Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Rolling Bones · Dec 6, 2005, 07:09 PM

Very pretty but some of the type covered by pics.

Also could not find forums so I changed back to legacy.

Andy8 · Dec 6, 2005, 07:54 PM

Yes I agree, hard to navigate to the Forum home, but I guess that will become clearer once the Forums have their make-over same as the portal.

malson · Dec 6, 2005, 07:55 PM

Well, it's a redesign. I went to the more traditional news page (www.macnn.com/news). The page is very slow to load. The white background that is supposed to be behind the news stories does not load completely meaning that as you scroll down the page, you get black text on a blue background. The text is fairly small so you might want to consider giving the user an option to change the text size via CSS. I've never liked MacNN's way of creating links that go through the macnn.com server to get to the destination. Sometimes I just like to hover over the link to see where it goes. I don't have that option here. While I agree that some of the stories here are not covered elsewhere, I might finally ween myself off this site. There aren't too many compelling reasons to stay. Keep working on the redesign. I'm sure that it could be great!

Eyenovation · Dec 6, 2005, 09:07 PM

Looks a lot better, functions a lot worse. I'm sure you'll get it dialed in before too long.

emark · Dec 6, 2005, 09:19 PM

Looks great, Super work. I don't have any problems w/ loading,

Take not of "News Headlines" that pops up under "macnn home" for the type of listing to quickly browse news for navigation now that divided by topic Andy.

TonyTNZ · Dec 6, 2005, 11:21 PM

Absolutely bloody awful. Doesnt work properly, looks crap, and completely inhibits the purpose of the site - to be able to quickly scan and take in a whole heap of stuff you probably dont need to know but cant be sure till you've scanned it. Sorry to be so negative, but it sucks big time, a classic example of what you get when you ask someone with artistic flair to redesign something which needs none.

natural1 · Dec 6, 2005, 11:29 PM

The links in the upper right corner of thepage need to be not-so-sideways (you gotta turn your head just to read the text). Maybe a few more headline articles along with the news links (see the NY Times homepage.)

JonahLee · Dec 6, 2005, 11:43 PM

Well I have to admit it looks nice, but I hate it. The old site, gave the perfect mix of information in an easily readable format, and the new site is so much less efficient. thankfully legacy is still around, otherwise I would have to find a new site for my macintosh news!

Rolling Bones · Dec 7, 2005, 01:15 AM

Well it sucks after trying to use it for a while and have now bookmarked
http://legacy.macnn.com/ as my goto MacNN page. I hope MacNN keeps this page cuz the new one sucks big time.

Hint in design...

"Less is more".

Rolling Bones · Dec 7, 2005, 01:18 AM

dp

fzck! fix this sh!tty posting problem first!!!!

Rolling Bones · Dec 7, 2005, 01:23 AM

I give up...

Volks · Dec 7, 2005, 01:59 AM

All I have is one question:

Why change what worked before?

I have to say the new home page is a disappointment. I really don't care to see a designer web page.

Another question:

What idiot designer thought it would be cool to have a homepage that only uses half of the space for content?

(Thumbs down)

Volks · Dec 7, 2005, 02:01 AM

All I have is one question:

Why change what worked before?

I have to say the new home page is a disappointment. I really don't care to see a designer web page.

Another question:

What idiot designer thought it would be cool to have a homepage that only uses half of the space for content?

(Thumbs down)

Volks · Dec 7, 2005, 02:02 AM

All I have is one question:

Why change what worked before?

I have to say the new home page is a disappointment. I really don't care to see a designer web page.

Another question:

What idiot designer thought it would be cool to have a homepage that only uses half of the space for content?

(Thumbs down)

pakirk · Dec 7, 2005, 04:12 PM

I can't believe that tiny vertical type in the right upper corner meets any rational design standard. Are we supposed to turn our heads sideways to read it?

alphasubzero949 · Dec 7, 2005, 05:02 PM

There are screenshots of what the forums are supposed to look like after the redesign:
http://www.gesamtbild.com/01_blog/ca...m_redesign.php

dimplemonkey · Dec 7, 2005, 05:42 PM

I like the new look but quite frankly, there is a regurgitation of information all over the home page. And I really tried to get used to it until I saw there was a way to return back to the legacy look. Now things seem better. I'll come back to the new website, once you've discontinued the legacy look.

I know you guys are trying for a new fresh look. Hopefully, you'll find common ground between your vision and what your readers expect.

Mojo · 06:19 PM

Maybe the "legacy" MacNN was a little tired looking...

The primary background color reminds me of the paint color used on VW vans circa 1968. But a page full of links is not what the doctor ordered.

And what is the deal with the items in the upper right-hand corner of the page? I have to turn my head sideways so I can read them!

Didn't anyone beta test this thing???

Many thanks for the link to the "legacy" page! Now please go back to the drawing board...

driven · Dec 7, 2005, 06:52 PM

I don't like it. The fonts on the main page are too small for my high-res display. If I resize them then they cram up all over each other (and is equally unreadable.)

The colors are equally non-pleasing. This new design is going to make me go blind. (This is the first time I needed to reach for my glasses to see the portal page.)

Also: What's with the HUGE amount of blank space to the left and right of the page???

Maybe they don't care if we actually read the main page ... so our comments are falling on deaf ears. Oh well. At least I feel better for venting.

Demonhood · Dec 7, 2005, 07:37 PM

looks like this to me.
suits me just fine.

as to the vertical text in the upper right: i think the general idea is that the color will be what you eventually associate with each section. but i've known about that part for eons, so maybe i'm just used to it.

driven · 08:09 PM

This is what it looks like to me on my office computer:

[inline image changed to link because you neglected to make it comply with the rules -- tooki]
http://www.zsoldos.org/ebay/macnn.jpg

tooki · Dec 7, 2005, 08:12 PM

FWIW, I think the new site has sacrificed some usability unnecessarily, e.g. the fixed-width layout, the all-lowercase headlines (mercifully fixed), etc. I also don't care for the "portal" -- I don't see the point, it makes it look like Any Other News Site™, with typically nondescript headlines crammed all over the place, just seas of links with no content and insufficient whitespace.

But that's just me.

tooki

P.S. The new design also relies more heavily on graphics, so when (not if) the NN server that the images are on goofs up and starts serving up "error 400" instead of images, the layout goes to hell. That's not a design flaw, though, but rather a server problem that I have been complaining about for ages. The old design merely didn't collapse as thoroughly under that condition is all.

tooki · Dec 7, 2005, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

the all-lowercase headlines (mercifully fixed)

Never mind. I looked at the /news page, and the headlines there are properly capitalized, I see that the portal still uses goofy all-lowercase.

tooki

chefpastry · Dec 7, 2005, 09:58 PM

I like the old one much better.

driven · Dec 7, 2005, 10:13 PM

Tooki, what didn't comply? I shrunk the image so it wouldn't make the screen wider. (Then again ... I did it on a screen with 1900 pixels across ... was it too wide?)

tooki · Dec 7, 2005, 11:04 PM

You posted an 800px wide image, far wider than the 480 pixel maximum width.

tooki

driven · Dec 7, 2005, 11:20 PM

Ahhhh .... Sorry. Wasn't intentional.

MacDog · Dec 8, 2005, 09:48 PM

I love the new look. Can't wait for it to make its way to the forums. Change is a good thing. Anytime a site changes people get upset, but quickly get over it.

Take a look at Spymac, which has a ton more features and probably 3 to 4 times the users. They made a DRASTIC change, people complained, Spymac addressed most of the issues quickly and now everyone has moved on and are enjoying the site again (for the most part).

I for one am glad to see MacNN move away from the old/stale look and give themselves a bright shiny new look.

MacDog · 10:16 PM

Arghhh, I should say I love the new look, but the page load time (even here in the forums) is now mind-numbingly slow.

JHromadka · Dec 9, 2005, 12:46 AM

Originally Posted by pakirk

I can't believe that tiny vertical type in the right upper corner meets any rational design standard. Are we supposed to turn our heads sideways to read it?

bradoesch · Dec 9, 2005, 04:35 PM

Well done!

gorgonzola · Dec 12, 2005, 06:17 PM

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?p=2800383