more practical & easy-2-use.
I agree w/ the comparison 2 THG's layout as it C'ms so much more link driven than content driven. Aside from my depreciating care 4 THG, I don't agree w/ their layout either.
News & Reviews R most important 2 me & deserve more real estate. The personal blog is a nice touch, but wouldn't B missed 2 much if it were moved down 2 the bottom. The linked table @ the bottom can B shrunk 2 'font size 1' 4 all I care as I won't ever use it.
I've been coming to anandtech since 99 and it's always been my top choice by far for hardware sites. I think this new design marks the 1st time the site took a step back rather then moving forward. I'll address a few things that I think should be looked at, but they are just opinions.
1. The tabs on the top of the site; there just seems to be too many of them. I'd try grouping some of that stuff together, as it is now it’s allot to look at especially considering allot of those tabs are empty or nearly empty. If you can get the job done with 10 of something rather then 20 go for the simpler of the two solutions.
2. Others have said this, "Anandtech Product Coverage" is completely redundant and pretty much wasting half of the page.
3. I'd rework the "latest review" section so it’s easier to see the new reviews, and associate a graphic with each headline so people can tell there is new content on the site without having to read all the microscopic text.
4. Move "Anad's blog" and "Anand's picks" below the news or remove them all together. Also, maybe make it "anandtech's blog, were all the editors could comment.
5. I also don't care for the new logo, it looks like something that was done up in about 3 mins.
Those are my thoughts, I hope you find it somewhat useful.
I love your site.
Best there is.
As far as the new format goes, I think you're going backwards.
The previous format was much cleaner, and more intuitive.
Please don't change for the shake of change.
Boz, it's easy to think that your opinion is the same as the millions of other readers, but in fact it isn't. Website loading speed is incredibly important, any good web developer knows this and designs for it. The old site had alot of tables, waste of bandwidth and caused the top logo to sit there for seconds while the rest of the page loaded, it was pretty bad. We did get complaints from people on 56k modems and lite broadband connections.
Hi guys.
Here just to tell that the text size is too small to being read at naked eye :D
Seriously my dedsktop is 166x1200 and the text in your site is too small...
Most of recent sites have fallen into this pit...
could you make anithing about my little eyes??
keep on the good work
Bye.
I'm glad you want to implement your audience’s suggestions. After all, a major design change that was not accepted by the audience proved to be the undoing of not only one website.
If you happen to have time, could you state some of the thoughts that went into the new design, especially the things that were criticized? Which are the ones you promised to fix?
Greets from Germany,
Crassus
Er am I right in thinking doing something on the AT page (maybe reading comments?) is making the forum think you've read it and so no threads have the blue icon to show a new post in the thread?
Maybe I messed up but I'm sure I didnt open http://forums.anandtech.com until a second ago, and none of the forums were marked as having a new post/thread in it.
The layout is just as accessable as it was before. The only thing I think is out of place is the swirlie graphic at the top left corner before the AnandTech logo. It just looks out of place and ... strange. Where the rest of the site has a smooth, polished look, that swirlie is too rough and misshapen.
Is a good example of too many ads.. Love the site, love the content, but this is a clean look but you have clumped up everything and added more ads it seems.
Like I said before, I think the speed issue is neglible. It's either intuitive content or fast loading jumble. The key is finding the in between.
Not quite sure what triggered the redesigned. I noticed you said your 300kb home load was "unnacceptable", and I'm not so sure about that. Unacceptable to whom? You have one of the most influential and well-layed out tech. review sites on all of the net. I've made it my Firefox homepage for over a year now. You got to that status despite any complaint of the load time from myself or any of the older tens of thousands of users that frequent Anand.
My only comment would be to make in the right hand column an entry for just today's news and put it at the top. then put the blog and then 'Anand's picks' and finally, a 'recent news entry. I usually come to the site every morning to see the latest news and reviews first. i like where you have the reviews. But after you updated the web site the first time ... a few months ago, i guess, it seems like the news headlines are getting lost ... thanks for doing a great job though ..
Anandtech rates as one of my #1 sites to visit everyday ...
Great to hear you're taking our comments to heart :)
While the general consensus is negative, I think a few commonly suggest changes (An overhaul of the new system of displaying articles for example) would fix most people's complaints.
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38 Comments
Back to Article
Henrik - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
Much better now, after implementing the excellent suggestions above! Kudos to the team for listening to their viewers.I hope to contribute with a few more suggestions:
* How about compressing the top logo and sections image by ~50 pixels or so? It takes a lot of room on the screen, and much of it is empty space.
* I would like to see the news section given a more prominent placement. Given that you don't update the articles more than a few times a week, it's the news that get me to come back every day.
Thanks!
-henrik
Kaji - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
The number of articles on the front page is just right now. 5 is great. Plus the links to the older reviews right next to them is perfect!I thint Anand Blog should be above Anand Picks, as it's more important (in my opinion). The AT Dealfinder should be at the Bottom!
There does seem to be a lot of adware. That's not such a problem... I mean you guys have to make money too! The two banners in the Product Coverage section are badly placed... sitting in the middle of the categories. Why not move CPU and Chipset below the upper banner... so that banner is at the absolute top of the section. and move Systems and Tradeshows above the lower banner... so that the banner is at the absolute bottom of the section. I think this would make it a lot easier to read and give a better overview.
lastly... what happened to the little welcome message at the top, with the little country flag? I quite liked the little south african flag up there welcoming me... it was a nice touch.
Site is looking great! If I sound too critical.. ignore me! they're just ideas and suggestions.
Helevitia - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
Hey, I just noticed that you updated the site with all of the asked for changes. Now it looks spectacular! I love the new layout! Keep up the good work Anand and co.Dave
Oxonium - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
One more thing: I noticed that a password is no longer required to post comments. Does that mean that anyone could post a comment with someone else's username? If so, that is something that should be fixed ASAP. Thanks!Oxonium - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
Thank you for listening to reader input and implementing a lot of the suggestions. The site redesign is looking a lot better now. I'm still seeing a couple issues with Mozilla Firefox 0.9.1:1. still having to scroll in the comments windows
2. the banner for Top Inside Stories is stretched over into the news on the RHS
Both are minor issues and will hopefully be fixed in the future. I'm still not crazy about all the flashy, animated ads but other than that, keep up the good work!
srue - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
Generally I like the redesign, especially since it's reflected the reader input.One further change I would make is to the new section: rather than display one day at a time, display the last 15-20 news items. Right now there are no news items for today, so when I click on the news section, I get no news. It should show the most current news and not require me to click on every day I want to read about.
Micronaut - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
Man, that RSS site looks good - Just need some graphics around an voila!Anand, I know content is king and it costs money to pay people and bandwidth, but... I think some balancing needs to be done. Banners should not be on top of banners (ie, vertically).
Dasterdly - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Ahhhh! I just went to the forums and there's GAMBLING adds, thats low.I dont know whats happening here, but it's not good.
Dasterdly - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Too many flashy adds.Anands picks arent really very good deals.
In fact, I dont believe Anand even "picks" the stuff.
Lose em. Move the blog link on the right side down below the news, and/or remove one of the redundent ones.
The old site was just as bad with all the adds but I still liked it better than this.
Blubberboy - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I agree with mostly everyone.There are so many active ads I start to get motion sickness. I must force my mind to ignore the distractions - a real pain.
Anands stuff sould be somwwhere else.
Kids putting firecrackers in a dog's mouth on a computer site??
News items are #1 item in visit.
Do you REALLY have to hustle your viewers THAT much???
Why not just completely separate forum from Anandtech - give it a diff name. Maybe you are trying to be too many things to too many people.
Guspaz - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Here's an experiment. I've written a PHP script that uses the Anandtech RSS feeds to generate a page with a full list of articles and news, a bit like how the old site used to present it.http://novasearch.net/guspaz/anandtech/
I'm sending off an email to Anand to see if he approves; Anand might not like my use of his logo, or that I mimmick his design, or he might not like the whole thing, and ask that I take it down. But I figure, it is a big improvement over the new layout.
BTW, what you see is a static page that is generated every 5 minutes with the newest content.
Jan - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I like the look of the new Anandtech - a good job in my viewI am an overseas visitor to the site and can't help but notice the international welcome text at the top of the page. At the moment it reads "Welcome, from Australia it's 7:10 PM EDT on July 6, 2004"
The problem is what does this mean:
a. "Welcome, in Australia the time is 7:10 PM EDT on July 6, 2004"; or
b. "Welcome, visitor from Australia, here in the US, the time is 7:10 PM on July 6, 2004".
If the welcome message is meant to be a., then the time check function is wrong because this text appeared when it was 9:10 AM EDT on July 7, 2004 here in Canberra Australia.
If it was meant to be b., then I sugest you reword the message.
Hope this is helpful
araczynski - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I agree with many above in that: Move the News articles up to the top on the right column, I don't come here for your blog (or anybody else's enywhere else that matter)...or for your picks, both are 100% your personal choices/opinions and 100% meaningless to me, and most definately not more important then the news.Also there either seems to be more stupid flashing ads or the layout makes it seem that way, either way, its extremely annoying.
i'll say again, ease on on the delivery of the world, sites like that end up sucking cuz they tend to get watered down eventually.
NOBODY goes to one site for everything they need on the net (unless they're an AOL user perhaps), so stop trying to throw up a bunch of content in hopes of keeping everyone glued here for hours on end.
FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS on your core product.
Your Best Friend - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I really don't like the new site at all. I'm sorry. I appreciate wanting a refresh every so often, but there are waay too many ads, the ads at the bottom duplicate (triplicate).I don't like the Anand's Pick's to the right. What happened to keeping it simple? Too much flash and now even more difficult to find the information that drove me back here. I'll still keep checking back but much less often. I like the reviews and the hard work. I'd almost wish you would just change it back.
GrimReapa - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I'd have to agree with everyone about the number of advertisements. It's totally ridiculous. We all understand that you need to make money off of the site, but 10 advertisements is just crazy. As far as the “Anand’s Blog”, “AT DealFinder”, and “Anand’s Picks”, I really don’t think that they need to be so prominent. The “Latest News” should be the most prominent, as this is one of the reasons many people visit the site.The look of the homepage of the old design was so much better. The one thing that would make the homepage a lot better is to make the reviews more like how the old design had them as well as killing a majority of the banner advertisements.
jliechty - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Comments require horizontal scrolling in Mozilla 1.7. It sucks very much having to read the comments so wide; the eye does not follow lines that long very well.Anonymous - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I think sites shouldn't down grade their design because it was too slow, instead leave it alone and let time do its work.Phillip Doede - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Well put nowayout99.Anand, Jason; look closely at this post when making your design changes.
Guspaz - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Too many ads, an image:http://novasearch.net/guspaz/anand_ads.png
9 ads on the front page! There's so much movement I can't concentrate on the content.
It's so bad I'm considering writing a PHP script to present Anandtech's front page in an easier to read format.
nowayout99 - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I'm not going to say anything that hasn't already been said, but:- It's a *little* presumptuous to put the Anand blog and "picks" on the top, scrolling News off the visible page. Move the News bar back up to the top. The Blog link is redundant (remove), and the "Picks" are glorified ad links. Move them to the bottom.
- Anandtech is known for News and Reviews... but now we have "Top Insider Stories." I don't understand what that means. "Stories" has a News-based connotation that doesn't match the content. If it's the site's most popular articles among the entire site, then it'd be better understood as "Anandtech's Top Articles" plain and simple.
- I'm gonna agree that I'd like more Latest Reviews with graphics before archiving them to the column to the right. I'll go one step further and say that the "More Reviews" column also takes too much focus away from the "Latest" content. Too cluttered.
- The "Product Coverage" section does what the tabs SHOULD be doing. I like that it is targeted by subject, rather than by date. The tabs should be organized by subject, and then there's no need for Product Coverage.
- The location/date/time stamp... I'm not sure why this might be useful. But it's not in the way, so hey whatever. :)
Jeff7181 - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I posted too soon... I have more comments...Anand's Blog, Anand's Picks, etc. should be on a separate page, not the home page. This isn't Anand's personal web page is it? It's a hardware review and news site.
I don't like that there's only 2 items in the "Latest News" section. Maybe if "Latest News" was articles from the past week it would be better.
AnandTech Product Coverage is very THG. That's not necessarily a bad thing... I like the sub-categories. But instead of making that "THG-like" section at the bottom, make them drop down lists from the tabs at the top... similar to how nVidia has their's. Of course then you'd have to cut the number of tabs down so they fit in a single row along the top.
Maybe it would be better to organize the tabs along the left side using buttons since there's so many of them. Then put the items that are on the left side on the top, since that's like, the basic layout of the site. like... Home, Forums, My AnandTech, About, Reviews, News.
AnandTech just has too much content to jumble up a summary of every category on the home page.
Jeff7181 - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I still don't like how the search function works. I find it difficult to find old articles that I'm looking for. It would be nice if it was possible to get a complete list of all articles in the order they were posted.For example, just yesterday I was looking for Far Cry benchmark results and couldn't find the ones I was looking for... I still haven't found them, but I gave up and looked on another website.
I wonder if there would be an easier way to search for benchmark results... like... put a "tag" on articles that have benchmarks in them to eliminate the articles without any testing done in them.
Anonymous - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
This is a MacDate? Why the blue header?Looks like there are more things wrong than just the front page ;-)
Keith - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I think it is a mistake to start doing digital camera reviews. There are plenty of excellent sites already available. The resources used for DC reviews would be better put towards displays (CRT and LCD) and storage (HD, DVD, etc.)-Keith
Cliff - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Also, there's an issue of having to side-scroll on your blog comments for me in Firefox...anyone else having this one? It opens up in the normal window size, but the text does not wrap correctly.TheShniz - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I'll back U up on the 56k Modem bit. While I do have broadband @ home, I more often visit Anand when I get 2 work each morning... which is @ DialUp speeds :'( It always took a good bit as U said 4 the front page 2 load as U C'mingly put everything but the logo @ the top in 1 enormous table (The entire table has 2 load B4 it would display).On the other hand, even tho I Blieve the new layout is a step in the right direction, I have 2 agree w/ every1 that the old layout was MUCH more practical & easy-2-use.
I agree w/ the comparison 2 THG's layout as it C'ms so much more link driven than content driven. Aside from my depreciating care 4 THG, I don't agree w/ their layout either.
News & Reviews R most important 2 me & deserve more real estate. The personal blog is a nice touch, but wouldn't B missed 2 much if it were moved down 2 the bottom. The linked table @ the bottom can B shrunk 2 'font size 1' 4 all I care as I won't ever use it.
Phillip Doede - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I've been coming to anandtech since 99 and it's always been my top choice by far for hardware sites. I think this new design marks the 1st time the site took a step back rather then moving forward. I'll address a few things that I think should be looked at, but they are just opinions.1. The tabs on the top of the site; there just seems to be too many of them. I'd try grouping some of that stuff together, as it is now it’s allot to look at especially considering allot of those tabs are empty or nearly empty. If you can get the job done with 10 of something rather then 20 go for the simpler of the two solutions.
2. Others have said this, "Anandtech Product Coverage" is completely redundant and pretty much wasting half of the page.
3. I'd rework the "latest review" section so it’s easier to see the new reviews, and associate a graphic with each headline so people can tell there is new content on the site without having to read all the microscopic text.
4. Move "Anad's blog" and "Anand's picks" below the news or remove them all together. Also, maybe make it "anandtech's blog, were all the editors could comment.
5. I also don't care for the new logo, it looks like something that was done up in about 3 mins.
Those are my thoughts, I hope you find it somewhat useful.
nick tsingas - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I love your site.Best there is.
As far as the new format goes, I think you're going backwards.
The previous format was much cleaner, and more intuitive.
Please don't change for the shake of change.
PS Keep up with the good work.
Jason Clark - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Boz, it's easy to think that your opinion is the same as the millions of other readers, but in fact it isn't. Website loading speed is incredibly important, any good web developer knows this and designs for it. The old site had alot of tables, waste of bandwidth and caused the top logo to sit there for seconds while the rest of the page loaded, it was pretty bad. We did get complaints from people on 56k modems and lite broadband connections.mackintire - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I agree with number 4.Additionally the Product coverage section occcupies way too much space.
Overall the new site looks too ~busy~
I do like the new fresh coloring
Judicator - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Hi guys.Here just to tell that the text size is too small to being read at naked eye :D
Seriously my dedsktop is 166x1200 and the text in your site is too small...
Most of recent sites have fallen into this pit...
could you make anithing about my little eyes??
keep on the good work
Bye.
Judicator
Crassus - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
I'm glad you want to implement your audience’s suggestions. After all, a major design change that was not accepted by the audience proved to be the undoing of not only one website.If you happen to have time, could you state some of the thoughts that went into the new design, especially the things that were criticized? Which are the ones you promised to fix?
Greets from Germany,
Crassus
DG - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Er am I right in thinking doing something on the AT page (maybe reading comments?) is making the forum think you've read it and so no threads have the blue icon to show a new post in the thread?Maybe I messed up but I'm sure I didnt open http://forums.anandtech.com until a second ago, and none of the forums were marked as having a new post/thread in it.
Steven - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
The layout is just as accessable as it was before. The only thing I think is out of place is the swirlie graphic at the top left corner before the AnandTech logo. It just looks out of place and ... strange. Where the rest of the site has a smooth, polished look, that swirlie is too rough and misshapen.silvrhand - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Too squished..You can only see a few latest articles and I can't see the old site to reference but it looks like you doubled the amount of adaware on the site..
http://www.strangeness.org/images/ads.png
Is a good example of too many ads.. Love the site, love the content, but this is a clean look but you have clumped up everything and added more ads it seems.
just my .02
Boz - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Like I said before, I think the speed issue is neglible. It's either intuitive content or fast loading jumble. The key is finding the in between.Not quite sure what triggered the redesigned. I noticed you said your 300kb home load was "unnacceptable", and I'm not so sure about that. Unacceptable to whom? You have one of the most influential and well-layed out tech. review sites on all of the net. I've made it my Firefox homepage for over a year now. You got to that status despite any complaint of the load time from myself or any of the older tens of thousands of users that frequent Anand.
Best of luck.
-sun - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
My only comment would be to make in the right hand column an entry for just today's news and put it at the top. then put the blog and then 'Anand's picks' and finally, a 'recent news entry. I usually come to the site every morning to see the latest news and reviews first. i like where you have the reviews. But after you updated the web site the first time ... a few months ago, i guess, it seems like the news headlines are getting lost ... thanks for doing a great job though ..Anandtech rates as one of my #1 sites to visit everyday ...
-sun
Guspaz - Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - link
Great to hear you're taking our comments to heart :)While the general consensus is negative, I think a few commonly suggest changes (An overhaul of the new system of displaying articles for example) would fix most people's complaints.