I like the goals of the redesign, as expressed in your article. I like Boing Boing’s usual content, and the editorial tastes of both the long-time contributors and the more recent additions. (I’ve been reading the online blog since i-dunno-how-long, an occasional commentor for many years, and even read an issue or two of the original zine way back when.) So I think I should be pretty much your target audience.
I don’t like this specific redesign. The page layout looks cluttered and confusing to me - I get the MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) reaction to it. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a two-column layout, but this one isn’t working for me. Maybe you left out some important design goals, or maybe you need to look for another design that better meets the goals.
I found it very fast to read down through the older page design, reading the one paragraph versions of most posts, digging in to the body of most, digging into the comments of particularly interesting or thought-provoking ones. (P.S. I also didn’t like the switch to the “forums” system, even though I think this is an exceptionally good forum/BBS, because it split the discussion away from the article; but I hate Disqus, so that was a step back in the right direction.)
In the new design, I don’t think the front-page blurbs/descriptions of the articles are long enough to get anything from. With this design it seems they’re condensed to a single sentence, maybe two at most. I think that’s what other commentors are fumbling for when they say it reads like “click-bait”. It feels like we’ve been used to getting a one-paragraph précis of the article, and I really like that - sometimes it’s enough but often it’s what gets me to go read the whole thing. If there’s not room for that, that’s a significant problem with the current design; if you’ve actually got the same text there as on the old site, there is something screwy with the design where it feels like less.
Other points:
Is the content more important, or the blogger’s byline more important than the content? If the content’s more important, the byline should come after the headline and précis.
Does it need to say “Read the rest” in full on every article blurb, or would something like “More” or “Read” suffice?
Wouldn’t the headlines on the blurbs, both left and right, work better spread above the picture rather than crammed in next to it (left) or under it (right)
So my feedback is: plenty of bonus points for thinking about the right things, but please, try again.
Good god, it went from super easy to are-they-trying-to-somehow-trick-me-with-the-complexity-of-their-site. What happened?
Right now we are in the middle of releasing updates, complete rebuilds, of 9 national/international magazine sites and, while internally we think that the process has gone really poorly, it is nothing compared to this atrocity.
What happened? Was it determined that people can’t scroll anymore? And where did the full description of the post go? I can’t even tell if I am interested in the posts anymore.
I read and reread this everyday but so far haven’t even clicked a link. Probably won’t be back today…and I am on this site constantly on any given day…
Try to salvage it and move on, but for god’s sake FIX IT.
The new format strikes me as being something that would work better with a slower publishing cadence. If there was only one or two new posts a day, then I would probably check in once or twice a week and not mind taking the time to browse through the content, letting it soak in.
However, at the rate BB currently posts, I typically check in 2-3 times a day to quickly glance and see if there’s anything I want to read. This new format isn’t really conducive for that way of reading the content. (And in the past I’ve been hopelessly confused when a feature was “pinned” at the top–I would glance at it, think “huh, I already saw that–I guess no new content” and close the tab).
If BB’s master plan to focus on features and become something of a weekly read, then I guess the new interface makes sense.
-Too busy, less readable
-Less information. I should be able to read pretty much the entire entry and/or see the picture unless its particularly long (“read the rest”)
-Also noticed that not each article has a bbs discussion link, and those that do don’t show how many comments.
-Aesthetically, looks too much like you’re trying to keep up with the worst trends in web design.
Y’all’s determination to promote the original features is clashing with the site’s basic function of us being able to browse and read what’s interesting to us in a manner that is convenient for us, the audience.
You said we’d get rid of complaints, and when that didn’t happen and your posting was made fun of–with a silly gif!–you just got upset at that instead.
Other people are making perfectly reasonable criticisms of the new design, but you’re basically the only person here who was weird and hostile about it. I think you’d be happier if you didn’t keep searching for the next thing to be upset about.
I agree with IsolatedGestalt. While I appreciate that you may not be intending to have a clickbait site, setting BoingBoing up like one doesn’t especially bode well. Especially with today’s article
It Came from the Faucet
‘There’s something nasty in the water, but Maggie Koerth-Baker has you covered’
Big scary picture. Headline from Buzzfeed. ZERO content. That… that is clickbait, and that makes your intentions not especially reassuring.
I disagree that Maggie’s article is “zero content” clickbait. The quality of her work is incredible, which is why she’s a Nieman Foundation Fellow at Harvard.
The other features today include a 5000-word longread from Mark Dery about lawns, a chapter from an unpublished Mickey Spillane novel, an anonymous lament about poverty, and an article about Sailor Moon and america’s love for anime. Calling this kind of material clickbait doesn’t make sense, really – it seems rather kneejerky.
Mileage may vary on the design, but the idea that we’re just publishing clickbait just suggests that you haven’t chosen to read it. Give it a try.
What you’ve done needs a name, examples of what it is are like when you move into a clean uncluttered new cubicle and in six months every available inch is covered in shit. . .
maybe a better example can be seen by stopping by your local liquor store - see all the signs, you can’t even see in the window anymore. . . just my opinion.
I want to like this redesign, but it’s visually very confusing to me. I don’t want to miss articles because of the layout, which I’m now afraid will happen. The smaller column is one that most websites use for links to old articles or menus or such. That doesn’t appear to be happening here, but I’m having a hard time determining where the chronological news is and where the featured stories are and so forth.
I don’t dislike the design, but a first glance it’s missing visual cues for navigation that makes things difficult for me.
The article might be wonderful, but lots of people here are telling you that the link to it on the main page comes across as little more than clickbait. Have another look at it:
It Came from the Faucet
‘There’s something nasty in the water, but Maggie Koerth-Baker has you covered’
You honestly don’t see it? If the link from the main page is clickbaity, why should I go read the article on the off chance it’s not.
You missed my point. I’m not talking about the quality of the article at all. Maggie does great work, and the piece by Mark Dery was excellent.
I’m saying that the layout and presentation of the front page showcases their (excellent) work badly. The front page itself is what has zero content.
‘There’s something nasty in the water, but Maggie Koerth-Baker has you covered’ tells me nothing. It’s non-descriptive, and is just a cheap come-on to get me to click. The previous front page would show substantive content from an article and then have a ‘read more’ to continue, which was excellent. If the new layout preserved that, I’d be very happy with it.
