Welcome to the 2010 AnandTech Beta
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 29, 2010 11:52 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
That old design lasted us a long time, didn't it? :) Welcome to the 2010 AnandTech Beta. We've done a lot of updating behind the scenes as well as (obviously) on the front end.
Most obvious is the brand new look and feel. For a site that reviews the latest and greatest tech, we can't get by looking like we're still living in 2004. Now when the 80s make a comeback we'll be on top of that, you've got my word.
We've ditched the left hand column, streamlined some of the ads and widened the content column. While each article will still give you a preview of 10 comments, we finally have an option to view all comments on each review page. Right now we've got this set to 50 comments per page but we'll be tweaking as need be. We're also cutting down on the number of page loads you'll encounter. In view all comments mode there's no page refreshing between comment pages. We'll be bringing this feature to more parts of the site in the future. User friendliness is our drug :)
The front page allows for both linking to our superlong articles as well as shorter stories that can just appear on the front page for quick scanning. By default the latest 5 articles will appear in the rotating carousel up top, but if something super interesting comes up we'll promote it up there (similar to what did on the old site). The expanded summaries on the front page will give you more insight into what it is we're talking about in the article before you ever click anything.
Tags are enabled but not in full effect just yet. We'll be beefing up search, comments (the return of ratings!), galleries, Bench, user profiles and site layout/color customization over the coming weeks. We're planning on this being a regularly updated thing so if you see anything that warrants our attention let us know.
It's not all about a pretty face though, we're still going to be publishing the content that you demand from us. If you haven't seen it, be sure to read Ryan's GeForce GTX 480 & GTX 470 Review. And I'm commemorating today with a new SSD article addressing one of the longest running questions you've been asking: how do SSDs perform in RAID?
As always, thank you for your support over the years and for reading the site. It's been a pleasure to be able to write for you all over the past 13 years. Thank you guys for giving me and all of us the opportunity to do just that. If you haven't been able to tell by now, I love writing this stuff - and you all make it possible.
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SANDAR - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
It looks like you guys have been spending a lot of time pondering the mysteries of WP7S.Me likey.
And yes, I've been reading this site since... '01? Maybe '02? I was fond of the old design, but I like the new one, too. It's your site, so if it makes you happy...
citan x - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
The carousel at the top of the page is bad. I keep trying to read a headline and it moves on me. I hate that.bluorb - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Where is the “print article”? It is very convenient to read an article without having to click for each page. Otherwise the new look is great.ratbert1 - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Am I the only one who gets the articles through RSS feed? I was curious when I didn't get any new feeds for two days. And then DT stopped sending feeds today. And my bookmark to AT got a server error. Finally got to AT through an old article link. Anyway I knew changes were coming, though it would be nice to know that the RSS feed URL's were going to change, and that old bookmarks may not redirect.Oh, and after reading 18 pages of comments, I can say I don't know if I like the new site, but I don't care if there is a print article button or not. Save a tree for christ's sake.
bluorb - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I use the “print article” function to read one document on the screen (no hard copy).cgeorgescu - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Looks like you're targeting 1024x768, but:- given that readers of anandtech are power users, very few have 1024 horizontally, so you can safely default to 1280 (and you may offer, somewhere, a 1024 option for netbook users);
- the header of the homepage (ad+logo+menu) is 50% of the screen (vertically) for 95% of readers;
- there's a useless gray line at the top;
- too much space before/after the top ad;
- logo too tall (plus the menu on the right - menu 1 (HOME/ABOUT));
- too much space between the logo and the menu 2 (CPU/MoBo/SSD);
- menu 2 uses excessive padding (space lost);
- menu 3 (Smartphones/Memory) uses excessive padding around a very small font;
- on regular pages, space lost (vertically) is 145px: 65 before the logo, 50 between logo and menu 2, 30 because excessive padding in the menu 2 and 3;
- on the targeted resolution (1024x768), the logo is too much on the left, there are only 2px there. Move it another 20px to the right;
- consider highlighting the selected category/menu item;
- there's not much space for ads in the first 800px of the page. In the home page, you can place only one ad (at the top), in regular pages you can barely fit 1.5 ads (at the top plus half of vertical ad on the right). You get your money for all the ads in the page but your score gets very low because advertisers want people to see ads without scrolling.
And I don't know what you've had against the old logo. Seeing the page header, my first impression is that I've set my browser on large fonts.
On the home page, the latest posts section uses some very big pictures. And too much text. No matter what you do and what screen you have, you can't see more than one product/review at once. It doesn't actually give a quick view over several posts.
Just my opinion.
InternetGeek - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Guys, You could serve the MS Ajax library and mvc scripts from Microsoft's CDN. It might save you a bit on bandwidth. I think it also serves jquery as well.metalhead0043 - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I love the new look. I've been lurking for a long time and registered just to say so.cgeorgescu - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Ah, and the ajax loading of comments... You're at comment nr. 10, click on next and expect to see the next page, the comment nr. 11. Nope, you see the next page but you have to scroll up cause you're at the bottom, you see the comment nr. 20.simtex - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Hehe, saw the new fav icon before the pages started loading, and thought something is wrong here ;)But overall the design looks promising, too much comment indenting to my liking, but that is my only complaint right now.