Welcome to bit-tech 2010
Posted on 19th Apr 2010 at 10:33 by Alex Watson with 265 comments
Five years is a long time. Wars are fought and finished in that time. Huge buildings are constructed in that time. Children grow from tiny babies to annoying kids in that time. The Stone Roses even made a second album in that time. On the internet, five years is an eternity. Empires rise and fall in that time.
Back in 2005, there was no Twitter and Facebook was still for university students. There was no iPhone and people still referred to Windows Vista as Longhorn. Yet if you checked bit-tech in 2005, it looked largely as it does today. Here's ex-editor Wil's piece on the last redesign.
Over the years, we've made a few changes - adding a blog and a podcast, some links to Dennis sites - but essentially, the site looked the same. While the site has carried on, a lot has changed, both in terms of what we cover and what happens behind the scenes. We're now writing a much wider variety of article types, so while we do still have massive reviews of motherboards and graphics cards, we've upped the amount of games coverage we run, and of course, there are shorter and more opinionated pieces on the blog.
In fact, we're writing more in general, and the fact the old bit-tech front page couldn't show any more than ten main articles was quite frustrating. Then there's the fact that web advertising has moved on; five years ago, skyscraper ads were great. These days, MPUs and site takeovers are the norm, and the old site didn't support them that well.
Behind the scenes, things have changed, too - in 2008, bit-tech was bought by Dennis, and we spent much of 2009 figuring out how bit-tech and Custom PC could work well together. We feel like we've cracked it now, and 2009 was great for us in terms of business, meaning we could hire staff and explore new projects such as Rich moving to the Far East to be our man in Taiwan.
All this meant now was the ideal time to redesign. The team had been looking at a redesign in 2008, but the Dennis buyout meant it shifted to the backburner. We started with those designs, and Jamie, bit-tech's developer - yes, this site is built and maintained by one man - got a new beta working remarkably quickly. We then started inviting readers to test it, and ended up with over 100 people helping out. We took in their feedback and refined the site over the past three weeks, and today it's finally ready to launch.
On the old site, we had no editorial control of where articles appeared - the site simply put the newest stuff at the top. While this worked really well if you were on bit-tech every hour of every day, if you weren't, and we started writing too many new articles, content disappeared from the indexes too quickly - so people didn't see it. We've introduced a featured articles grid at the top of all the index pages (home page, hardware, gaming etc) which is editorially controlled and it means we can spotlight the best stuff on the site - so you can get to it faster. Any article type - review, blog, news post - can be featured.
Even better, the featured articles are different on each index page. One thing we've noticed is that as the site grows, and we have more staff and wider interests, no everything we write is of interest to every reader - and that's cool, but on the old site, you ended up seeing everything anyway. Not anymore. If you don't care about gaming, then just head straight to the Hardware page; it's just as good looking, well designed and packed with content as the front page, and totally focussed on Hardware. It's the same with Gaming and Modding.
There's even a new logo - we've dropped the .net from it, because after all, bit-tech is the most important part of the name, not the .net!
Check out the new background to the site too - it's actually the current image from the special subscriber edition of Custom PC.
While we've changed how the site looks, I hope you'll agree that it's an update not a complete re-working - to our eyes, the site still looks and feels like bit-tech.
We've got tags too. Basically, these allow you to explore areas of interest, a bit like an area in a library where all the books on one topic are. Again, we've got a couple at the top of the page - Fermi and Overclocking to start with - and these will change so that you can get straight to the hot stories.
Tags also appear in articles, in the right hand column. If you're reading about Light Peak, Intel's rival to USB 3, one click will take you to articles tagged with USB 3, so it's an easy way to learn more about something.
Then we've added easy links to related articles and popular articles (inspired by the BBC site), and What We're Reading, a list of links to other sites and articles the staff like, is easier to find. Basically, you're never going to be bored or without something to read ever again!
The search feature is better, now as you can filter by article type (so you can look for only reviews if you want), and information on Custom PC is better integrated into the site - it's now much easier to find out what the latest issue looks like, what's inside and when it's due out. Podcasts and buyer's guides are easier to find, too.
The about page finally now reflects the fact between bit-tech online and Custom PC in print we have one editorial team - and speaking of Wil Harris, you can find a mention of him and other ex-editor Tim on the new Staff page too.
The forums share the same skin and background as the new site, although they're keeping the same look and functions as before. You may have noticed that the default forum is now fixed width. If you would rather switch to variable width you have the option to change your preferences in your user options (at the very bottom).
There's a few other minor tweaks but that rounds up most of the changes. The aim was to evolve the design of the site so that it keeps its familiar feel, but that's easier to explore, and which allows you to find more of our articles to read. The new site gives us more space and creative control to expand and improve our coverage going forward, and will help the site remain useful and interesting to you.
I'd like to say thanks to everyone who helped beta test the site and took the time to give us constructive criticism, to the staff (past and present) who contributed their ideas and input, and to Jamie, who developed all our crazy, half-baked ideas into a site which looks great and works brilliantly. As the saying goes, our aim was to have nothing that we do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and of course, if you find any bugs!
Back in 2005, there was no Twitter and Facebook was still for university students. There was no iPhone and people still referred to Windows Vista as Longhorn. Yet if you checked bit-tech in 2005, it looked largely as it does today. Here's ex-editor Wil's piece on the last redesign.
Over the years, we've made a few changes - adding a blog and a podcast, some links to Dennis sites - but essentially, the site looked the same. While the site has carried on, a lot has changed, both in terms of what we cover and what happens behind the scenes. We're now writing a much wider variety of article types, so while we do still have massive reviews of motherboards and graphics cards, we've upped the amount of games coverage we run, and of course, there are shorter and more opinionated pieces on the blog.
In fact, we're writing more in general, and the fact the old bit-tech front page couldn't show any more than ten main articles was quite frustrating. Then there's the fact that web advertising has moved on; five years ago, skyscraper ads were great. These days, MPUs and site takeovers are the norm, and the old site didn't support them that well.
Behind the scenes, things have changed, too - in 2008, bit-tech was bought by Dennis, and we spent much of 2009 figuring out how bit-tech and Custom PC could work well together. We feel like we've cracked it now, and 2009 was great for us in terms of business, meaning we could hire staff and explore new projects such as Rich moving to the Far East to be our man in Taiwan.
All this meant now was the ideal time to redesign. The team had been looking at a redesign in 2008, but the Dennis buyout meant it shifted to the backburner. We started with those designs, and Jamie, bit-tech's developer - yes, this site is built and maintained by one man - got a new beta working remarkably quickly. We then started inviting readers to test it, and ended up with over 100 people helping out. We took in their feedback and refined the site over the past three weeks, and today it's finally ready to launch.
So what's with the new look?
First up, all the templates have changed, so the site has a new look. It's wider than before, and uses three columns on the index pages, and two on the article pages. This means we can shift the MPU adverts into the outer column, so they no longer interrupt the flow of the article text.On the old site, we had no editorial control of where articles appeared - the site simply put the newest stuff at the top. While this worked really well if you were on bit-tech every hour of every day, if you weren't, and we started writing too many new articles, content disappeared from the indexes too quickly - so people didn't see it. We've introduced a featured articles grid at the top of all the index pages (home page, hardware, gaming etc) which is editorially controlled and it means we can spotlight the best stuff on the site - so you can get to it faster. Any article type - review, blog, news post - can be featured.
Even better, the featured articles are different on each index page. One thing we've noticed is that as the site grows, and we have more staff and wider interests, no everything we write is of interest to every reader - and that's cool, but on the old site, you ended up seeing everything anyway. Not anymore. If you don't care about gaming, then just head straight to the Hardware page; it's just as good looking, well designed and packed with content as the front page, and totally focussed on Hardware. It's the same with Gaming and Modding.
There's even a new logo - we've dropped the .net from it, because after all, bit-tech is the most important part of the name, not the .net!
Check out the new background to the site too - it's actually the current image from the special subscriber edition of Custom PC.
While we've changed how the site looks, I hope you'll agree that it's an update not a complete re-working - to our eyes, the site still looks and feels like bit-tech.
What about these new features?
It's not just a visual refresh though. You can now browse articles by company - so if you're an Nvidia fanboy or an ATI obsessive, you can easily keep up to date. We're even highlighting notable companies at the top of the page - it's Intel and Microsoft right now, but that will change regularly.We've got tags too. Basically, these allow you to explore areas of interest, a bit like an area in a library where all the books on one topic are. Again, we've got a couple at the top of the page - Fermi and Overclocking to start with - and these will change so that you can get straight to the hot stories.
Tags also appear in articles, in the right hand column. If you're reading about Light Peak, Intel's rival to USB 3, one click will take you to articles tagged with USB 3, so it's an easy way to learn more about something.
Then we've added easy links to related articles and popular articles (inspired by the BBC site), and What We're Reading, a list of links to other sites and articles the staff like, is easier to find. Basically, you're never going to be bored or without something to read ever again!
The search feature is better, now as you can filter by article type (so you can look for only reviews if you want), and information on Custom PC is better integrated into the site - it's now much easier to find out what the latest issue looks like, what's inside and when it's due out. Podcasts and buyer's guides are easier to find, too.
The about page finally now reflects the fact between bit-tech online and Custom PC in print we have one editorial team - and speaking of Wil Harris, you can find a mention of him and other ex-editor Tim on the new Staff page too.
The forums share the same skin and background as the new site, although they're keeping the same look and functions as before. You may have noticed that the default forum is now fixed width. If you would rather switch to variable width you have the option to change your preferences in your user options (at the very bottom).
There's a few other minor tweaks but that rounds up most of the changes. The aim was to evolve the design of the site so that it keeps its familiar feel, but that's easier to explore, and which allows you to find more of our articles to read. The new site gives us more space and creative control to expand and improve our coverage going forward, and will help the site remain useful and interesting to you.
I'd like to say thanks to everyone who helped beta test the site and took the time to give us constructive criticism, to the staff (past and present) who contributed their ideas and input, and to Jamie, who developed all our crazy, half-baked ideas into a site which looks great and works brilliantly. As the saying goes, our aim was to have nothing that we do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and of course, if you find any bugs!
265 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyIn 2010 is it too much too ask for forums to take advantage of widescreen monitors? It really frustrates me that there is so much wasted space either side of the screen and pictures have to be resized to practically thumbnails.
(this comment box needs font-family applying though :p)
It definitely provides better access to more content than before, but it's going to take some getting used to before my eyes break old habits and scan the right portions of the page!
I'm getting the beta login glitch on the forums too, though a few clicks of cancel seem to dispel it for now.
One feature that's lacking and which I had hoped would come with the redesign is an 'edit' button in the comments view so that we can edit our own article comments without going through the forum first, but that's a minor issue..
Overall it seems to be an improvement, well done guys. :)
Ditto, I am also having to hit cancel mutliple times before I can read any threads.
Incredibly annoying.
STATLER: Boo!
WALDORF: Boooo!
S: That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard!
W: It was terrible!
S: Horrendous!
W: Well it wasn’t that bad.
S: Oh, yeah?
W: Well, there were parts of it I liked!
S: Well, I liked alot of it.
W: Yeah, it was GOOD actually.
S: It was great!
W: It was wonderful!
S: Yeah, bravo!
W: More!
S: More!
W: More!
S: More!
:D
As someone else pointed out, I get five password prompts on each page of the forums though!
Edit: is there any way to make the forum font slightly larger?
As per the note at the top:
You may have noticed that the default forum is now fixed width. If you would rather switch to variable width you have the option to change your preferences in your user options (at the very bottom).
To put it bluntly, this redesign is utter ****. Readers are left with information overload, the whole page is utterly unfriendly to users of larger monitors (though not bad for small monitor users, granted), and text is too small on the forums. Condense the front page to two columns and the design will be much better.
I'm pretty sure you said the last redesign was "utter ****" too. Oh, and the forum redesign as well... Nothing's changed in five years, I see ;)
Excellent work Jamie!
Bring back the old site.
Everyone had a chance to sign up to the beta and express their views before these changes were made.
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=185561
If you feel that strongly about how it looks, you should have offered some input in the development phase, and not just moan when its too late after hours of work have gone into it.
Just my view. Its a democracy so everyone gets a say, but to say nothing then cry you don't like it, maybe you should have signed up to the beta and said something earlier?
There are some design bugs in the site but overall this is a lot BETTER than the old page and searching content is 1000% easier and faster!
I don't want to have to spend ages finding out what new content has been posted.
I think the styling is much better, just way too cluttered at the moment.
I love it!
I've always loved fixed sites.
And the feedback about it being a fixed site you've received so far ... well it was fixed before, and it still is now, albeit wider, so stuff them.
If the forums aren't wide enough for you, read the article first and follow the instructions to make it wider, instead of posting for butthurt ;)
The font is definitely too small though. My eyes feel a bit strained already. Does anyone know how to greasemonkey it bigger if the design's finalised? Or can one of the devs give us the CSS selector for it if they know it offhand?
Left over from the beta site - it was a link to the feedback forum. Thanks for flagging it up!
OK, here are the specifics.
Clutter; everything is squashed in. Net result is I'm reading less.
You say you want more info visible on screen, a noble goal trashed by the square banner top right of the main content section.
The colour coded banner links have gone. This was a good design method, over the years I associated the colours with the links more than the text. A gaming website should understand the importance of perception.
There are other faults but I'm not going to go on any more. If you want to go for more in-the-face ads and page-bloating you go right ahead.
It is busy, that's true - but it's sort of inevitable, given the amount of stuff we're writing these days. As I said in the blog, we've done a lot of things to try and make the site easy to digest - tags, featured articles, decent index pages - but at a certain point, more stuff is always going to be more stuff.
Once you get used to the higher density of articles and info it's actually much better.
Good job guys, this should do until 2015. ;)
I'll see how it goes after an hour and then a few days.
The last website to update into this sort of style I know of was dabs.com. I still hate that one...but mostly because the search system now sucks.
Ehmmm, why is the text now blurry that uset to be sharp?
http://forums.bit-tech.net/album.php?albumid=655&pictureid=9643
or the near unreadable, unsharp headers?
http://forums.bit-tech.net/album.php?albumid=655&pictureid=9644
(hmmm, the links are busted too:)
http://forums.bit-tech.net/album.php?albumid=655&pictureid=9643
see "home" and "Hardware" thats unsharp
http://forums.bit-tech.net/album.php?albumid=655&pictureid=9644
see "gaming PC" thats unsharp
And for the whiners - you had plenty of time to sign up for the beta and voice your opinion then.
Whereas our new search is amazing! Thanks for giving it a bit of time though, change is always challenging :)
Jamie's official response:
"He's using IE6." followed by a shrug.
1. Fixed
2. Yup :)
Too much information in too small an area.
Also, the reviews/articles area is too small.
Sorry, but it failed to deliver a good first impression.
Overall I like it, good job!
One thing though, there doesn't seem to be a way to get to the forums from the comments pages. I hate the comments pages (and always have) so like to just skip them. Now that doesn't seem possible.
edit: wait, hang on, there is a "discuss in forums" link at the bottom of this blog post, maybe it was just the farcry 2 article failing
Firefox is maxing out the CPU pretty much more than I have ever seen on any site before (Even hi-def video). Swinging between 50% to 100% most of the time.
Safari does the same (With the usual slightly lower CPU) but it's the flash thread giving the CPU a thrashing.
LOL. Brilliant.
Oh and, this is now my new homepage. Good going guys.
I love the design. :D
Does that mean I'm allowed to whine, as I wasn't allowed in on the beta? Not that I intend to, it's all good except for a bit of aliased text here and there.
A few things that I would like to see:
That's because we are a busy site ;)
Is it becuase of the vast amount of black to the left and right of the content? or are you using a different font?.
Also comments seem to be broken as they only occupy the left 1/2 of the panel.. O wait, no, I see now, it is caused by the adverts on the right.. Mmmm, not great.
Oh... and make a review of SSD's on notebooks... How much "SSD power" do we lose with older ICH's
Thanks :)
Now it just looks more like the a businessclass website, like you see alot of them. Cloning is the future, right :-/
ps: when are the widescreen websites coming. Like me, alot of us own widescreens and sofar, most of the time if not always; we look al blanc, useless bars on the end of our screens.
Now that would be a jump forward!
The new design looks very generic. I like the tabs in the sections but the banner photo's of
projects from the forum are gone, imho something to regret. I was expecting something new
and fresh, but more importantly, something unique to push bit-tech out ahead of the pack. But
it seems they're happy to go with the flow. Play it safe. But I guess it doesn't really matter to
me as I generally head straight to the forums. ;)
EDIT...........
I just noticed, I only get variable width while I'm logged in. Damn.
Project logs haven't gone! They're still on the homepage and they've been promoted to the very top on the modding index :(
The same people make A4 paper widescreen. :(
Not really Awesome job guys!
I meant the photo's at the top of the home page, modding page etc. I think "future neon"
was on the home page and "ciascurro" (spelling?) was on the modding page.
It's Hall of Famer Mr Haz!
for the actual website, you can zoom in to fill the width of your monitor, bonus is bigger text for reading :)
Exactly! +1
Could be alot worse guys, just look what 'they' did to youtube recently.... **vomits blood**
I didn't like the photo. White trash beards don't look good on me, in retrospect.
MY COMPANY...is using IE6. I've got no choice :|
whats different? the font? Size? worked perfectly with the old site
Ah well, I'll just rely on the 'article discussion' part of the forum more, so I don't have to look at it lol.
Far too busy, makes it look cheap and nasty.
Also if you are on IE6, you should be heckling whoever is stopping you from upgrading. IE6 is bloody horrible to have to include compatibility for... and if it's that bad, look at the site when you're at home.
There's something very Hitchhikers Guide about all that.
Anyways its still pretty good....
Pros:
Darker theme
A more modern look
Cons:
NOT flash based (not really a con but would have been awesome)
It should have stretched across my wide-screen. Its just oriented to the center and not really looks THAT cool...
Basically: Keep up with the good work!
http://img695.imageshack.us/i/bittechsample.jpg/
HTML doesn't validate, and so does CSS (I've seen though that is because of browser specific stuff mostly).
Also, for a site of this size, a huge benefit can be had by running YSlow or Google Pagespeed and follow the recommendations.
Again, these are details that can be fixed over time, the layout per se is very good, and I guess fits the purpose of bit-tech as a business entity as well, with rooms for ads and editorial content.
Good job!
I like the fact that the writers can now choose to show selected articles at the top of each section as I've missed some good articles due to not being on the site for a week or so (shock horror!).
The 3 column layout is also a good idea as you can focus your eyes on the first two without having advertising right in your face.
The 3rd column could do with being shrunk a little bit in favour of making the first or 2nd column wider. As IMO it holds the least relevant info on the entire site.
The only bug I've found so far is the feedback button to the left takes you to the comments on the article your reading.
Hope you got a hefty bonus for all your hard coding Jamie! :)
What browser/OS are you running?
Read the notice at the top of the forum. The option for variable width is in your user profile.
I'm sure I'll get used to it but it's not great tbh.
But like people said, I can live with it.
my opinion anyway =] it looks good though
When will this option be applied to the website?
I expect the majority of the visitors have screen widths in excess of 1024 or 1280 pixels so why not use it?
Apart from that though i do like it, i can deal with a lot of information!
http://o.imm.io/laZ.png
It looks horrendous. It's uncomfortable to read.
Sadly, your search box at the top of the page is broken (next to Competitions).
Using Ubuntu 9.10 with:
Google Chrome 5.0.307.7 - the text box appears on the same line as the main navigation, but the search button is down a line, and can't be clicked.
Mozilla Firefox 3.5.9 - Both the search box and the search button are pushed down by one lines, and the website has a big *gap* in it, where the search box doesn't fit properly.
Other than that, liking it so far!
Not so keen on the theme, but it was due a refresh.
I really liked the style before and was worried when I heard it was going to be redesigned, and never saw a link to beta test.
It's now just a wall of text.
Before the main page was neat and looked a lot nicer with the large pictures and colour coding.
...and there's nothing wrong with polite criticism, I don't see why people are being called 'whingers'.
Again, that's weird - the fonts shouldn't look like that. What browser / OS / screen res?
Since I no longer work on the site (I helped a lot with this rollout before stepping aside to work on other projects at Dennis earlier this year), that's one for the current team to answer. My guess: unlikely, since that breaks the control the team has over how an article page looks.
I like the new design though I think it'll take a bit of getting used to.
It's never going to happen - variable width sites are just completely incompatible (theoretically and practically) with the demands of running a content heavy, editorial, commercial business.
To surface a lot of content - which mixes pictures, text and ads - and to do so in a readable manner - you need to be able to control where the elements are on the page. As soon as you go down the variable width road, you lose that, and it just looks like a total mess.
The reason you can get away with it on the forum is that it's just text on a very simple one column grid.
This is a cleartype + helvetica issue ;).
Its gone all IGN!
Let me get this straight, youve consigned everything into a smaller space, that doesnt expand sideways and put a funky background on and oh...im upset.
/me ragequits
It feels like a giant advert now.
It feels like it's faster (but that could be instable internets in this part of the world), and it definitely is easier to navigate. Still not 100% used to it, but it's better than ever now. And it was high time for the old design to go.
I've added a few fixes for firefox on linux, can you check around and see if anything you spotted is now working?
Like this:
http://i.imgur.com/QPxI6.png
to those who have text problems, have you got ClearType enabled in Windows 7?
As it is its quite narrow, to me it makes it feel claustrophobic, perhaps even cluttered.
That's my 2p out there.
Come back in a week and laugh at how melodramatic you sound.
I didn't like the design at first, but after a week and with the help of a few improvements I actually came to like it.
I (and Alex, and I think Jamie) all use Chrome and it looks fine for us...
Secretly, I think he really likes it. He's just hiding his elation :)
Readability is better in Firefox 3.6, but still not as good as on the old site.
Did you change the font?
Just zoom in?
I thought he was just pleased to see me.
Otherwise looks swish though ;) I particularly like the little icons showing the number of comments.
I like, more modern and fresh.
Change is always good.
I would say that the latest news should go down, so it's in line with the latest hardware articles. Then bring the main opening bit across, as it seems too cramped.Scratch that, it looks good...Also, I was used to just clicking the massive bit-tech.net logo to go to home, but the advert obscures it. I think that the top horizontal advert is quite obstructive, and it would look better above the bit-tech logo, and then the logo could take up the whole width of the page.
But, yeah, it seems rather nice. Also working fine in Chrome here.
This is probably a copy of what everyone else is saying, but...
You've lost your 'front page'-ness. Now it's just a mass of postage stamp sized blurbs. The ads get more real estate.
Also, I just tried to post in the other launch thread, and it told me it was locked. Shouldn't a locked thread NOT have a box to type in?
Look at Intellitxt (green plague) for example. Management wanted it on the site to bring in more money and we only got it removed because we were able to point to an irate community who were talking to us about it.
Awful fonts. Did you even test it in Firefox?
Seriously, though, it's a good design. The front page continues to get more complicated, which I'm not sure I'm a fan of, but it reminds me strongly of newspapers, which I suspect is what you're aiming for. It seems to suffer from a lack of centralization - there's no single obvious place to look. If it was up to me, I'd try moving the column topped with "Latest News" to the left of the images and articles column, to make that the focal point of the page.
People shouldn't HAVE to have clear-type enabled or be zoomed in to have your default fonts look good. GG
FF 3.6 - Win 7
oh and as Techno-Dann said, could you remove the feedback button when we browse the forum ? :)
<3
Feedback button will be gone tomorrow morning - we wanted to leave it on for 24 hours, I want people to feel they've had the chance to feed back on it. Plus we want to get the bugs spotted and sorted. We beta tested across PC, Mac, Linux with Chrome/IE/FF and over 100 beta users from the community, but clearly we've not spotted every quirk.
Besides all the visual problems I have with the site. I think the new layout is well organized and see it being much more helpful for finding articles.
I really think some like this would solve that problem (or at least help it).
http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=606&pictureid=9677
EDIT: Adblocker used cos screencapping flash crashes my browser
EDIT2: In case it wasn't obvious, the articles should automatically scroll through the hotspots every few seconds.
All those who are complaining about the new site on a completely blunt level (i.e. those who are not actually giving detailled, useful feedback) need to stop being so utterly arrogant and unappreciative. It's clear that a lot of effort has gone into this project and the staff even took the time to allow bit-tech members to beta test the changes. If you honestly think it's rubbish, you know nothing about web design and have no right to comment here. For those who are posting detailled feedback on things that the site would benefit from having changed, keep doing it. You guys do know what you're talking about, and the bit-tech staff will welcome your feedback with open arms.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to explore :)
EDIT: Love the above design with the main article in big and sub articles linked by hotspots
alright thanks for the answer and sorry if it was mentioned earlier in the thread, I didn't read all of it :)
What you need to remember is there are a lot of 14-15 year olds that browse this kind of site and well, some of them just don't know yet how to act properly... In time, they will though
If you are talking about the forum and not the main site , read this
Everyone has a right to their opinion. I'm not arrogant or anything like it. And I can fully appreciate the time and effort that went into this revamp. But I still don't like it. No it's not rubbish..it does its job well. But it is ugly. Why should I then be denied the right to say so? Understanding web design and liking the end result don't have to go hand in hand.
I am pretty sure his post was not aiming at you but at the posters who just said "TEH NEW LAYOUT IS TEH SUCKZORS DUHHHHH" without any further explanation or justification
Quite glad the new site doesn't have one actually!
Just echoing a few others about the main site looking a bit silly on widescreen monitors though.
Zooming in seems to do the trick but IMHO you shouldn't need to manually do fixes on your browser to fix certain websites :p
I know it wasn't aimed at me. My own comment wouldn't have provoked his response. And I fully agree that what has been done has been done well. But it was the general feel of the post and the remark that if anyone thought this was rubbish they had no right to post. Terrible... EVERYONE has a right to post..even if they know nothing about anything. It offended me not on a personal level..but on a human level.
A quote comes to mind "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
Multitasking is fun, you guys should try it sometime...
Related articles etc. are really useful, especially when I'm busy procrastinating.
Is there a mobile-optimized version?
Brutal, But beauty is in the eye of the beholder
A mobile optimized version would be amazing
multitask AND have fullscreen ftw
You've taken the cardinal rules of web design and literally dumped on them! Why in the name of god would you ever want to dump so much information on the homepage? There is way, way, way too much!
You have basically done what most are trying to avoid, and that's to prevent information overload. Now the challenge is to channel the information, or allow the viewers to filter the information they want. What I see is duplicate information shown all over the site, there is the homepage with an overview of everything, I click on reviews and I see again much of what's already on the homepage, so I click on hardware and yet again see so many of the same articles. For some that may be great but I think you're wasting screen real estate.
What would be great if you made some kind of system where you setup a profile which allows you to define how the site will look, for you. Now this will work best for registered members, however all other can login as guests. For the guests basically you define how the site will look for you, or how you want the information to be filtered. This is saved in a cookie so until you clear your cookie cache the site remains as you defined. You can prompt visitors without site cache to set this up, or ignore this option and there for display everything.
Agree or not well that would be sweet...I think.
Hope you can use this feedback constructively!
http://img186.imageshack.us/i/terribadfonts.jpg/
I won't be visiting bit-tech until it's fixed. I just don't understand why you would use HelveticaNeue-Light for main content. Maybe I'll just write a greasemonkey script to fix it.
Other than that good job!
Also, unless this is a browser issue, there's no reason to have the different articles represented by colors (vertical bar on the left of each article description,Blog/PC/NEWS/etc.), since the tabs at the top of the main page do not reflect the different colors used for each type of article anymore.
Also this kind of revamp was the reason I stopped visiting numerous other tech sites. If it ain't broke don't fix it, but I'm only a drop in a ocean of readers you might say...
I would suggest regular Helvetica Neue or Verdana, the normal Helvetica Neue has greater stem thickness (a problem it was created to solve, which the light version reintroduces), and won't give the blurring, and verdana is a good one because it's cross platform and was designed to be a web font at small sizes.
I think the home, rather then the others tabs, is too busy..... the old one was clearer
I dont' like this sort of label on the pics
All is well on the Firefox front,
however, fonts look ugly in IE8, and by reading the comments also in Webkit browsers. Had to go to 200% zoom on 2560x1600 res to make it readable.
Fix the site, or better yet convert everyone to FF :)
http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=172&pictureid=9680
edit: the lower article is a perfect example of what I mean about the section border and the picture blending together.
Exactly, do the people complaining about the width ever read any other sites? I think you'll find lots of sites are built to a similar width.
Could you add a poll to see how many people are for and against the new layout?
+1
Oh please don't. We're all human (Well most of us anyway) and we don't do change very well. Not if we think we like what we have or are used to.
For me the site doesn't 'work' whether viewing it on a Blackberry or a high def widescreen monitor.
Disapointing and disapointed.
no comments on the new logo?
I like the style of the design, but I think the layout and structure are not as good as they could be.
I think a lot of the negative comments are very justified because you are cramming to much content onto a single page. A site like news.bbc.co.uk does a good job, I think at the moment the new BT does not.
I could go into a lot of strong constructive (but easy to implement) changes I would recommend, but I'm not privvy to the business decisions which led you to structure the site as you have, so anything I say would of course be incomplete and likely in contrast to your needs.
But what I can do is give you what "I" like and dislike.
Like:
- The design elements (Feature boxes, number of comment bubble etc)
- Having long articles remain on one page (like this welcome page). Saves having to flick between pages.
Dislike:
- The vertical height before you get into the content
- The top bar which is 50% blank and contains rarely used icons. Why note move them down?
- The number of articles in each category (EG latest) - it all adds to the overload. If you really need 15 latest articles to be show, do they all need to be so high?
- Two rows of tabs? What is that about? And you have an entire section devoted to USB3?
- Tag cloud right at the top? Does anyone use this on a site like BT?
- The comment count bubbles vary in style across the page, could there not have been some continuity?
- Crazy footer height - how many pixels? How much wasted space?
All in all, as there is nothing "new" that I care about. For how I engage with BT I prefer the old look and feel. But give me half a day with the source code and it could kick some serious arse!
really every site I visit daily is doing this awful redesigns now clamming every information possible into the smallest column possible, we live in 2010, my monitor has a width of 1920 pixels! first my favourite german technology site (which I don't visit that often anymore after their redisgn) and now bit-tech too? my favourite english site... what sites are there left now? I just can't look at this, sorry.
Don't be so utterly silly, there are hardly any fixed-width sites worth using anywhere on the Internet.
http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=770&pictureid=9718
I came on here and thought what the hell.. i've got a 24" screen and its been narrowed down to like a 8" screen! :o
Then I saw the notice about variable width, and thought phew... that would've been the end of me browsing this forum otherwise... no way I could handle the crampness !!
Also, it's admittedly cluttered, but I can deal with it, beats Anand's redesign that had moving flash..ugh.
Nice one xD
I'll take this moment to counter the populist argument:
Just because most other sites code themselves to low-res screens, doesn't nescesarily make it the right thing to do.
Current bit-tech layout on a 24" screen results in the following:
1 - content displayed as-is on a tiny % width of the screen
2 - content blown up to fit the screen, with the text looking nice and big but the resulting graphics blown up and looking like a blurry/blocky mess :(
Tiny text and wasted space or blurry graphics... Not a nice choice to inflict on your audience...
We've made the site wider!
The Main Page strikes a good balance between ads and content.
Good Job, Guys!
Oh, and Unicorn, rep++
(turns phone )
Better now
Thanks
Ah?
...font's still bad though ;)
(yeah, i know it's an "in" font right now, my newssite uses it, people complained, nobody cares. And yes white is the new silver, and colour is bad right now *sigh*)
You still have the articles colour coded by section (yay), but the tab buttons for the seczion are no longer colour coded. Inconsequent?
I stand corrected, they're mouse-over colour coded.
Aaaah!, the number in the picture is a comment counter...now i've got it.
Really? But where's the benefit if you've increased the width by a small amount and then stuffed in a whole load of extra content? The width per column ends up being reduced.
The overall width needs increasing again (IMHO).
Combined with the triple column homepage, where the middle column is unpleasently small and the rightsided "ad" column extra wide, it gives you a claustofobic feel overal.
Zooming the page isn't very usefull either, that way you only need to scroll down the page even more.
Another thing, you can browse now through 170+ frontpages i see. While i gues that every page is a day in a week, why not make a browse system through it with actual dates, instead of meaningless, stupid numbers ?
With a date stamp, it's much easier to find your your way. Hmm, that article i've seen, well; that was about two weeks ago; the thirteent i believe.... Bingo; hit the year/month, date and there you go....
hahaha. Even the comments look silly, i just noticed. They are all cluttered on the left side of the page, leaving alot of space unused.
What a huge waste of space....
Btw, Tom's hardware design sucks just as much.
Too much info in too little space and/or too much space sacrificed for the commercials.
Like Anandtech's appraoch more, aldo that ain't perfect either. Like Guru3D and Hardocp design the best. Clean, open and good to read.
I imagine i see myself here alot less then i am used to. A shame, really.
And don't tell me i have no right to speak, while there was a beta-project. First, everyone has a rigth to speak; that's called democracy. Second, i don't have time to join and participate in every project-log on every site that feels they need one. Actually, i never heard of your beta-project. I just see the result of it and when you ask a consumers opinion; there you have it.
Tom's hardware i hardly come anymore, and while i don't see anything gonn change in the near future here; bittech will follow that same route.
I can only hope more and more people agree with me this is something we do not want and speak up for themselves and others. Or just move on to the next site, which isn't "infected" with the "commercial" virus.
+1. Never mind the quality, feel the lack of width.
Come on it's 2010, not all of us need everything crammed in the middle of the screen. Not scaling makes the adverts more intrusive too. At 1850 x 1050 75% of the width is ads or wasted space once you scroll past the ads/links.
Check the notice at the top of the forum! :(
But the problem isn't with the layout of the forum. That can be fixed by changing to variable width. The problem is the main site is too narrow and bunched up.
for 22 inch 1680x1050, it is kind of difficult because the screen is so small. for 24 inch people who are complaining, have you thought about reading in window mode? that way, you can have the left over space for MSN/Steam chat, other reading or simply enjoy the wallpaper view.
http://i41.tinypic.com/23kvwi1.jpg
bottom line is that the site width is perfect. perfect for netbook users at the same time perfect for desktop users.
about the column thing, the idea is to bring more into view without needing to scroll down. and i think they've achieved that beautifully. before, you can only see 3 or 4 articles while the rest has been pushed down. now, you have 5 featured top articles, and 4 to 5 normal ones on the left column. latest news on the middle. special stuff on the right such as buyer's guide and podcast. with the old website, it was impossible to find the buyer's guide and podcast posts.
all websites are growing, same with bit-tech. their new design is not here to please individuals who just want old look. their new website design is to allow them to post more stuff each day, and able to highlight the featured articles. isn't it always a shame when a well written article gets pushed down the page by other news?
Actually, the distance from the top of the page to the first piece of content has been significantly reduced. It's about 80px higher up the page. On the previous design there was the bit-tech header, the breadcrumb, then a banner slot, then the menu and then the content. Now there's a top menu, a banner/header slot and the main menu before you get to the content.
Yes, we may get used to it after a while but why settle for second rate when it was perfect before.
As a regular visitor every day (my pc is left on 24/7 with a few firefox tabs constantly open, including this site on auto refresh) I feel disappointed in the new design. The main articles took the main focus with a decent pic and description, with the news stories taking smaller focus at the side but still equally readable. Now the site is just a wall of text.
Why is everybody obsessed with change just for the sake of change?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. :(
Do they? Have you done a survey of all bit-tech readers? Didn't think so.
You clearly didn't read the blog post on which you are commenting, did you?
Glad to tell you that it's all fixed, in both browsers :)
To me the new design is better because I tend to not find enough information on front pages in general. Massive article previews, ads and stuff always take up most of the space.
The new design is like old BT but compressed. More information in a smaller space, great for me.
I do however dislike the new wavy background design... why not make it wider and spread it out a bit more or make it smaller and let it fade away completely at the sides so it doesn't look cut-off that much?
People interested in HW ,mods etc, want to see larger pictures of said drool worthy stuff, not text overload. Anandtech's redesign seems to have it about right imho. This is definitely a retrograde step -the only thing that seems bigger are the often unrelated flashing ads.
Let's not start flaming each other. I don't see why people are being blasted for not liking the new design...and I've already asked for a poll to be added so we can see exactly how many people are in favour or against the new look.
For example:
Books based on games: Halo
"Before you start your ranting, if you don’t know already from my mercenary attitude to buying..."
That really doesn't help me learn what the article is about. If you're not going to populate dedicated summary text, I'd suggest losing the snippet entirely rather than grabbing the first line or so from the article.
I didn't flame you for not liking it at all. You're quite welcome to that opinion.
I was just saying you shouldn't make that assumption that everyone doesn't like it just because a few people have said so. It's like anything, if people don't like something then they're more likely to complain than if they do. I'm sure once everyone gets used to where they have to look to find something they'll wonder why they were even complaining in the first place.
And you should probably read the blog to see why they made the changes before you say it's just change for the sake of change, because it isn't.
As I've said before, while I like the redesign (it's miles ahead of old Bit-tech), it doesn't do a good enough job of making the latest and greatest content obvious.
Hadn't noticed that before now its going to annoy me. grrrrr.
My only real bug bear at the moment on the front page, is the changing height ratio of picture to black text box for the article thingy on the top left. I'd prefer the text box height to be constant, but its not going to make me rage if it stays as is.
Oh and I use the term "thingy" in its technical engineering sense
If the redesign is to show more of the new articles being read then why not simply extend the list they had on the old front page? The layout, visual style and article descriptions were far superior.
Sorry to sound negative, as I said before, we'll all get used to it, but for regular visitors the old format was a joy to use.
EDIT: Except for this:
http://grab.by/3SMY
(OS X.5 + Chrome 5)
I shall be addressing that problem at some point. ;)
That's just a hangover from the change-over. We're changing to the new style as we speak.
The layout seems far too generic, with nothing given prominence, demanding attention - the latest 6 page review carrying the same weight as a one paragraph blog?
Thanks!
and yes, I understand 1024 width is standart. No complains there.
(and I also understand it's probably necessary to have the "Ad" comumn so wide...it is cramping the other two though.)
The articles now are squeezed into thing lines that force scrolling downward. Masses of new adverts. No account at all of page width. It's 2010, we had pages that resized properly to screen size years back. Its less clear, harder to read, and for some reason everything is based in some vertical madness.
Perhaps many people do reside in this 1024 width, but I can honestly say given wide screens are totally dominant, and that you are a tech site, from where I sit, it looks bad, and masses and masses of page width is simply not used, and everything else is packed into a hard to read vertical scrollfest.
I really really don't like it. Its a lot worse from a readable view to me than your old pages were by magnituded. So much so its actually making me consider removing it from my favourites.
What? I count 3 adverts, two at the top which are visible when you load to the page, and one at the very bottom when you scroll down. I'm pretty sure the old site only had around 3 ads as well.
The width criticism is one I can understand though. Although the new site is technically wider than the old one, the entire right hand column (which takes up 1/3rd of the page) is essentially useless and features hardly any content whatsoever.
Actually there are a lot less ads now that there were on the old site. The old site had 5 on the homepage vs 3 now. That's a 40% reduction. The forums now only have 1 at the top vs 3-4 on the old forum.
Blogs are, by design, narrower than articles.
There are way more comments on this page than on any other - you normally wouldn't scroll this far.
As Hiren says, the old site had five ads per page, sometimes six or seven, depending on how you counted. That's been cut back, which we felt would go down well with the readership - it took a lot of convincing the commercial guys that it'd be a positive step, but when we were proposing it, we felt it'd be a good way to 'give back' to you for your support instead of just throwing an increasing number of ads on every page, which would more likely lead to an increase in ad-blockers. One complaint we'd seen a lot from readers of was high CPU usage - we're not going to reduce CPU usage by increasing the number of ad slots.
Yes, the formats have been changed on the front page, but the fact remains that there are now fewer ads on most (if not all) parts of bit-tech. The square ad (MPU) at the top is one that we have had to implement for business reasons - it's the most requested banner type - but it meant that we could get rid of the two skyscrapers on index pages and on the forums.
On article pages, there are now four ads, compared to five/six/seven previously and the MPU is no longer intrusive and sitting in the text. This is one thing that, editorially, we wanted to do because a) it makes the articles easier to read and b) it makes them easier for us to lay out, too.
I know I don't work on the site any more, but a lot of this design was scoped out long before I moved onto my new role at Expert Reviews (in fact, a lot of the original layout work was visualised before the Dennis acquisition, but it was in desperate need of some sexing up). So, although I'm not technically part of the team any more, I was attached to this particular project until it reached the closed beta stage, where opinions were sought from the readership, so I am able to at least explain some of the reasoning behind particular choices we made.
Seriously, though, I'm finding the adverts much less intrusive now. I remain happy having bit-tech on my white-list :)
EDIT: However - this lack of alignment annoys me:
http://i.imgur.com/2FWCX.png
Hugo used to work in the same office (back when Trusted Reviews and Bit-Tech shared office space). This should answer your question ;)
I like sarcasm, hence the facetious dig at those readers complaining about the change without even bothering to say what about it they disliked.
To clarify:
I think the new site layout/design is excellent and does a much better job of showing off the great content you guys produce, while also displaying the adverts I'm all too aware are needed to keep the site going.
I'd hope that the bit-tech/CPC guys I've know are well aware they should ignore anything negative I say about the site and/or its content :p
I don't think it looks as nice as the old layout, and it isn't as easy to read as the old layout or even the one from before the last redesign. I understand that you're producing more content, but I never had trouble finding the content before; I feel like most of your readers check the site at least once a day without missing any articles, as you've claimed we have.
The search and tags sound great, but I'll admit that I haven't used them yet, and I don't know how likely I am to do so since I don't actually like looking at the main page anymore.
I've tried to give it a chance but the layout isn't really doing it for me.
+1 to that, I check it a minimum of 2 times a day, or I did anyways, prior to redesign.
Oh, don't worry Hugo. We ignore everything you say full-stop, just to avoid misunderstandings ;)
well, if you count the "Latest Issue Custom PC" as an add*.... No you're right. :D
The scyscrapers didn't narrow the main text on the main page though.
I agree in the articles the current way is better than the old way. :D
*which for me, as a foreigner, it is.
My bad, didn't realise it was sarcasm XD but the number of people of who have asked for the old site back was ridiculous, so when I saw your comment I was like ARGHHHH and decided to put my moaning cap on :P
Glad you like it ;D
I did not make myself understood. Sorry for that.
So I'll try again.
The left column where you guys say your interesting things is now squashed, and is in a thin column that requires too much scrolling downward to read.
The articles of interest are squashed into the top of the same section.
Latest news is again in a thin downward column. Adverts are on the right hand side in a third column arrangement, with content underneath.
Simply put, its a mare.
The items above Latest articles should be horizontal across the top of the page, under the bit tech tool bar. Instead they are in an odd looking 5 window ugly arrangement that forces you to push content downward on the page.
The latest articles and latest news should be next to each other.
Your content should reside in a resized area that matches people's screen size, with adverts running outside the content area, or at least in a better way. I do not mind adverts, not at all, but you have contents underneath the adverts.
Look, to be blunt, all of your problems are coming from being doced to push content downward because you are not resizing the pages in a good way.
I'd even prefer you had more averts outside the pages in the now enormous wasted space than having this invasion of your already tight width layouts.
I'm really hating it and I can't say much more on it.
And THAT happened a lot more with the old design (clicking the side adverts when trying to bring the page back to front)
And, sorry to say that, but why are you here if you hate it that much?
Design is always something that polarises people/opinions, but you can't say "this HAS TO go there" or "that HAS TO look like ...", it just doesn't work that way.
If you wanted to influence the site's new design there was enough time to do so in the beta stages. You didn't participate, did you? Neither did I but I'm not bitching. :p
If you really hate it that much go somewhere else. The 'net is still a place of halfway free choice. ;)
Whoever pitches the premise that blogs are narrow, or that this is a good design is wrong.
Plenty of blogs offer wide width or resizable reading.
However great the content is, if you organise it badly, and make it hard to read, these are two absolute no no's. Whatever you may think, here is the thing, Factually, I'm telling you its worse, for me, from my view. This is not a debate.
On this 1920 x 1080 screen the site looks patently stupid, with a centre section that hard to read, requires dumb scrolling, and has two enormous areas left and right that are complete wasted voids. As well as being narrow, you have had to force multiple columns in so its not just narrow, its three or four narrow sections with adverts being forced in there as well.
You've given the option to avoid fixed width in the forums, perhaps you can offer this site wide..
One question!! When is your iPhone app coming out, tell me you have something planned or are you afraid that people will stop buying the magazine? I would pay for the app and keep my custom PC subscription :D
I think it's got to be your screen - we kept the colours consistent from the old site. Screenshot of it?
Dynamic resizing - addressed it in the follow up blog, basically, it's a total pain to do as it really reduces our ability to control where elements - adverts, images, text, nav - appear on the page, so it's not going to happen.
iPhone app - looking in to it, I'd definitely like to do one.
The thing is I read bit-tech on 3 machines, my main home pc, my media PC and my work PC. All run different resolutions. With the media PC its ok as this just runs at full HD res and its quite readable if you zoom to a decent level. On my main PC though it looks small, a firefox app that could save a default zoom level for different websites would be great! Anyone know if there is one like this?
Can't wait for the iphone app!