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.
“There is no ploy. Among the targets of this site *is* to get some profit too…”
Well how much profit are you going to make when people can’t stand coming back here?
trolling?? Fine, I just deleted my osnews bookmark, you wont have to deal with my “trolls” again.
>Well how much profit are you going to make when people can’t stand coming back here?
Exactly the same as before: ZERO
I do not receive any money from OSNews, and never did. All the work I do here is voluntary.
>Fine, I just deleted my osnews bookmark
Goodbye! Don’t forget to write us!
Hey, actually if you got rid of the advertisement at the very top and put it at the bottom it would be AWSOME.
I take back my old comments, the design is actually pretty but the top ad confuses me. I’m sorry but thats the problem I have.
That’s my only complaint.
thanks!
>Hey, actually if you got rid of the advertisement at the very top and put it at the bottom it would be AWSOME.
I can’t. The osnews owner (that’s not me) has specific contracts as to where ads are supposed to show.
I initially had the 120×600 ad bellow Pricegrabber but I was asked to put it on top of it as this is what the contract dictated.
This is rediculous! A poster by the name of Kyle gave some constructive criticism about the lack of Web Standards being used. The link to the comment is
http://osnews.com/moderation.php?news_id=6584#219727 here
The post was not off topic, nor overly offensive (there is surely many more offensive comments in the 200+ still remaining)
It’s enough to make me not want to come back without an apology for the moderation and returning it to its place.
If someone wants to make a comment about lack of web design and standards in a story about the new design of the webpage, whats wrong with that?!
Bill
in firebird, the top bar has 2 little tables that just stick out. also sometimes when i use the backbutton the ads dissappear and the page goes to the right… i think its a firebird issue. i should upgrade, eh?
anyway, the top advertisements confuse me alot and its all way too flashy.. i know its there before but the top tables/buttons/list bar thing whatever up there makes it seem too croweded.. you really must understand but its really OSNEW’s business and you can do whatever you want ill still read it 10 times a day.
I do miss the big logo too, its just so attractive.
anyway thats the only problems. people are just afraid of change, Eugenia, once they get used to it they will love it (if that nasty AD above is moved) hehe. I’m not going to trash it though. people are just acustomed to the same thing over and over. Also, I don’t like to compare OSNews to other sites as they can be confusing too. rock on
peace
sometimes when i refresh the page the ads mess up. I dunno why. what did you use to make this? dreamweaver? it only happens when i refresh the page and/or us the forward refresh. im sure yall will get all the problems worked out. or maybe firebird is just out of date. i dunno
>If someone wants to make a comment about lack of web design and standards in a story about the new design of the webpage, whats wrong with that?!
There WAS a reason why this was modded down, YES. Each time this CSS/XHTML crap are coming about people starting trolling again about it. WE HAVE discussed this issue MANY times in the past: There will be NO CSS/DHTML/XHTML on OSNews. As far as I am concerned, comments about this stuff, is off topic, because it will not change anything and because I have addressed the issue MANY times.
I am really starting to losing my patience here. >:(
The news stories shift to the right in IE and FireFox(sometimes)
I can tell you now that if this design stays unchanged, I will no longer come to osnews.com for tech news. When a page looks more like a bunch of ads than a page of content it loses its appeal, and I’m afraid this design tries harder to push the ads in your face than the other (or at least it feels that way).
Also, I enjoyed the brief synopsis that accompanied each posting here. Now there’s only a partial sentence, which forces me to click “read more” if I want to read the rest. Sometimes you need more than just the first sentence to figure out if it’s worth your time to “read more”, and frankly I don’t like to click.
The old design was so perfect … I hate that you messed with a good thing. Do you really need so many ads? There’s some ad for dollar.com on my screen right now for cars … seriously, who visiting osnews.com would ever click that ad? Use Google text-based ads … they’re the only ads I’ve ever clicked on.
Ahhh,.. everything, looks, works fine. The only problem is the OSNEWS Gif. has to compete with the Ads. It needs to be larger. I can’t tell where I am.
> I am really starting to losing my patience here. >:(
Maybe you should listen to the input from your readers. It seems to me that overwhelmingly people prefer home2.php. That would tell me that maybe something is wrong. Just a suggestion, but switch back to home2, do some more QC and re-iterations based on people’s input, then have a vote and keep doing it till people approve. Without viewers there is no ad revenue – it doesn’t help to chase people away.
People are accustomed to the interface (they are in that state of mind where they can peruse the content without having to size up the interface) – when you f*ck with a good thing, you can easily turn them off.
Agreed.
A redesign? I’d say that’s a bit of an overstatement. Just looks like you modified the layout a little… but a Re-Design? Nope
i dont see why the new design is so bad, makes it easier regarding the article list on the front page.
The only problem is the ad at the top of the page. with the old design it went well, with the new one it seems like it would be better to be on the bottom. Who else has this issue? It’s just that ad at the top nothing more.
Great work on the new design.
I have already answered to this. The ad on top has to stay there because the contract the osnews owner has asks to be there.
I really did like the old layout – simple, to the point. It gave the impression that you as an outspoken nit-picker of interface design actually knew what you were talking about. This thing however will destroy your credibility – please fix it before your next UI rant.
is there a way to make the top advertisement in its own special table rather than hugging the osnews logo and menue? somehow make the advertisement not as large as it can get? just an idea.
The new site is a usability nightmare. For a site that talks about usability quite a bit, you would think they could get the website correct. Of course, correct usability for a website is not the same as usability for a program. The designers of OSnews really do not understand proper web design. The designers only thought about the visual display of the site.
Here are five of the biggest design flaws (the design has thousands):
1. Does not use standard HTML, and uses invalid and deprecated tags. Examples of invalid or deprecated tags: center, b, i, font
2. Ignores proper tags. Headings are not specified with h1,h2,…,h6. Paragraphs are not specified with p. There is no proper hierarchy to the page due to the lack of proper tags.
3. Uses tables for layout instead of for data only and uses nested tables. Tables are not valid for layout and have never been valid for layout. In fact, they should not be used anymore. By using tables, you make your site inaccessible to handicapped individuals who use screen readers. Disgraceful.
4. The site does not use lists (ul, ol, dl) to properly list data. Instead using br to start a new line. Terrible.
5. No DOCTYPE specified. A browser might not be able to properly interpret the data.
I am disgraced by how inaccessible to handicapped individuals. With the amount of resources and information available about proper design, this site literally discriminates against the handicapped.
Proper web designers consider accessibility and content access first and foremost. Layout is important, but always comes second. Clearly, the person who designed this site has NO knowledge of web design.
Here’s what should should be done:
– Standard compliant XHTML (1.0 min) and CSS (CSS 1 is almost 100% supported). By following the standards, the browsers that do not support CSS will degrade nicely but still be able to access the content. Plus, screen readers will easily be able to access the content. By using standards, the site will render faster, be lighter (much smaller in size), and save quite a large amount of money in bandwidth costs.
– Get rid of tables for layout. Use CSS with divs and spans.
– Get rid of deprecated tags and replace them with the proper tags. Completely separating the content from the presentation will enable the site to be updated easier in the future and simply the markup significantly.
For more information, follow these links:
Standards:
http://www.cssvault.com
http://www.csszengarden.com
http://www.weeklystandards.com
http://www.w3.org
http://www.webstandards.org/
http://www.w3.org/
http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/
http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/why-web-standards/ <– some business standards
Acessibility:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
http://bobby.watchfire.com/
http://www.section508.gov/
As I said before, I am highly disappointed with the redesign (the old design was terrible too), and consider it a disgrace.
if your so unhappy, why not click on “view source” in your browser window and show the “webmaster(s)” how wrong they are rather than posting all those links? What makes this design so horrible?! i dont see it It was definately shocking but i got used to it and i like it now.
I agree the site should respect the modern HTML standards from W3C. Not only you would promote the use of modern browsers that respect the satndards, and moreover you would show technical competence. The world changes and does not spin around IE 5. All modern browsers (except one…) make the efforts to comply the W3C recommendations.
On this site we read a lot of articles about usability and GUI design, it would be logical to apply the same recommendation to this site.
I have zero no interest in promoting modern standards. My interest is to be very compatible with f*cked up browsers running on obscure OSes, simply because the users of these OSes are OUR READERS.
Eugenia, the only browser that really lacks support is IE. Most modern browsers that follow the standards from W3C are running on “obscure” OSes, eg take Mozilla :
Win32
Mac OS X
Linux (x86)
Solaris/SPARC
Solaris x86 (All 32 bit x86, including AMD Opteron)
LinuxPPC
OS/2
Just redirect those users to the mobile site(user agent strings?). Unless there is some other problem with this?
Sorry, but the new design is the worst home page I have seen for a long time. The approach of “how many articles can we cram onto one page” doesn’t work. There isn’t enough detail on each article to see whether or not I actually want to read it.
I realise that we can still have the old one, but why not just leave it where it was and have the new one as an “option”?
Well you’ve stated that the CSS, XHTML dixcussion has been done to death. In the interest of being fair, would you be so kind as to point me to these “discussions”? I’d be interesting in looking them over.
Thanks.
it really must be a nightmare for around 300 messages to be posted bashing the webmaster’s attempt to improve the site. Well I think its improved except for the banner hugging the top table at the top.
It really needs its own table.
With the new layout (which I’ve expressed my opinion about previously, so not need to now) I get some odd happenings when I go back to the front page after viewing an article. Here’s a screenshot of what happens:
http://www.missouri.edu/~asg4f8/osnews.jpg
After a refresh things are fine. Is anyone else experiencing this or is this a bug in the Firefox nightly I’m using?
The mix of the new design with one column is great. Nice work Eugenia.
Although I did like the “posted 2 hours ago” method of dates with the new design. Any chance of bringing that back? If it states it in days/hours for up to a week ago, and after that just says the normal date, it would work great (not to mention being easier for people in different timezones.)
(I haven’t read all 200+ comments, so sorry if this has already been addressed)
>Any chance of bringing that back?
that code it’s got a nasty bug, if I can get around it, I might bring it back.
Yes, firefox and IE too.
Read Tim’s post on 2004-04-04 04:07:28 and mine the next one after Eugenia’s.
It happened when I hit the back button I believe(but not all the time). On both IE and Firefox.
The ads are OK (and I don’t block them).
The logo is way to squished and the rest of that button bar is ugly but I could get over it.
The featured articles do look like ads (like low profile ads that some sites use) and my eyes scan right over them.
But I could get used to it I suppose. However …
The headline section is hard to read and mostly useless. You’ve got 3 different font weights/sizes in 3 different colors, divided by multiple lines (one for the top and bottom of each box). It makes it very hard to scan the headlines for interesting content. The one line blurbs are useless. I won’t comment on why that might be better for the site, but it doesn’t make for a pleasant viewing experience. Hell, the archive page is easier to read.
Maybe I’ll check back in a few weeks. Till then I think I’m off to other places.
It’s been fun.
Longhorn!
>Read Tim’s post on 2004-04-04 04:07:28 and mine the next one after Eugenia’s.
Send me screenshots.
I didn’t like it at first, but it’s grown on me. Great job Eugenia!
Hey Eugenia, thanks for the option of bookmarking the old-look OSnews. I understand your reasons for updating but really don’t like the new look.
Old-look OSnews…same interesting site.
Keep up the good work.
If you want to have more stories with less scroll, just remove the first line of each story, and keep only the title.
Because the only first line of story is not enough to give an idea about the content of the story.
i keep the old style (thanx for that) because now, to have a good idea of each content, i shoud click and display it!
What a waste of time !
The old look allow me to read quicklier only what i am interested for.
I think this is an improvement. I especially like the separation of headlines and original content.
Good job.
It’s such a pain to find articles… Maybe some oddballs who forgot to scroll downwards will be happy, but what about the rest of us? Really, it should’ve been put to test, you should say ‘we’re planning some redesign, what do you think’? instead of just forcing it on every reader… The design looks extremely ‘busy’, the top menubar is horrible and unfriendly, the whole site now looks so unfriendly. Please, revert to how it used to be and leave home2 with the new design, people who forgot to scroll (which are in minority) will use it instead. And offer cookie-based preferences for them. Please?
It’s fair enough on the original articles, and some of the longer news reports, but the fink update shows a minor problem. Should people have to click “read more” for the remaining half a sentance? That will just annoy readers.
Otherwise, nice work with the update.
Sorry, OsNews.com used to have one of the best no-nonsense layouts, the ‘new’ one sucks to no end. Keep it, if you want to lose readers.
I will be coming here much less often. I really don’t like the new design.
design bug: Have a look at the linux kernel 2.6.3 article. Even though the whole story is there on the front page, you have to click read more to see the same thing with clickable links. Rather stupid. For very short articles like this and the fink one, you shouldn’t force people to click through to see the links, it’s annoying and bad design.
The colours in this site look a bit pale to me. More contrast to separate the shades of grey and green would be welcome, IMHO. Or perhaps you could add some shades of blue and purple into your palette?
I don’t like the new design..
You know if you pull up the old in one tab, and the new in another. There’s not that great a difference. Looks like it’s basically tweak mode from here on out.
I’m finding this new design much much harder to use. Problems are:
1) The original content section isn’t updated very often, and so if I come to the site regularly it is just a pain to scroll past it to get to the latest news.
2) The original content headlines /without summaries/ are just noise to me, they may as well not be there. I use the context of summaries to decide whether to read more about a story.
3) The news section is hard to scan because the summaries aren’t honed. The Register writes special summaries for its front page, that are well written and even funny, so the headline and three/four word summary convey the story, or are enticing. Just clipping the top of your story, worse in the middle of a word!, doesn’t do that. Solution would be to either restore the complete summaries you had before, or write special shorter summaries.
And no, having home2.php doesn’t help – unless you also add a cookie setting which can make the main home page like that (as the World vs. UK edition on http://news.bbc.co.uk)
Hmm… where to start…
At least I’ve missed the 2-column lay-out 🙂
And as far as ads go… There’s adzapper, and Firefox’s block images from server. If I wanted to see big ads, I’d get me a billboard in my front garden. Flashing/animating ads? that’s what the telly is for.
But to get even more headlines to show without scrolling, how about just leaving out the TOTALLY useless first half sentence?
This bit for example:
Red Hat Linux Loyalists Leery
Two years ago, when Rick Carey was chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch, he wa…
Yes? should I read it or not? what’s it about? oh well. If I want to see headlines, I’d get me an RSS feed.
OSNews degrades to become yet another headline portal. But I suppose that even if most readers disagree, sometimes webmasters need to show that they can do things different, and then keep the change because it was such a lot of work.
I like having a short synopsis of each news item better than no information, but the single line h…
The new design has improved a lot since the first time you made it official. Separating the original content into separate rows really helped a lot. The header and the box around them also makes it more clear that they are a part of the site, and not ads.
Perhaps you could put a few pixels of space between the top menu and the top ad, I don’t know why but it seems like a part of the top ad to me.
LOL! 🙂 sums up the problem very succintly …
I think Eugenia is starting to get it right at this point. For consistencies sake, all icons should be positioned on the left side. Then just change the single line limit for news stories to at least around 3 lines (perhaps use a smaller font like Verdana to make up the room) so we can read more of the stories at a glance.
Being able to skim-read news items on the frontpage without the ‘read more’ has always been OSNews best feature, and works well over at Slashdot too. That’s one thing that really needs to be retained.
LOL that was great.
I also think that the new layout might work a lot better if the summaries would indeed be short summaries in the future instead of just the first line cut from the article.
Aside from that, it’s not bad. Visually it’s definitely an improvement. The top part of the page is pretty heavy now though, if a large ad is displayed I basically see only one of the news headers before I have to scroll. If there will be lots of interesting original content in the future (in other words, not so many one page reviews of well known distributions or rants about why Linux is(n’t) ready for the desktop), then I’ll probably like it.
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.
Oh, I use firefox, see ads, have javascript enabled and there is still a green wasteland left and right of the content. I call it shoddy webdesign.
NO. Don’t like it. I’ve left a few days, but I find I’m not visiting the site half as much. I read the mini reviews to see whether it’s worth reading the rest of the article. But now with one line:
Red Hat Linux Loyalists Leery
“Two years ago, when Rick Carey was chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch, he wa…”
So what’s the article about?
I have Opera automatically open OSNews on start up. I’ve now set it to:
home2.php
With such a narrow (800px hardcoded?) layout, it’s not surprising stories scroll down too fast. Complete summaries was OSNews main quality, it would be better to keep them ! Then use all the browser window, have a smaller space (and less flashy) to separate stories, and remove the “original content” or put it at the end.
I only saw the two-column layout in a screenshot. It could be a solution but then put all the newsbits in one columns (2/3 width) with a design similar to the old site, and the original content in the other column (1/3 width). Both keeping complete sumaries.
I cant get over how many of you say i’m going to go elsewhere if they do not revert to the old format… Go Already!! If the same content was presented better elsewhere you would already be gone so shut up already.
Nice job eugina, i personally like the new look!
Steve
Long time visitor.
I think, the new design (with the 1 column) looks ok, however that what I liked about OSNews is, that for 90% of the stories you didn’t have to click on “read more”
Now, every story has a read more button, if I liked that, I would go to http://www.dailyrotation.com for the headlines only.
However, a big thanks for keeping up home2.php, not many sites allow you to switch back to an old version.
This one is very hard to read, size of the headings are too small… just to say, the new interface of new osnews is bloated… to much things to read before finding something interesting……
It would be fine if home2.php actually was the old version, but it isn’t. It still has the same stupid menu links across the top instead of at the side like the real old layout had.
Thanks for leaving it up. However, I do miss the longer paragraph descriptions.
I’m glad home2.php exists. Please don’t ever take it away.
Eugenia,
You are losing the respect from a lot of readers due to your own attitude and response to their concerns over the new site design. Any Web site that either hires a Web Admin or Moderator for a fee or even voluntary should review the actions taken by their staff. I assume you don’t own this site since by your own comment you stated you are not paid by OSNews and do this voluntarily. Being that is the case then why continue to aggrevate OSNews readers? I thought this site was handled professionally which from your own comments proves that is not the case. Comments such as these (see below) are not appropriate. Continuing with this behavior will only cause the site to not only lose readers but also your sponsored advertisements. Losing reader does affect profits since those readers are no longer clicking your sponsors.
“There WAS a reason why this was modded down, YES. Each time this CSS/XHTML crap are coming about people starting trolling again about it. WE HAVE discussed this issue MANY times in the past: There will be NO CSS/DHTML/XHTML on OSNews. As far as I am concerned, comments about this stuff, is off topic, because it will not change anything and because I have addressed the issue MANY times. I am really starting to losing my patience here. >:(”
“I have zero no interest in promoting modern standards. My interest is to be very compatible with f*cked up browsers running on obscure OSes, simply because the users of these OSes are OUR READERS”
“Goodbye! Don’t forget to write us!”
You could of just said OSNews is unwilling to use better web design methods such as using tools from Dreamweaver or Flash. If you don’t know how to use those apps then maybe one of the readers that do web design professionally can assist you on a voluntary basis. It is now 2004 and most PC users are awaire upgrading is a necessity for both hardware and software. The excuse you make that keeping the site simple is for the benefit of readers doesn’t sit well.
Also, There was no need for you to capatilize your words, use vulgar language towards readers or make sarcastic comments. Understand that most posters on this issue have made constructive critisizm but instead of giving a professional response you come off yourself as attacking and seem to take it personally.
If you were the owner of OSNews then I would say you can say what ever you want even if you lose all your readers. Since you made it seem you are only voluntary staff and not the owner then you yourself should be professional at all times.
> You are losing the respect from a lot of readers due to your own attitude and response to their concerns over the new site design.
Oh yeah? And do you think I don’t listen to them? You obviously haven’t seen the first version of the site I put up on Friday. I worked for about 27 hours these last two days on it (yeah, unpaid). So, go grab an ice cream and leave me alone.
I like the newer new layout with one column (better than the first new redesign but lesser than the old one).
I still think the “today’s headline” section should get the full description and I personally hate the white background (but that’s me, I can’t stand white, too bright).
On the other hand, one suggestion I think makes sense is to place either all icons to the left or the right, but not mix them. Currently the original content has its icons to the right and the today’s headline has its icons to the left. I prefer the right placement; supposedly people read from left to right and memorize the last thing seen but in this case I find the icons on the left highly distracting. I guess my cognitive process is that I scan the boxes vertically on the left side, reading only as necessary to see if I want to read more or note. Having the icons on the left means I mostly see the icons, not the content.
my 2 cents/
PS: I kind of link that design issue to ESR rant about Linux apps design and the reply from John Gruber about how designing a good UI is a hell of a job… Same response apply to people who think designing a web UI is easy.
> Currently the original content has its icons to the right and the today’s headline has its icons to the left. I prefer the right placement;
I have already tried it, it does not look good because the 64×64 icons are bigger and the grey table starts more inset, making it look irregular to the 32×32 icons space. Try it locally and you will see what I mean.
Dear Eugenia,
I’m about to do a 180 on my previous post (in some respects.) Why separate the original content from the portal headlines? Look at how television is coping with Tivo by embedding promotion within programming content. While others are embedding, why are you segragating?
PS (to previous post)
I hope you at least consider returning to the ‘old’ format. This change feels more like a ‘new Coke’ / ‘old Coke’ kinda thing.
It now looks alot like the old layout. My question is “Why does every Portal have to put boxes around EVERYTHING?’ That doesn’t make sense to me. If you need separation just use a vertical or horizontal line by itself, there’s no need for boxes.
I must say, now (sunday afternoon) the new design looks MUCH better than it did yesterday. I still perfer the old design, mainly because of that hideously bright white background. Now that there are longer summaries, i’ts much better. But I dont understand why some have one line, some two, some three…
I really didn’t like how it looked yesterday, but this one is almost bearable!
Also, it would be much better (to me, of course) if the title of the article linked to the rest of it. I understand if this isnt’ possible, it’s just that the way it is designed, to click through i have to find that little bitty ‘read more’ thing. I’m also wanting to click on the icon to view the article since it’s stuck out there, and of course that doesnt’ work.
Now it’s getting really good.
Some more thoughts:
The boxes probably add a lot of visual clutter, have you tried how it looks with only a black horizontal separator between the items? I think that might look very elegant and less noisy.
While I very much understand your desire to push the original content (which is also one of the main reasons I’m visiting this page), it seems kinda pointless to always have it at such a prominent place when it doesn’t change that often. I think an ideal solution would be if it would be somehow possible to hide (or minimize) items which one has read already or doesn’t care for. This way it would also be even more obvious when a new article arrives.
A technical implementation could simply use one cookie for each of the two main positions and when a “hide” button is clicked, save the news ID in the appropriate cookie, so when the page is reloaded it could only show the header and a “show” button which would do the reverse.
>You could of just said OSNews is unwilling to use better web
>design methods such as using tools from Dreamweaver or Flash.
>If you don’t know how to use those apps then maybe one of the
>readers that do web design professionally can assist you on a
>voluntary basis.
Dreamweaver? dreamweaver is not for site design its for shit design and is as far as you can get from w3c compliant.
Flash? why the do you need flash? flash is just a gimmick
a tool a toy. I get tired of people who think dreamweaver/frontpage or flash are the best tools for site design, why would they? because you can click?
Dark_Night: THE BEST TOOL IS YOUR HEAD USE IT SOMEDAY AND FIND OUT ITS NOT THAT HARD TO DO SITE DESIGN IN VI!
>The boxes probably add a lot of visual clutter, have you tried how it looks with only a black horizontal separator between the items? I think that might look very elegant and less noisy.
Yes, I have. The original version only had an “hr” in between, it was not making apparent the differentiation of the stories.
> it seems kinda pointless to always have it at such a prominent place when it doesn’t change that often.
Newsforge does the same. Infoworld as well. It doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t very-very often. The headlines are.
>A technical implementation could simply use one cookie for each of the two main positions
very bad for consistency.
(This may have been suggested here before, but I have not yet finished pawing through hundreds of previous comments!)
I really enjoy the new front page layout contrary to what many other here seem to think.
The white and grey backgrounds behind the article headlines really gives everything a good clean look. The images for “Original Content” and “Today’s Headlines” are quite nice as well!
My only suggestion is to move the icons for the Original Content area from the right-hand side to the left-hand side to aid in continuity between the two article sections.
This may also require the Original Content icon size to be toned down a bit.
Good Work Eugenia!
I’m only going to comment about wut the site looks like and feels like of right now: April 04, 2004 :So far I love how the site looks! Very clean and seems to workg reat with my netscape 7.1, IE 6, and mozilla 1.6 on a 1280 by 1024 res ~~~ In either way good work.
–Idoxash
I think it’s great that you listen to what the readers suggest. You can’t make a design that appeals to every reader, but I think the current version is a fair compromise.
About the description for the headlines. Could you perhaps not cut from the article, but write a separate summary just for the front page? This way you can control the length of the description, while making it more readable.
Well I’m a bit late but what the hell here is my take.
The idea was nice but I really don’t like it, in the old layout I could read most of the article or even the entire article before i decided to move on or click read more, now i always need to click read more, i find it a wast of time and the big area dedicated to original content wastfull, but i do agree a separate listing from the headlines would be a good thing (maybe a little box in the side).
The design is getting better but i find all that white a bit confusing. On the good side it does Text Zoom better in firefox
.
It was a good move to keep the old page hanging around and it gives light to interesting possibilities, take a look at the http://www.csszengarden.com/ has you can see it’s always the same information but displayed in many different ways, maybe osnews could have something similar, who knows.
In the end I applaud the will to change but not the change, i think the best way to do it would be to lay out several designs and let the customers (us the readers) decide with is best…
Just my € 0,02
Well I’m a bit late but what the hell here is my take.
The idea was nice but I really don’t like it, in the old layout I could read most of the article or even the entire article before i decided to move on or click read more, now i always need to click read more, i find it a wast of time and the big area dedicated to original content wastfull, but i do agree a separate listing from the headlines would be a good thing (maybe a little box in the side).
The design is getting better but i find all that white a bit confusing. On the good side it does Text Zoom better in firefox
.
It was a good move to keep the old page hanging around and it gives light to interesting possibilities, take a look at the http://www.csszengarden.com/ has you can see it’s always the same information but displayed in many different ways, maybe osnews could have something similar, who knows.
In the end I applaud the will to change but not the change, i think the best way to do it would be to lay out several designs and let the customers (us the readers) decide with is best…
Just my € 0,02
RE: “Dark_Night: THE BEST TOOL IS YOUR HEAD USE IT SOMEDAY AND FIND OUT ITS NOT THAT HARD TO DO SITE DESIGN IN VI!”
Did I say I’m a site designer? No because I’ve stated in the past I’m a professional 3D animator (character animation and visual effects). I do though occassionally export to Flash when a client requires it. I offered an alternative to Eugenia for web design tools. You may not like tools such as DreamweaverMX or FlashMX but I know several designers working in studios that do. Also to point out it may be the artist’s imagination and skill that creates great art but the tools used are just as important. Burying your eyes in code is not always the best solution to creative design either. I suggest in the future you open your mind to new ideas and tools instead of quickly spewing comments. That would be as you stated using your head.
This new design is a cluster f*
Well, the new left menu is very nice. You allso gave the one-liner an upgrade to 2 lines! That’s cool.
Yes Eugenia is listening to comments and making huge changes, but like anything else, it’s hard to make EVERYONE happy. Keep up the good work. Nice to see what UNPAID work can look like.
Your icon for the Syllable news seem to be broken.
Eugenia, don’t worry, be happy! And thanks again!
Thank you for keeping the “old format” as an alternative front page. I’ll be keeping it in my bookmarks.
The “new format” adopts the two things that I like least about NewsForge: the split between original material and reports of stories elsewhere (Newsvac); and the fact that, to get to the off-site story from a Newsvac item, I have to click through another page, even if I don’t want to read the comments.
Look at it from the reader’s point of view: the original material covers the same subject-matter, and is of the same quality, as the off-site stories. Two separate lists add nothing to the reader’s enjoyment of the site. It is confusing, especially if you like to read stories in chronological order. OSnews can be proud of the original material, but the old format already makes it obvious which stories are original.
Clicking through two pages to get to an off-site story is inconvenient; also, I prefer the slightly longer summaries of the old format.
Here’s an idea: put a prominent link on “old” and “new” front pages, leading to the front page with the “other” format. See which one readers prefer.
I was _completely_ lost when I loaded up and was confronted with the new design (if you can call it that).
/me updates his bookmarks with home2.php
great but the origional content thing is a lil more confusing. i liked it when it was in 2 columns. it was different and showed some splotlight.
other than that great job!
Eugenia,
Thank you for restoring the menus in home2 to their original state!
Well since I commented yesterday the site design has improved a lot, and it at least doesn’t look horrible. I still think having the original content at the top is going to annoy more people than it pleases(including myself). I also think the original content section compared to the headlines section is inconsistent. Why have the original content icons on the right and then the headline icons on the left, why are the original content icons so much bigger than the headline icons, why is the article title a different color in each section, Why is the “Read more” link so much bigger in the original content section, why don’t the original content boxes have the “Posted on…” information in them? It just seems like the two sections information aren’t related at all, and looks silly. I like the new layout of the headlines, isn’t there a way to merge the original content with the headlines format? And as for the recent OSNews originals, couldn’t the font be reduced on there, or maybe a link for other original content. At 800×600 the headlines can’t even be seen without scrolling.
And by far the most important thing that could be done is making any links that are available under “read more” accessible in the headlines, just like they are in the original content. It’s inconsistent to have these two parts of the site act different, and it’s terribly annoying to have to click on “read more” then the link just to reach an article outside of osnews. I have to look at 5 ads, 3 of which are terribly annoying just to get to another site outside of osnews. This is terrible on dialup and it needs to be resolved or OSNews will lose valuable readers. And don’t even say that we can pay the extra $20 for the ad free site, when we still have to wait through 2 osnews pages loading to access an outside site. ntm if someone isn’t going to pay the small difference a year to upgrade from dialup to a broadband solution, they aren’t going to pay $20 a year for every site they want to access slightly faster because of ads. The new site layout also seems to be trying to get people to take one of two paths, 1 is to hit more ads, and the other is to pay OSNews $20 a year. Both of these mean that someone is making more money, now it was said in an earlier post that the same amount of money would still be made from this site, which was said to be none, now i don’t know if i’m just retarded, but if there’s more ads than before…then that means more money is coming in….then wtf does the money go to? Someone is making more money at my expense, and it’s someone that has something to do with OSNews. And if the site redesign was in part due to them wanting to stick money in their ears and make funny faces, then we should be told so.
if you would make link css to display:block and put some hover stuff, then the meny might look cooler
something like stuff below (stolen from mozilla shop site?)
#nav {
margin-bottom: 8px;
padding: 0;
line-height: 0;
}
#nav li {
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding-bottom: 0px;
}
#nav :link, #nav :visited {
line-height: 0.9;
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 5px 10px 5px 1.5em;
font-size: 0.9em;
}
#nav :link:hover, #nav :visited:hover {
text-decoration: none;
background: #fff6d3;
}
#nav :link:active, #nav :visited:active {
background: #fff;
}
#nav ul {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
background-color: #F5F2EF;
}
#nav ul :link, #nav ul :visited {
background-image: none;
padding: 4px 10px 4px 1.5em;
}
> Why have the original content icons on the right and then the headline icons on the left,
Because the icons are bigger for the originals, so when you put them on the same side the page looks bad.
> why are the original content icons so much bigger than the headline icons,
Because they are not the same as the headlines. Go to news.com and see their big picture news as well. We WANT our original content to steal the show.
> why is the article title a different color in each section,
The whole point is to differentiate them, yes.
>Why is the “Read more” link so much bigger in the original content section
Because the font is bigger there in general. We want to focus on the originals, remember?
>why don’t the original content boxes have the “Posted on…” information in them?
The information is there. It just misses the word “posted by” because special contributors can NOT post on osnews, they send their articles to ME and *I* post it for them.
I just wanted to be politically correct there.
>It just seems like the two sections information aren’t related at all
They are not and we don’t want them to be. Take off your head the old format.
> I like the new layout of the headlines, isn’t there a way to merge the original content with the headlines format?
No, the whole point was to seperate them for these reasons:
http://www.osnews.com/phorum/read.php?f=15&i=142&t=140#reply_142
>And by far the most important thing that could be done is making any links that are available under “read more” accessible in the headlines, just like they are in the original content.
The original content does not have links either. ONLY the competition story has one link because I had PROMISED it to Aspire, Inc. that they will have a link on the frontpage for the competition. This promise happened BEFORE I change the layout, so I had to keep my promise. But the normal is that NO links will be on the summaries of either the originals or the headlines.
>And don’t even say that we can pay the extra $20 for the ad free site, when we still have to wait through 2 osnews pages loading to access an outside site.
At least it will be MUCH faster on dialup. Just load the demo.html page and see how faster it is on dialup than the regular site. When I first created the ad-free version I did it for my brother who is on dialup and for myself. After months, David got interested in the idea, and so he setup’ed the subscription based on that experiement. But the story behind it is, that it was an experiement for dialup usage.
>Someone is making more money at my expense, and it’s someone that has something to do with OSNews.
Someone is making more money on YOUR expense? You are a funny guy! No one asked you to come to this site! It is YOUR choice to view it or not. If you don’t like it and you are not happy the way things are, your can leave. (I don’t earn any money off OSNews, just in case you wanna know, so I don’t care).
>And if the site redesign was in part due to them wanting to stick money in their ears and make funny faces, then we should be told so.
Of course and it was *IN PART* about trying to fit the 728×90 ad where the ad broker was begging us for more than a year now! This IS written in the article itself and it is written on my link above! READ THEM.
>Did I say I’m a site designer?
So why your comments? if you do know nothing about it?
>I offered an alternative to Eugenia for web design tools.
She already know is i guess, maybe she is using it already, but that is nice of you.
>You may not like tools such as DreamweaverMX or FlashMX but I
>know several designers working in studios that do.
I know several website codes/designers that use vi and the gimp.
ps. i used dreamweaver (mac) but i got crazy of all the clicking and wizards forms etc. I am not a dreamweaverman but i do like coding. I suggest you try BlueFish its a nice tool for php code and does code highlighting rather well.
…
>You may not like tools such as DreamweaverMX or FlashMX but I
>know several designers working in studios that do.
HTML isn’t rocket science, and even complex pages can have relatively simple code. I’ve always used simple text editors for coding and I know many others that do. If you want to be a decent designer, tools like Dreamweaver do not replace a good knowledge of code. I find that in the end dreamweaver doesn’t provide enough of a benefit over normal tools. With restricted requirements, such as eugenia designing to support text based browsers, it’s often easier coding with text editors using code that follows the requirements.
If want improved productivity, tools like bluefish (as stated by Bas above) do a great job in knocking up pages for quick code-based development.
There are many sites that vastly overuse flash. As far as I’m concerned it should never be used for much more than movies/demos/animations. The best uses I find it for are in advertisement. I don’t currently have the flash player installed as I usually find little need for it.
I would be vastly surprised if eugenia even thought about using flash for osnews.
At first, when I came here and saw the new version of the site, it looked cool. You keep changing it though, and each time it seems to get worse.
The menu looked better in the horizontal view, the way you had the top 2 articles was cool, both kinda diagonal, then the other original stuff below it as simple links.
I like the single column for the other news, thats about the only good thing I have seen from recent changes.
Stop trying to please people by making the design worse. Think more about what you want to do, and ignore people that complain about stupid things. I didn’t like the 2 column view for the regular news, but what you have done to the “original content” area is just getting worse and worse every time I come here.
Oh, and please get ride of the dumb little pointers for what section is what, it makes it seem like you think the readers are either dumb, or really care what is original and what isn’t. We don’t, but its fine if you wish to set those things apart. Most people just browse around looking for what seems interesting. And having the “Recent Original Content” section just be links doesn’t seem to accomplish any your goal in any way. They certainly don’t stand out, I can’t say I have noticed even one of them peticularly since you changed the design.
reported so you definatly read
I am sorry. I tried to bear it and I think I’ll keep trying for a few days. If my mind is so un-receptive of this new design (yeah, my fault!), I dunno… could be time to move on. Thanks.
The white area needs to have some prominence on both sides of the article boxes, or neither. Right now it looks ugly.
The Other Recent Articles area needs to be in a seperate white box or something also… Doesn’t look good being in the same area as the articles with icons…
Also, having no distinguishing between the “other news” stuff, looked better, just keep it to one column. If people can’t figure out that each icon represents a different story, they need to see a doctor or something, haveing boxes around them is more ugly. What is more important, looks, or pleasing some moron? You decide
Anyway, just make design choices based on you goals, and general look. I can tell you that the first change you made to the main page looked ALOT better then any of the changes since. The old design is too plain, the current design (at the time of writing this) is ugly, unclear, and if it stays, you will lose at least one reader.
why are people saying they will leave? this is THE place for news on operating systems and a lil of the other. I havent’seen another site that does a better job. I’ll keep coming here even if they make the text purple and the background black
<a href=”http://members.cox.net/fearl/osnewsdesign.jpg“>This is more what I would like to see in the main page… its basically what I was saying, but hopefully the visual aid will help make it more clear
Not a fan of this new layout! I’m going back into hibernation and forget about this place again, see-ya OSNews. What’s this now over 50 users lost that have commented in this thread alone, and still the new junky look persists. For some odd reason I’m not surprised.
Eugenia,
So what browsers are you trying to stay compliant with… Netscape 4? At least please try to adopt some more modern coding practices that at least use the power of IE5, even though it is a crpaay browser, at least there are people that still use it rather than your un-named old browsers.
Bas,
RE: “So why your comments? if you do know nothing about it?”
I didn’t say I know nothing about site design. My career directly involves creating eye candy for viewers. I have worked in the past many times with site designers in the pipeline. Just because I don’t use web design tools on a daily basis doesn’t mean I don’t have an eye for what sells.
RE: “I know several website codes/designers that use vi and the gimp.”
Like I said I was recommending alternative tools for Eugenia to consider using in regards to designing this site. Designers use either one tool or a combination of tools to create sites attractive to those that they are maketing to. Eugenia, should be open to a differant perspective from other artists. As for GIMP I have used it as an alternative to Photoshop but mainly use Cinepaint since it’s better at handling film industry standards.
Eugenia,
The site looks better. I understand you can’t please everyone but I hope you take some input from your readers specially those that are artists such as myself. I understand how some clients want their media such as OSNews site ads plastered and pulsing every where but that only forces readers to be annoyed. It would be nice to see a cool designed OSNews banner at the top and the ads only option to be on lower left/right columns. This would keep the news centered for the reader. Hopefully OSNews is able to attract other sponsors that are more related to hardware tech or professional software. Seeing ads about clicking for smilies just cheapens the quality of a site which impacts the opportunity to attract readers and new sponsors.
Although I appreciate the time and effort required to update the OS News, I don’t like the new look at all. No offence intended, but the new design looks like it was designed by a techie rather than a designer. This kind of design is prevalent amongst developers and programmers who naturally order things into groups, modules, etc… And while good in theory, the aesthetics of such almost always fail.
My biggest complaint is that the new look is too busy. There are too many blocks, graphics and dividers. As a result, more brain processing power is required to take in everything. Before, it was easy to quickly eyeball the OSNews frontpage and then decide what I wanted to read. Now I feel like I have to sift through everything a couple times over before I am ready to move on.