[imitchellg5]

Well looks like Macworld.com finally got a redesign. It now looks about 3 years old instead of 10. Really, I expected a bit more from them. What do you all think of the redesign?

[rickey939]

Not a fan.

[64stang06]

More ads, it seems. Still, not a fan either, even before the update.

[ajprice]

Looks familiar...

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Wow that is absolutely horrendous. All I see is ads.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by ajprice 

Looks familiar...

http://homepage.mac.com/adrianprice1/macworldnn.jpg

Yeah it does. effgee did a better job though.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by ajprice 

Looks familiar...

marketing myopia !!

[IceEnclosure]

I haven't looked at the modern macnn news page in quite some time, I'm all about the legacy, much easier to read.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Well at least nothing can get much worse than this:
Spymac.com - We make Stars! - Share Videos, Pictures and Audio.

[klb5090]

not a fan of the new macworld and the last time i was at spymac (over a year ago) it looked nothing like that! what happened?

[imitchellg5]

It went downhill, as they say. Fast.

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Wow that is absolutely horrendous. All I see is ads.

Well, so now it's just like the printed version. Really, the printed version is more like a pamphlet than an actual magazine. It used to be thick, now it nothing but ads, too.

[MacosNerd]

I popped over there and I'm not liking the new design. The old one was certainly getting long in the tooth, but they actually reduced the ease of use

[andi*pandi]

what is with that huge red login button???

[zro]

Wow. The old site was fine, especially in comparison. At least it was readable. The only thing that bothered me about it was the auto refresh.

[mdc]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

what is with that huge red login button???

I agree. It's very distracting and doesn't offer anything over a regular login | sign up text link. The fact that it has been made to look like a sticker that is peeling off the site adds another layer of confusion.
It's like one of the designers was bored, drew the sticker in his free time, and then wondered how they could use it on their new site. Maybe in the process make the next web 2.0 star burst.

All in all, I am not crazy about the new site.
There are a few things that seem to have been put in because they're cool; except they're having the opposite effect and making the site look worse.


The "title images" have round corners which clash with the square corners of the box they're in.
I think the blue box should have been the same height as the "title" boxes.


^ Much better in my opinion.


The dark grey to white gradient needs to go.
I think that's one of the worst things about the new site.

The right hand side of the site is dedicated to making MacWorld some money, and yet they feel the need to throw in some articles; which happen to be the same as the ones in the main content part of the site.
They tried to put in so much content that it becomes *far* too busy; which, along with the graphical issues, is the biggest issue with the site.

[andretan]

Mac-what? Use an RSS reader.

[Jawbone54]

Hideous. Ads absolutely everywhere. I don't see a consistent look anywhere, either. There's no distinct separation between sections.

And, dear god...the ads!

[funkboy]

I don't know where to start looking.
They claim that they need to have so much advertising in order to make money, but how will they make money if people stop going to their site because it's so difficult to read?
digg is just fine financially I think, and it is far less busy and much easier to read. Heck, I like fark's headline listing better than this.

Many people still go to macworld and use it like the old maccentral - breaking Mac and technology news, not to go read little Mac 911 articles or other features.

I just may start going to digg and news.com now, though I really wish I could get a Mac-centric view of news...

Specific complaints:
* Lots of wasted, strange header space, including that big red peeling sticker. Video, Newsletter, and RSS seem to be three things that just do not belong together in a header, too.
* Mac / iPod / iPhone have a red rollover, along with many other links on the site, but the "News / Help & Tips / Shop ..." section does not have any red in its rollover. Strange inconsistency that doesn't really make it look "good." Usually consistency is broke when it helps for some other reason; this choice seems arbitrary, though.
* Grey bar on the left side, under "Intel hints at future Mac," a bunch of totally dead grey space exists. Maybe it's a bug... but for the opening day or two of the site, shouldn't this be ironed out?
* The MacUser / iPhoneCentral headings are not clickable, even though these are both self-contained sub-sites of MacWorld...
* A strange green thumbs-up icon appears on article pages, but barely anything related to user-rankings and this thumbs up icon appears on the home page. Should it not be more obvious that the site is integrating user rankings immediately upon visiting the home page?
* The left large column has multiple different types of sub-columns, which help contribute to a lost feeling when looking at the section.

Somebody feel free to critique my critique, but this new design... bleh. And same goes for the old design. At least they moved the news articles to the middle... you should have seen the new blue design a week or two ago, when it didn't even have news article headlines above the fold...

[funkboy]

I think I've decided I'm done with MacWorld. We'll see if I stay away... this is, as Milton would say, "the last straw."
No burning of a building though.
Macrumors has the little tidbits of stuff I want anyway.