Changing up the layout around here. There may be some little wackiness as it fully comes into being. Let us know what you think of the new look and whether there’s something that needs fixing. P.S. The next button will be coming back sometime later.
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Don’t like it. It looks to me a little busier.
I’m surprised no one has said “You’ll get over it.”
I like it, too. More streamlined as lawnmowerdeth said.
I don’t like it. I noticed it on Gizmodo awhile ago, and knew it was coming. Still don’t like it though. I don’t think the Kotaku fans will either.
I vote no as well. Too cluttery. Too small. Too horizontal.
Can you make something that will help keep us surreptitious workplace websurfers out of trouble?
Maybe something that looks like an innocuous spreadsheet.
nope.. don’t like it one bit… bring back the larger cat pictures….
I like it.
[consumerist.com]
… is a page without the main content.
Will nested comments work consistently now?
It’s a lot harder to read. The font seems smaller (yes, I know, i can increase the size in my browser, but then I go to any other site, and have to readjust it back. Since I hit consumerist multiple times a day, that can be a huge pain).
I kind of liked the large space dedicated to the stories. While more information can be crammed in here, it’s easier to skim over it.
Looks as bad here as it does on Gizmodo.
DO.NOT.WANT.
Where’s my next/prev links? The single post page is whack, jack.
I don’t like the new layout – but i suppose those advertising click throughs have more pull than us readers. heh – someone should write a letter to the consumerist… you know that site where they tell about companies screwing over the ‘lil guy – you know the one. I bed they’d do a post about it.
Everythings a lot smaller and closer together making it harder to read. The information on the right is a good idea but its sometimes hard to tell what post it belongs to. Perhaps it should be at the top of the post just under the title?
this new layout is only using up half the width of my browser window. and by browser window is only just over half of my screen.
its a huge swath of ugly blank white space. variable width please!
UGH
I love the content from your site, but what on EARTH have you done to your look/interface? The blurbs w/ each story are nowhere near long enough to get your snarkiness across along with information about the story. The looks seems more like you’re trying to cram far too much into the screen, much less the page. The small graphics, while perhaps a cost saving initiative for bandwidth, looks *terrible* compared to the larger images from before. I really enjoyed the look and feel of a site that seemed like it was designed for me personally, this new look makes me feel like I’m just one more peon looking at some incredibly broad focused website worth only the occasional glance down the page. I miss the meat of the old posts! I miss the look and friendliness! This is the look and feel that KILLED the Giz for me, and makes me want to finally join the 21st century and start using an RSS reader…after all, if I don’t enjoy my experience of the site…why go to it?
I see where you’re going with the design, but as a print editor who is visually oriented, I miss the larger pics… and you guys are genius at picking them.
Is there a compromise?
Out with the new, in with the old. I don’t like the new layout!
I dislike the new look. It makes it less appealing to read. I have a widescreen monitor and there’s this huge white spot to the right side nearly 40% of the screen is white on the right side with the text crunched in, off-center to the left side. It just doesn’t look great. I miss the old center aligned style with proper fitting in and I only had about 20% white screen filling. Now, it is 60% white filling with the 20% on the left and then 40% on the right.
I also can’t check out archived stories, I’m either missing the link or it just simply isn’t there.
I hope kotaku doesn’t switch to this either, but it isn’t possible to replace a great site like this…
I like the look of the comments now, but the main page is a bit iffy and cluttered and I really miss the old logo up in the corner since I always used to click there to go to the main page and now it’s small and hard to click. Also, the main page design gets really crappy when you post big images. Just try to prevent horizontal scrolling. HS-ing = fail.
This is the layout that made me stop surfing to Gawker in the afternoons.
The entire front page looks like nothing more than a partial RSS feed, giving me no reason at all to visit the actual site any longer. Sorry guys, you’re relegated to Google Reader now, right next to Lifehacker. At least there I can read more than two sentences without needing to click on a cut.
Also? In my Firefox all the masthead text is on top of the graphic making it impossible to read. Good job on that, Gawker Media.
I don’t like it. It’s too small, the titles don’t catch my attention easily enough, it’s too spacey, the comments just look weird for some reason. The “By:/At:” over on the right side is too far away from text.
Most of the changes I think I just need to get used to but I agree with Moosehawk that the BY/AT is too far away from the comment. You have to “look for” who made comments now instead of seeing it immediately.
Since Lifehacker changed to the same layout a week or two ago, I’ve literally found myself reading their site less due to the less-pleasing layout. I wonder how my eyes will judge the Consumerist change as well??
@Moosehawk:
Agreed…Do not want!
I like it, more on a page and takes advantage of wider screen resolutions.
I like it as well, it seems more readable to me, and it’s just something different.
Add me to the “Do not like it” list. The “Morning Deals” section now has a jump? That’s just weak formatting to get more ad impressions.
Old design FTW!
do not want!
In a move I am sure that Consumerist would approve philosophically, I stopped reading Lifehacker when they switched to this design. On my laptop monitor the screen is 40% whitespace on the right and I have to click-through for content that used to fit on the main screen. How is this more usable?
I already posted under the Morning Deals post, but I thought I’d also stick here that I agree with edgesmash; it’s silly to have to click through to read all the Morning Deals. I want more information before the jump, not less.
Oh I thought there was just one crappy morning deal!
Yeah that’s bad.
For the most part I think it’s fine, but it seems like some articles show up with no headline and no slug…currently there are 4 such articles on the front page and you just blow right through them without noticing them.
The new design sucks. I think things are laid out worse, everything that should be eye-catching is less eye-catching, and…yeah. it sucks.
And at least in IE 6 (go work for locking down the computers and only letting us use the “best of the best”: internet explorer), the comment text often runs into the “BY whoever” block of text.
I much preferred the old style. Everything in this one seems so condensed and haphazardly placed… The worst offender in that respect is having the commentor name and date to the right of their post. Maybe it’s just because it’s breaking an old standard, but it just doesn’t look right having it placed there instead of at the top beside the avatar icon. It’s really messing with me.
The “last comment” bit is nice I’ll admit, but the rest of it… Meh.
I hate that you don’t show the entire article on the front page anymore… that means I’ll have to do an insane amount of clicking to get the same content I used to get all on one page.
The new design is too wide for my browser, but the text itself is readable without scrolling; it’s not a big deal if the headline goes off to the side, or if I can’t see who made a post. Not a big deal though.
I like how compact the comments are now. I’d have to scroll to the side to see who posted a particular comment, but it’s rare that I care about that so I don’t mind the information being hidden.
I just noticed the “last comment” bit that’s been mentioned here. That is indeed nice, but it is only showing up correctly on one of the posts on the front page for me. Firefox 1.5.0.12 on Win XP.
I hate the new layout. Everything seems so crowded now. I’d rather have the old one or at least some sort of compromise between the two.
Overall I like the new layout a lot w/ a few suggestions.
I’d like to see a it more of each article on the main page without having to hit the “More” button.
Also, the default font for the comments is hella ugly and really hard to read. Any way to loosen up the line leading?
I prefered the previous layout. It was a lot more spacious, and I use a really tiny browser window — that should tell you something.
The new one just looks really, really awkward and, well, not Consumerist.
Hey, there’s an idea, Gawker. Allow users to pick which one they want to use! Everybody wins!
HATE IT!!!
I hate not being able to see who the poster is while scanning comments, and the font is too hard to read.
Ugly, ugly, ugly! The old layout was much nicer. And what’s with capitalizing everyone’s user ID?
Don’t like it at all. I didn’t like it when Lifehacker switched over to this look and I don’t like it for the Consumerist either.
The old layout was far superior and a heck of a lot more original than this layout. Now the site is just Lifehacker with different content, yawn.
The link to view all the comments by a particular user does not work properly on the front page.
Example:
“Latest by dbeahn” — clicking on dbeahn goes to view comments by bnet41.
Horrible font.
Ugh. I pretty much stopped reading Lifehacker after they switched to this layout. It’s so much more difficult to figure out what’s what now, and it feels really cluttered.
Not a fan of the new look at all.
The font is indeed narsty. I don’t have Lucida Grande, and Tahoma seems to have very bad kerning at this point size.
Dare I suggest that a consumer-oriented web site should respect the user’s browser preferences, and just use “sans-serif” instead of forcing a font?
My god… this looks absolutely HORRIFIC.
It’s very difficult for my eyes to follow, and just feels cluttered.
Even the hideous original red/white/black look from back in the day was better than this. You guys had a decent template – and now you’ve broken it.
throw up a vote please so we can go back to the old design…
Yeah, this isn’t a great design, not yet at least. With a little more space between headlines, better distinctions between Consumerist content and in-network content, and uniformity concerning where titles are placed within the front-page view of the article, this COULD be good.
By the way, what’s up with the new favicon?