Not an improvement.
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Now I can see the actual design I don’t mind it. I too prefer the one-column chronology view and will be using that, but this is a clean redesign which makes the content very neat and I think it achieves the zine-ification goals of the brief. Personally I hated the infinite scroll when it was first implemented, but now I’m actually wishing it was still in the classic view.
The only thing I really dislike about the new post layout is the full bleed title graphic, but it’s more of a pet peeve than a practical problem. It’s impossible to fulfil the promise of full bleed images perfectly because if you are going to serve a post image that is done justice on a large screen, you’re going to be serving image files that are unacceptably large in file size. It’s the ultimate catch-22: Responsive design solutions to the multiple screen size problem that ends up looking the least impressive on what is supposed to be the most impressive display.
I’d also encourage you to consider including more of the post content in the new style as information trumps cleanliness IMO. Anyway… keep it up people. Despite what the haters say I think you’re doing a good job. I especially like the new mouseover style of the header logo.
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that’s as maybe, but it looks smaller
yes yes, a thousand time yes! admit you were wrong, hit control z, and for the flying spaghetti monster’s sake give us back our boing boing, not this nasty generic looking hodge podge of a website
Man, read the thread. You can still get the classic version at http://boingboing.net/page/1
PS: You going to show us the sites you’ve designed?
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Drifting away here too. Been an RSS subscriber for years now.
The signal to noise ratio here has gone to crap recently, between the limiting of RSS atoms to only an article teaser (to drag folks from the feed to the page) and the addition of a lot of mainstream be coverage (TV shows??? Cool tools???) I don’t love the new design, but maybe I’m the dinosaur here – I just want to read the content here the way I want to,but that founding ideal doesn’t fit with the new, more corporate-friendly BB.
Doctorow enticed me here. Beschizza thrilled me with the ‘Make’-y-ness. Xeni was up and down, and always very, very human. And Maggie Koerth-Baker was intelligent, insightful, and delightful to her core.
But I have no need for BB to attempt to constrain the way I read. And I have no need for the racy, edgy, techy BB to become the new TV Guide.
So long, and thanks for all the articles… I’m off in search of the new edge. And fish!
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You can switch your RSS feed to Boing Boing and it will be the same as before.
Yeah, I’m not a fan. Reminds me of how a page looks when the CSS doesn’t load.
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What the hell have you done!?
This used to be a great site that would show articles by date order so you could launch the site and keep reading the new articles until you reached an article you had already seen.
Now it’s just a random list of articles from 1884, 1775, 1994, 1944.
What the!?
FAIL!
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Not quite the classic version… but close enough. The synopsis’ are much shorter now. But at least we can see the images without clicking through for the thumbnail images.
re: “…show us the sites you’ve designed…”
I wasn’t aware that non-vitriolic criticism was limited to only specialists in any given field. IMO the re-design is terrible - and since they’ve supplied us with a venue - I’m letting them know. Simple as that.
They won’t change it back unless the overall revenue drops anyway - they’ve made it clear that they (oddly) like the new look. You want something positive? I’m PLEASED that they have /page/1 as an option at all.
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On second thoughts …
Firstly, I believe it is the same thing as the classic but with slightly different CSS. The post summaries are shorter, but that’s only because they’ve been written shorter. If you go to posts from a month ago you’ll see the summaries are the same now as they were then (i.e. not shorter).
Anyone is free to criticise, but my point was that it seems his criticism is coming from the perspective of someone who’s never had to design a website. It’s not easy. Design sacrifices have to be made. No one ever agrees on everything. If you’ve not done it before you’ve likely go NFI about the challenges one faces. It’s not like laying out a graphic in photoshop (which, BTW, most people can’t do either) it’s a fucking mission to make something that works nicely across browsers and devices while not being derivative.
In any case the criticism was not “non-vitriolic” … Both he and Dr_Awkward expressly stated the designers who worked on this were unilaterally “wrong”, that all their work was for nothing and that they should go back to the old style, which they courteously left running on a different URL to give users choice. How many other sites have undergone redesigns and left the classic version there for those who prefer that? He also referred to it as a “nasty, generic-looking hodge podge”… hardly a ringing endorsement.
There’s a thing called constructive criticism and those comments are definitely not it.
Hm… u got a screenshot? That sounds super strange… This is what it looks like for me:
cxlknclxn sxclknd
I usually don’t have a problem with redesigns but this one really pains me. Boing Boing has been one of my favorite sites for a long time and one of the very few that I actually still visited instead of consuming via RSS. Visited more than once a day. I would much rather read than click through. If I need to click through, I want to be fairly certain that it will be worth doing so. With the old design, it was completely clear when I’ve reached what was the first story on my last visit. With the new design, the visual and textual cues are too small and the page is too cluttered to make this as easy as it needs to be. I come to this site as often as I do for what is now in the left column. That when the most valuable part of your site is and it is the part that should be given the most real estate. I know you are very proud of your work on this design and I know from personal experience what that feels like. And I know how it bad feels when you’re told that a design you truly love doesn’t work for others the way it works for you. So I’m sorry to have to say that this is a step in the wrong direction and I think it will damage Boing Boing’s value over the long term. Please put it back the way it was.
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We haven’t changed our feature excerpt format for years, as far as I can tell. Here’s six months ago:
http://boingboing.net/category/feature/page/5
Here’s 18 months ago: http://boingboing.net/category/feature/page/15
But now it’s “clickbait”
Posted approximately two hours after (almost) completely reversing course from:
… The complaint that started the whole thread. A complaint that was made before fully viewing or using the redesigned site.
It just seems like you’re literally the last person who’s in a position to go full-smarm on this one…
Please, tell us more about how to engage in “constructive” critiques.
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Oh thank you for pointing this out. Call me old and crotchety, but I love it that way. Thank you! Now changing my BB bookmark to reflect.
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Two hours? Are you having trouble counting?
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The “complaint” was made when the site was borked because the CSS had been pushed in a way that wasn’t working. That’s why the web team would be freaking out, trying to revert, Einstein.
Pootsnpans’ criticism was constructive because it included suggestions and reasons for his dislike… not just generalised buzz-words that designers laugh at because they’re meaningless.
Nice try though bro… you got any others?
I’m sure it must be irritating to work on something, roll it out, and then hear near-unanimous complaints.
Most of my working life has been spent in the service economy. Some of my employers took a govern-by-comment-card approach to making decisions. This was often incredibly frustrating and discouraging, because the only people who fill out comment cards are pissed-off people. And owners who switched tack with every new (usually negative) comment just made it worse. So, the stated desire to stick with the new format is understandable and laudable.
That said, I’m immensely grateful that the alternate link has been made available, and I’ve changed my bookmark accordingly. The redesign was so painful to look at/comprehend that I dropped from checking boingboing like, every 30 minutes, to only checking back maybe once, twice a day (mostly just to see if it had changed back).
I’m sure those in charge will be tracking visits to the various versions, as they evaluate the success of the new design. Right?
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I wasn’t referring to your thread-starting comment (listed in your helpful screenshot as “2d”). I was referring to the comment hours later (as of this typing, listed at “1d”), where you seemingly reversed course (saying that you actually liked the new design, etc.), and the comment going after @Job (listed at “22h”). So, if a vague “1d” can be thought to mean “~ 24 hours,” yeah… Two hours.
(Oh look! They’re actually timestamped [5/7/14, 8:42 --> 10:54]! How many hours is that? I’m bad at counting.)
And here’s the thing: Before posting my criticism of your criticism of Job’s criticism, I read through the thread more than once, precisely because I had a suspicion that your initial criticism was maybe an inside joke. And at no point between comment #1 and your apparent reversal did you offer even a modest hint that you started off in jest. As a Certified Master of Internets, you must be aware that 1) everyone else is not you/in your head, and 2) therefore, intent is often difficult to determine. I did my due diligence; at a certain point it’s not my problem that you can’t express yourself in a way that avoids confusion.
You’re right about at least one thing, though; we’re not all in your awesome little club.
Shucks.
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