In 2010 we went through the single largest redesign in AnandTech history. We modernized the site, finally moved to a tag based architecture and made a number of other tweaks. The web moves a lot quicker than it did even just 3 years ago, so last year we started working on another significant redesign. Today marks the debut of that design.

Going into the redesign we wanted to accomplish three major goals. First, we wanted to have a design that put our smartphone and tablet coverage on equal footing with our traditional PC roots. The redesign consolidates our coverage areas into four major categories: PC Components, Smartphones & Tablets, Desktops & Notebooks and finally Enterprise. The super categories are largely self explanatory and you can drill down into each one of them for more specific navigation.

It's important that our site design reflects our internal focuses. We are as committed as ever to our PC component coverage, but we also devote an equal amount of time to what we're doing in the new mobile space. From my perspective, whether it's a smartphone or a server, we're still talking about some form of computer - just in a different case.

Our second major goal with the redesign was to more prominently feature Pipeline, our short form content section. We launched Pipeline in late 2011 as a way of dealing with content that either didn't demand our full review treatment or that we didn't have time to dedicate deep analysis to. Since then Pipeline has become a very important part of the site, and we wanted to elevate its position on the front page as a result. Pipeline stories on the right are ordered from newest to oldest, with even older pipeline stories appearing under the 2x2 grid of featured articles.

Finally, we wanted a design that would be more accessible and speak to the broader nature of our audience. While you all know why you come to AnandTech, it's very important to our continued success and ability to remain independent that the site accurately reflects the diverse audience. Whether you're coming to us for motherboard reviews, analysis of the latest microprocessor architectures or to figure out which smartphone or tablet to buy, you're likely a person relied on by dozens of others for recommendations.  We remain an independent website, which comes with its own challenges when it comes to proving our worth to the agencies and marketing organizations that help keep us operational. Looking the part is just as important as having the content to back it up.

We made sure not to take away any features with the redesign. We still include our well used Print View on all articles, but now allow you to use it both for single page reading as well as for actual printing. The previous Print View didn't have all of the styling of our article pages since it was purely optimized for printing, now we have both modes.

Other features have been enhanced as well. The View All Comments button now actually lets you view all comments on a single page, rather than just showing you 50 comments per page. You can also now permalink to individual comments. I'm always humbled by just how awesome your comments are, now we can finally link directly to individual ones. 

We now support larger images inline (we will be adding site-wide retina/hi-DPI support soon!) and our graph style has been updated as well, which you'll start seeing us take advantage of with all new content going forward. The review body text is also larger and hopefully easier to read, which should help when we post some of our ultra long form content. 

The Podcast now has a permanent link at the top of the page as well - thanks to all you who have been asking for that.

The Twitter feed on the front page now includes tweets from a number of staff members including Brian, Ganesh, Jarred and myself. We've also made it easier to follow us on Twitter and Facebook with direct links in our header (hint: it helps us tremendously if you do). Our most recommended content on Facebook is also nicely streamed in to the right of the site as well.

There are more functional changes that we'll be introducing throughout the new year. We just had to get the redesign out of the way first so we could start building on it.

I hope you all enjoy the site redesign. I know big changes aren't always easy to get used to, and as always you have my commitment to fix/improve anything that truly needs it. I'd love to hear your feedback on the design in the comments below.

I'd like to close with a thanks to all of you for continuing to read and support the site. I've always said that AnandTech is your site and I do firmly believe that. We are here to serve you and you are what make this site possible. Thank you for reading, and thanks for making the past 16 years possible. If you are a relative newcomer, please be sure to check out our About page that helps explain the philosophies that drive us.

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  • 3ogdy - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    the logo isn't only worse than the previous one, it doesn't fit within the page's so called "design"....
  • MadEmperor - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Cluttered mess of a site. Horrible redesign, I hope this is just the default Geocities does.
  • B3an - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    It's not bad...

    But as a web designer myself i'd really like to see 'responsive web design' added to this site. Which incase anyone doesn't know, is when you resize the browser window, or use a different resolution device, the site will adapt and scale the layouts width automatically. A good example is microsoft.com, try resizing the browser window and watch it adapt.

    It would also be nice to darken the design a little, maybe have a light-ish grey background instead. This white will strain my eyes when reading long articles. Or maybe add an option to switch between light and dark themes (like Ars Technica).

    Also this comment post box should be resizeable.

    Apart from this stuff it's not a bad design, i don't find it any worse than the old design, but i don't find it better either because of the things i've just mentioned. It certainly looks more modern atleast (everything has been heading Metro for some time now) if a little too generic and similar to many other site designs. Think you need a more defined colour scheme and specific little graphical tweaks to stand out more.
  • B3an - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Oh and another thing, as others have pointed out it's a little cluttered. You've got rid of dated design stuff like gradients, drop shadows, texture emulation, shiny/reflection effects and so on (take note Apple) which greatly helps make the site cleaner, but then you've ruined it by making the layout a little too cluttered on the home page.

    The AnandTech logo also looks out of place because it still has all those old design styles i mentioned above. Flattern it out, make it larger :)
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    I think that's a valid complaint on the logo side, we didn't go for a redesign this round but it's definitely something I'd consider to modernize it a bit.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Responsive or something mobile specific is coming. On the background side, do any of these options help:

    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/grey.jpg
    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/lightergrey.jp...
    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/reallylight.jp...

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Cliff's Esport Corner - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    I think the new layout is to "busy", and I agree with some other comments that the translucent text overlay is not a good idea.

    A suggestion, if your wanting to keep current layout, maybe add easy to find button for simpler, less cluttered layout?

    As it stands I am likely to bookmark the RSS feed page and use that, so I can find stuff more quickly.

    Tested new look on Win 7 on 13" ASUS UL30V: Chrome, Lion OS on 27" iMac: Firefox & Chrome, Blackberry Bold 9780: Native browser, and iPod Touch 5th Gen: Safari
  • lordjmann - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    The turquoise on light grey is really not working for me. I know you're trying to use your colors but there are several contrast issues present. Light grey on turquoise doesn't work well either.
  • MadMan007 - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Yeah, shiny. I dub the new look Anandgadget :)

    There is one thing that has bothered me ever since the 2010 change, I think I've written it before...searching articles brings up way too many results with no organization. The front page was already blog style, the search results were (and are) too. It's ok for the front page, but when searching I am often looking for a specific article, usually a longer review rather than a short 'pipeline' piece. And yet I end up having to wade through all the search results to find what I'm looking for, and for some terms that are mentioned a lot that can be a *lot* of articles.

    Could there please be a way to limit searches more? Options for All, Reviews, Articles, Pipeline, etc would be a great help and make the site much more efficient to use. In a similar vein, it would be nice to be able to filter article categories by type. I see there are new dropdowns for categories but they are still too broad (I think they are just new links for the old categories?) ex: 'Notebook reviews' has pipeline blurbs about graphics drivers, Samsung UEFI issues, Micron ultrathin SODIMMs, etc. These are clearly not 'notebook reviews'.

    I think search and category fsub-filters would make the site an even greater resource than it already is. Thanks!
  • bernstein - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    "Options for All, Reviews, Articles, Pipeline, etc would be a great help" yeah i strongly second that. if not well... -1 reader.

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