After about two years we decided to do a makeover of the front page of OSNews. This new design focuses more on the original content we host rather than the previous “newsbits”/portal nature of OSNews. Let’s just say that we try to have a… mini focus shift.Another reason that led us to the redesign was the fact that we noticed that many readers are “missing” stories sometimes and even submit news for stories that are already in our front page. This happens because many users generally don’t… scroll enough (we usually post 10 stories per day so some scrolling was required with the old design). This new design will be able to make visible all recent stories at a glance, with less scrolling.
Additionally, we had to find a way to fit the big 728×60 ads (the normal size ads just don’t pay well the last few years from what I hear), so a rearranging of the menu had to be done too.
We know that not everyone is going to like the new front page of OSNews, so this is why we have left the previous front page intact. So, if you don’t like the new default look, bookmark the old one (no, we are not going to offer cookie-based preferences, so don’t ask ;).
Some users argued that the new design requires more clicks and it has smaller descriptions, and this is true. It is the same way sites like Newsforge and News.com or InfoWorld are designed. To read a story fully or get access to the external links, you will have to click through (except if you are using the old layout).
Please note that the rest of the pages and the mobile version of the site will remain the same, only the front page and the menu received an update.
If you would like to get rid of the ads and the sidebar, you can subscribe to OSNews for a year for only $20. Here is a demo of how it looks like without the ads.
I don’t know how many times I have stopped scrolling because I have seen a story I have already read.
“Okay”, I think, “these must be the new ones above the one I have already read.”
Then I notice there are new stories that I haven’t read below the “old one” that I have already seen.
The reason is that you have pushed those red, osnews only, stories more toward the top.
So I have to go through the ones under the old one too.
Stop doing this. I want to read the news, it’s fine that it is yours, but quit moving it around, I only read it once, and check the comments many times.
Don’t worry I’ll see that it is yours, and I’ll read it if it is interesting. Just don’t move it up so I have to ignore it again if it is boring.
Also, the preview button could use a spell check.
>could you make it so it dynamically resizes the area so there isn’t a box of white
No, I can’t. That code comes from an external server and I can’t manipulate it.
Then fix the code on the external server.
That was tough!
Pardon me but I can not see the rationale for the change: One still needs to scroll down to see the contents in the new design. Additionally, two columns are hard to overview with such a small design.
Thus I think even more people will overlook stories now.
Also, OSNews looses its main “selling advantage” with the new design: a sufficient introduction and only one click needed to read the whole story.
The seperation of original content and other news might also lead to visually ignore a part of the page just like one ignores most ads now. One the other hand, the red headline was easy to notice.
So thank you very much to let people still use the old design.
Btw, is the preview for comment also new? If so, thanks very much for it, too.
Well i find the old design easier to read, but also understand the need to improve/change design… so as long as articles are at same quality i dont care if it were in pure ascii (i would like that @ most)
))
>Then fix the code on the external server.
It is not my server you genious. It is an ad server, we don’t have access to it.
The dark grey menu items are hideous
the logo looks constipated in the upper left
I see you’ve made the two columns into one. So it seems you’ve fixed the first problem (wanting the original content to stand out more), but not the second (too much scrolling to read articles). In fact, I think this new way might actually require more scrolling than did the old page.
A lot much better now. 🙂
The first thing I got in my face when I came here was a huge BUY WINDOWS XP banner. It just doesn’t feel right anymore…
I like the newest design much better than the one that was temporarily up yesterday. As many have noted, reading top to bottom is much easier than left-right, down, left-right, down or down all the way to the bottom, scroll back up, and then go down again.
For users of mozilla and firefox browsers, it’s worth noting that you can add make a bookmark to http://www.osnews.com/home2.php, and then make the keyword osnews.com, which will effectively set your layout to this one, unless you type out http://www.osnews.com.
I see you’ve made the two columns into one.
Yep, I like it better!
In fact, I think this new way might actually require more scrolling than did the old page.
Which old one? If you mean by home2.php, then nope it’s lesser to scroll in newer. The demo.html, it’s almost same but little more scroll. I don’t care how long scroll it is.
Anyway, the lastest one looks a lot better but how about get the ‘More original content recently:’ seperate from the two column in the top? They are touch to each others.
Indeed! The one-column design is much better! Now, if only there were more “preview” text for each article…
I very rarely read a full article. Instead I read the short 6 or 7 lines in each item on the front page instead, then I read the comments. That’s enough for me. the new short news item form is no use to me. I would need to navigate into each news item to read whats its really about. If it stays as short as this I’m gone. Its more like an index of news rather than a news page.
Could Mobile News not get a place up in the header menu?
Now, if only there were more “preview” text for each article…
Maybe they want more clicks to give them more ad impressions.
>Could Mobile News not get a place up in the header menu?
It does not. What exactly do you mean?
I agree..
If it stays as short as this I’m gone.
I guess, it explains why you need to read the full story. 😛 You still can visit to http://www.osnews.com/home2.php instead, which is what I already have bookmarked it.
This new page throughly sucks in all ways imaginable compared to older.
We do it the same way as Newsforge and news.com does it: if you want to get links or read more on a newsbit, you will need to click read more.
Sorry for being vague.
I would like to see a direct link to Mobile Computing News in the top menu. I read it often but its always at the left bottom and sometimes completly disapears.
I use Mozilla FireFox 0.8 btw
The new design of the site isn’t bad, but as previous posters have said you need to work in the ads so they’re less prominent. That “BUY WINDOWS XP” is just a disgraceful thing to have on a site about general operating systems.
Also, I noticed you have a white border surrounding all the headlines. To the left of each headline, it encompasses the corresponding artical logo. However, to the right it doesn’t cover anything. This looks kind of awkward…white to the left of the articals, nothing to the right. I’d suggest expanding the white border a bit to the right.
Either that, or the page doesn’t render correctly with epiphany 1.0.7 on Fedora Core 1.
The new mobile computing box is now seen more often, because it is added on every “story” page and on other pages too.
Unfortunately there is no available space to add one more link on the menu.
thanks for choosing single column over dual, it’s a lot easier to read now!
This new layout is disgusting. Even at 1600×1200 the top bar on the page stays mashed all together in such away that it becomes terribly cluttered. The top bar is also very hard to distinguish from the advertisments, because they are slammed together while everything else is spaced too far apart(Aside from the original content boxes, which are mashed into the “more original content box”). In the top bar under the OSNEWS logo the text is so small it’s just a blur at 1600×1200. The text box with the “go” button is so small that I can’t even type “windows” in their without my text being wider than the box. All the news items have only a sentence or less for me to read before I can deem wether or not reading it is warranted. 90% of the original content on OSnews over the past couple years has been terrible or flame bait, why would the view now be switched to focus on the worst feature of osnews? There is so much wrong with this new layout I don’t think it can ever be fixed. Just revert it. If I came to osnews.com for the first time today, I would be confused by the layout, think it looked hideous, and not come back.
That “BUY WINDOWS XP” is just a disgraceful thing to have on a site about general operating systems.
What would you prefer? BUY VIAGRA ONLINE?
I don’t like MS ads, but at least they are related to the contents of the site. OSNews readers are a good target group for OS ads right?
Since everyone else is throwing in their 2 cents, I might as well…
Eugenia, I like the way the new design looks. I think it’s an improvement. I also like the fact that OSNews original content is differentiated from other news sources. And like others here, I like the one-column look much better than the two-column look, though I didn’t hate the two-column all that much.
My only complaint/suggestion: if you could find a way to include more of the article abstracts on the main page, that’d be great. In my opinion, it’s the only thing done better on the old page than on the new. If you can’t, no big deal – you’re keeping the old design up anyway, so I don’t understand why people are complaining so much.
Thanks for all the hard work – nice job.
Great work Eugenia, keep up the good work.
Much better
Looks great!
>Unfortunately there is no available space to add one more
>link on the menu.
I understand.
Could you make a link from Mobile News back to OsNews or
open Mobile news in a separate window/tab? Because once you are in Mobile News there is no link back to OsNews or am i missing something?
Really i like it.
Althought i still don’t know what kudos means, i give them to you (also for the great articles you have written till now)
btw – recently updated to fc2 test 2 and now, when visited osnews page i feel just like in the new file selector of gnome
regarding banners – is it ok, that i use mozilla adblock to not see them (at all, collapsed – nothing, nada, zipolo)?
Mobile Computing News does not show up on the main page anymore is that correct?
>Could you make a link from Mobile News back to OsNews or
Check now.
>Mobile Computing News does not show up on the main page anymore is that correct?
No, not anymore. It is on many new pages though, like the story.php though. There is no vertical space left to put another box.
i even didn’t knew, that osnews has forums (just reading the articles)
The osnews logo at the top looks squished.
The text “Exploring the future of computing” is small and hard to read.
I like the xandros icon, but the user still seems a bit confused 😉
The featured articles at the top seem too small and squished. I liked the old format of running aross the screen in one column. Side by side is not good for me.
Today’s Headlines graphic is good, but the headlines are not.
The seem to be all on one giant piece of paper, kind of like a giant unrolled scroll, and the icons seem to float to the left of the story. The stories don’t have enough seperation from each other.
The old way was much better. Each story was seperated from the rest, each box was discrete, seperate. The icon was included in the upper left corner, making it a whole “box” object.
Perhaps if you want to focus on your featured articles have them across the top of the page, and seperate them form new stories (maybe a separating line) , and get rid of the colum view.
You could go with a new modern format, and direct those with old browsers to the mobile site.
In conclusion, I’m sticking with the old site.
Great Tnx for that.
You almost sold me a subscribtion
Time to give credit where credit goes, i do often not agree with you and many articles here but i do want to thank you for all your work. Esp. for bringing news about underdog operating systems.
Much better, but I still have some complaints.
You need to separate the top menu from the top ad. It looks like it’s part of the ad and it’s hard to notice.
The 2 “original content” boxes over the headlines also looks like ads IMHO. You could keep them as two separate boxes, but perhaps you could include a header similar to “today’s headlines” and put them inside a larger white box? This way it would be similar to the headlines section, and would be easier to notice I think.
I would also like a longer description from the articles. Perhaps it would help if you didn’t do an automatic cut from the original article, but write your own short description to be used on the front page?
(sorry for being fragmetaric) (pardon my english)
Sorry to be critical, but my initial reaction to the “new” design (or the one up when I had a look at 2150 BST today) was.. yuck. Hopefully here are some constructive criticisms to explain my reaction:
1. The new top bar is hideous. I understand the need to have larger ads, although I echo the views that Google text ads should be considered. However, the logo and links just look horrible on that flat grey background.
2. When I visit a website, I like to have a good idea of what I want from it. With OSNews, I come looking for.. OS News. With the new design, my eyes just don’t know where to start looking. There are two boxes tiled horizontally, with a box spanning them underneath. Then we have a white headline box beneath. It is no longer in chronological order. I just don’t know what too look at, or what I am looking at.
The old design was by no means faultless, but the new one is just confusing, and ugly. How about an OS News design competition?
For Mozilla/Firefox users
1. Get AdBlock. Block the string ‘ShowBurstAd’
2. No more hideous white rectangle / ad
3. ???
4. Enjoy browsing OSNews
yuck
What hideous white rectangle? Oh yeah, this is firefox I’m using.
>I would also like a longer description from the articles
I am afraid that this won’t happen for a number of reasons, some already discussed in the article.
>What hideous white rectangle?
I changed ad providers now and it doesn’t show the big white ad space. Unfortunately, if the OSNews publisher asks me to put back the other ad provider, it will show again.
I don’t like the new design at all. Sorry Eugenia
As well as the preview capabilities for comments…OSNews has become (even) more user-friendly!
Also, the bright colours hurt my eyes and the way the icons you have outside the table doesn’t look good. My opinion.
Any chance we could at least have a tooltip with a bit more of the article text. Personally I’d rather have to scroll than to have so little of it.
I also wonder if it might be better if the icons for the stories were inside the boxes.
What a huge improvement from the first version you put online earlier today. Congratulations for the great work Eugenia, OSNews is fantastic.
The right side of news post boxes is directly touching / going over at bottom, the right border of overall table
I believe there should be at least 1px space there
Using Mozilla 1.7b build/20040316
This is absolutely amazing! I saw it earlier today and I thinking about removing the bookmark, but now it’ll definitely statly there!
Gooooooooood work!
I’ve gotta say I really, really don’t like it.
I don’t think I’ll be back, sorry.
I don’t read the register specifically because I have a hard time with the multi-column layout. I keep coming back to this new OS News layout, and I keep automatically ignoring the two columns above the one column. I think I’m used to things in that part of such a layout being adverts.
>The right side of news post boxes is directly touching / going over at bottom, the right border of overall table
It supposed to do that.
(if I understood correctly)
Awful…crude and ugly proberly being better descriptions. The new header bar in all versions reminds me of the usual crude setups from Windows 3.1
Since ‘Original Content’ is usually an opinion, you might want to split the sites to ‘OS News’ remaining for the old design site and ‘OS Opinions’ for the new design site.
I have reset my bookmark to /home2.php where it will stay.
If you don’t like it go http://www.osnews.com/home2.php
i dont liek the new design
Eugenia,
What OS and software package did you use for the “new” design/layout for the site ???
Thanks for leaving the popup ads on the page, I really love reading those -:)))))
>What OS and software package did you use for the “new” design/layout for the site ???
I used notepad.exe and PaintShopPro 5.x on my XP PRO and I tested the site with IE, Mozilla and all its Gecko variations under multiple OSes, Safari, iCab, OmniWeb (could someone please try the site with Omniweb pre-4.x and send me a screenshot?), NetPositive, Dillo, Netfront, Konqueror, Netscape 3/4, Opera 6/7 (could someone try it with opera 3.x on beos and send me a shot too?) and others.
>Thanks for leaving the popup ads on the page, I really love reading those
You can always purchase the ad-free version of OSNews, or use a mobile version that doesn’t have ads.
Eugenia,
I *literally* cannot focus my eyes to read the new design. I know others are kvetching about it, but I really cannot read it. My eyes kind of space out and I cannot make sense of the site for several minutes. Its very jarring.
I have to agree that the white space around the story boxes if highly distracting/annoying/bad,bad,bad. This seems to violate every principle of graphic design you speak of in your regular postings.
Also, the ad on the left is often very, very annoying. Its often bright in color (white or neon colors, specifically) and animates very fast. The old site at least had this half-way hidden below a menu box. The problem is, this helps contribute to my inability to focus long enought to read the text in your story boxes.
I understand the need to change formats to help promote original content or play nicely with newer ad formats. Those are realities of your site and the modern web. However, I sincerely hope that you’ll take notice of your regular reader’s complaints. It may also be useful to track the usage of the new page and the home2.php page.
I hope we’re not too critical, as I’m sure everyone here appreciates your hard work and support of active discussion.
I liked the old format better. The page is somehow too busy allthough less busy than the 2 column format. The page is too white and the headline font too small or the description font to big. Or maybe use a different color for the headline as other sites do.
give us back the old design….I dislike the new one!
Why not:
$message = str_replace(“:)”,”<img src=smile.png>”,$message);
So that the text smiles get replaced by there graphic counterparts.
Apparently there’s a new look for OSNews today. I was going to rant about it but the post itself and the comments already address this. I’ll add my rant anyway
In summary I find the new design very cute.
Yet it doesn’t really work for me: I like it when each headline has a meaningful description on the first page. It’s helpful to know if I want to click the Read More link or not. On the new design, there’s only one line of text that is most of the time cut with ellipsis… in the middle of a sentence. Which means before I can understand what it is about I have to click the Read More link. Kinda defeats the purpose of a summary in the headline and makes it annoying to browse quickly thru the news.
I guess that’s my only complaint. I like the design and the neat icons otherwise.
All this is obviously addressed by the old layout being accessible. I’m sorry to hear that some users have trouble scrolling down the web page to get more news. no sarcasm here, unfortunately I can understand OSNews desire to address this yet I don’t think it addresses the problem. I’m sure you guys already thouugh of the alternative which is to have a bunch of links for all stories at the top of the page then under it the full headlines as before (with an anchor in the middle for those who want direct access).
Suggestion: make both layout accessible from the main page. In the long term, your web log will simply show which layout is more popular.
And more important I like the effort of OSNews team maintainers/editors/you-name-it. That’s eventually what brings us here, isn’t it?
Great. Halff of my screen real estate is wasted with useless green background left and right of where supposedly content is. Only that the content was replaced with a list of links to articles. In other words, there isn’t anything to read here anymore unless I open a shitload of tabs. Thanks, I go elsewhere from now on.
> Great. Halff of my screen real estate is wasted with useless green background left and right of where supposedly content is
This just means that you are using a browser that doesn’t support ads. Not my fault if you are using non-JS browser or if you are using third party hacks to remove ads.
This is better now. Another recommendation is to enlarge the search field as it’s cramped. You should also work on creating drop down menus for the top page tool bar. At present it appears cluttered which is difficult on readers eyes. Sorting the catagories into 4 or 5 drop down menus should clean up the pages.
Cheers
This redesign is just plain nasty. Hard to look at, hard to navigate. I won’t be here much anymore if this keeps up
>Another recommendation is to enlarge the search field as it’s cramped.
Unfortunately this does not play well with all browsers. If I make it one size bigger, some browsers break the Go button to the next line making the whole thing looking terrible.
>You should also work on creating drop down menus for the top page tool bar.
I don’t understand this. What do you mean? Put the menus on a drop dowm menu?
Please, please, please go back to the old site. I can’t stand this much longer.
>Unfortunately this does not play well with all browsers. If I
>make it one size bigger, some browsers break the Go button to
>the next line making the whole thing looking terrible.
You should use a style option for the field, like <input type=text style=width:110;> then al browser will show the input field 110 pixels width.
Works fine in konq HEAD branch btw.
I liked being able to read a brief description w/o actually having to click to read the article.
Just not as good, bad design decision, IMO.
i understand that the osnews-team wanted to put their pro-stories on the top of the page. But I think they missed something: my eyes “fly” over the page towards the stories and I miss the area with the original content.
I would suggest that the stories should be mixed – like before. But that the “original” content should be indicated by a special background color.
only my 2 cents
Yeah I am feeling the same “phenomenon”, my brain processes that block as “advertisement” and end up skipping it completely. The same happens with the 2 “special” news on top.
Still I appreciate the effort Eugenia put today to improve the original change. I’m not sure I would be so patient about all the bashing.
Live long and prosper, OSNews
As some others have mentioned:
Too busy.
Too much white around news blurbs.
Summary is useless with it getting cut off halfway through a sentence.
Eugenia,
The new new style is worlds better than the old new style. Thank you very much. Going from the two columns to a single column is a 10 point gain in usability for me. The boxes and the additional descriptive text are both 5 point gains in usability for me.
I do have to requests or comments on things that I’d personally still like to see a bit different. An 8 point problem for me is still the relatively little descriptive text. If it has to be so little, could it be the first two complete sentences? There is some substantial cognitive dissonance for me associated with reading an incomplete sentence. And the cognitive dissonance is much worse when it ends with an incomplete word.
I would love to see, as a rule, the complete first two sentences. If this is not possible, show me only the first sentence if the second will not be complete, and if that is not possible, please only truncate the second sentence after a complete word, not in between the letters.
Now, I expect you will tell me that you can’t use the two complete sentence rule because you are trying to achieve a fixed height for each item box. I understand that, but could you use up more of the space that is there? Perhaps it is browser dependant, but the short descriptive text for me most often wraps after the first line and uses 10% of the second before it trails off…. Something much better for me would be to go ahead and use at least 80-90% of that second line, since you’re using some of it in the first place.
And then a minor 2 point peeve: While the boxes around the items are a vast improvement, I’d like to see at least some (can be small) space between the ending of the item box’s right side and the box for the whole Today’s Headline Sections. This is hard to describe in words but:
| @ [ blah blah ]|
instead of
| @ [ blah blah |
where @ is the icon
Just to recap, massive gains made, a significant irritant still there, and a couple possible minor improvements possible. Thanks for being so responsive!
Could the links in non-original articles be forced onto the front page? I don’t want to have to open a link to read half a sentence and find another link.
I don’t think it would lengthen the front page too much if the descriptions below the headlines where two lines long instead of just one line. This would resolve the problem a lot of people, myself included, are having with the descriptions being too short. I don’t mind the current design, even though my eyes do jump directly to “Today’s Headlines” so the changes for the top are a little counter intuitive, as long as something is done to make the description text more useful. Two lines would ensure that at least the first sentence isn’t being cut off.
If its not broken dont fix it !!!
New layout is a pain, I may even have to fun another news site covering the same info
This makeover is a disaster. Whats with all the 20pixel gaps between frames? Talk about wasted space. The ad at the top – so 90’s. And why on earth shrink the site’s logo down? Doesn’t make sense.
I’m using FireFox and the site is very nice to look at with no ads. I just don’t like ads.
But still, the old design was better, easyer on the eyes.
The design is okay, howeveer with the huge banner in the middle of the page in the left column it pushes the comments off the screen. Sure, i can scroll over with the bottom scroll bar, but i liked it cenetered as it used to be. This makes it harder to read imho.
Just change it back. Theres too many lines and stuff It’s not simple anymore. I dont like the top bar. It’s all upsetting to me and alot of others. Why ‘O why even have the new one up if everyone is complaining? no offense or anything. you could sell it as a template
The top bar is the only thing that upsets me.
On my Mozilla 1.6 it doesn’t push anything aside. OSNews always needed 800pixels wide to render the full page, this requirement has not changed.
If you do indeed have rendering problems, send me a screenshot and your version of mozilla.
I gotta get accostumed I think
It wasn’t until I actually came in here and read the comments that I realized those two large boxes at the tope WEREN’T ads. Sorry, but the way their positioned and styled screams AD to me, so I didn’t look at them.
Is there supposed to be an ad in the space above pricegrabber?
I’ve turned off ad blocking in my browswer and firewall and looked at it in IE no ad on the left.
It seems it’s not easy to tell what that the seach feature is actually for searching.
It looks like it’s for advertising or submitting news. It should be more clearly labeled as a way to search.
>Is there supposed to be an ad in the space above pricegrabber?
Yes.
I find it more difficult to read, when there is some text to read.
If I complain is because I like your site and I want to keep visiting it. Compare it to the blogs and the old layout (and slashdot) and you will see that it’s very strange and different.
Well, good luck with it
Hey, the new new design is much nicer. The lighter grey links are good, and the logo having a light grey backgound makes it all blend together better. However, I’m not sure the new 1-column list is much of an improvment over the 2-column format. The way I see it, you have only 2 options:
1. Make you have to scroll as little as possible. Two-columns is good for this.
2. Give you as much information as possible. The *old* one-column view is good for this.
Right now, you have to scroll a lot and you get very little information. The worst of two worlds, IMHO.
I think I’ll be using home2.php for now.
Regards,
Jared
Ech …. I cant stand it. The new look is way too annoying for my eyes. It just looks too busy, focusing away from content rather than to it. You end up looking at the article icons more than the summary blurb. Which is pretty useless by the way, have forced to click read more at every single article, what a waste of time. If there was’t home2, i’d be gone by now.
If there wasn’t a home2, I’d be gone as well. The new design is really, really nasty.
The new new design is an improvement over the new design, but I would say that you should repeat the ‘original’ stories in the headlines list below. Reason being, as many people have stated already, I don’t see myself reading the top section at all. And I don’t want to miss those stories.
Drop down menus:
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=29835
http://www.dmxzone.com/ (see the tutorials)
WTF? You can’t even get to stories’ links without clicking on “Read More.” This is seriously annoying. Either put the links at the beginning of the summary or better yet allow more than one line of the post to show up on the home page!
>Well its obviously a ploy to get more advertising hits.
There is no ploy. Among the targets of this site *is* to get some profit too (I am not the owner btw), so what more natural but to try to maximize advertising income while minimizing our two main problems:
1. People missing news stories because they don’t scroll and they re-submit the same news over and over
2. We have a policy to not post new news items for 5 hours from the moment an “original” article was posted. This results to being “slow” to post news. The new design fixes this problem, because originals and newsbits are now seperate.
>Drop down menus:
Sorry, no DHTML on this site please.
Agreed, 3 cheers for home2.php .
Eugenia, please revert to the old site, or make the new site more usable, not less so.
I’m sure some of us could help you redesign it with better use of featured items, other news, and ad space.
Right now it’s fugly
The Good and The Bad
Starting from the top and then moving left to right
Problem: The big ad joined to the osnews menu. The fact that it is big is not the problem, but that it is one with the menu.
Fix: There need to be space between the ad and the menu, or perhaps you could even move it below the menu.
Problem: If you have the text enlarged enough in firebird 0.8, and maybe other mozilla based browsers, eventually the ad text will collide, and go under, the menu. At least on the google syndication, RedHat text ad.
Fix: There need to be space between the ad and the menu, or perhaps you could even move it below the menu.
Praise: I like the overall look of the menu.
Small Annoyance: The OSNews logo is small, squished, text hard to read.
Fix: Make it bigger.
Major Annoyance: The seach is an UNLABLED box with the word Go! beside it.
Fix: Move it, maybe even above the ad on the left, and LABEL it. Users will be less confused, and the advertisers will like you even more because the users have to practicly look at an ad to search.
Praise: I like the big featured article icons.
Annoyance: At first glance the featured articles look like ads. The 2 column view is only alright.
Fix: Stacking them in one column would be better. You could still leave them above the featured headlines.
Small Annoyance: The OSNews originals are just don’t seem right.
Praise: The Today’s Headlines icon is nice.
Problem: One sentence is too little informaion.
Fix: Go back to the old style, or expand it to two sentences.
Annoyance: The icons are outside of the box that the story is in.
Fix: Maybe you could move them inside. It’s cold outside.
Big Annoyance: There is very little seperation between news items! Too much white !
Fix: You could change the Today’s Headlines to black and flood the surroundind area with grey. It could cut down on the white glare and provide instant seperation, it will also make the icons look more in (the right) place, although it may mess with the osnews icon since it has grey in it.
Small Annoyance: Hover text just says:Related Stories
Fix: “(More)Windows Stories” “(More)Suse Stories”
As you can see I have put a lot of thought into this, so I would appriciate it if you took the time to consider my ideas.
Small Annoyance: “Read news posted the last seven days” should be seperated, or distiguished from the rest of the news.