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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NARC4457 - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but going to the next page of comments doesn't bring you to the top of the comment section. FF 3.6.2Voo - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Yeah noticed that too, FF 3.6.2Gets annoying pretty fast if you have to scroll up after going to the next page ;)
Peroxyde - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Hi,Just curious, what is the Content Management Software behind the new design?
coachingjoy - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Very sharp picture on my screen.Don't know if it's the site or what but nice.
Good Luck with it.
vol7ron - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
NICE!!looks got AT team.
vol7ron - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
looks good*pardon my free thinking fingers.
James5mith - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I can't say I'm a fan of the orange. It's very jarring. Maybe it's just because it's different, but I liked the way the old site kind of "flowed" with varying shades of blue/gray.BZDTemp - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I appreciate the desire to mix things up and while the new design is nice and clean perhaps even pretty there are some issues. Here is my good and bad list.1. I like the new colours. Bright but not too bright.
2. The new forum format works and looks nice. A+
3. Speed is nice. I'm thinking slightly longer to load than the old but not slow (Note this is on a 20 Mb line and a new PC, so some may think differently).
4. A lot more space on the top is needed for menus and such. Something like 450 pixels just for the top ad, the logo and top menus seems rather excessive and when you include the 280 or so for the ticker which advertises the different articles there is a lot of screen spaced used for not that much info. I'm on a big screen and I can just imagine how this is on a laptop or even a 24" 16:9 screen!
5. The ticker which advertises the different articles is very annoying. Please do away with the auto-scrolling it makes it like a huge ad across the page . Maybe just the headlines with mouse-over showing pictures and a teaser is an option or maybe just the headlines as links.
6. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I know I'm repeating my self but on the old page I could see straight away what new articles was posted since last visit and also the DT headlines. The new articles seems to have gone and to see the DT headlines I have to scroll a good deal (and this on a 2560x1440 screen).
All in all I think the new design could draw in more user due to it's initial friendlyness but perhaps there could be a compact versions for those which like a higher information density. It could be in ones profile and main changes should be:
- making the menu area in the top more compact
- doing away with the ticker and just listing the article headlines
- highlighting the titles of the ones which has been added since last visit.
- Bring DT headlines up so they are on the first page (so no scrolling is needed)
- Maybe an option to put menus in a vertical bar and maybe combine this with support for free choice of page width.
Final words: Keep the good articles coming but please less bling.
MrSpadge - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
.. means you're not going to bother with traditional HDDs any more?Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
The categories at the top are just what we launched with. We will have many more going forward, HDDs included :) Users have just been asking for an easy way to see SSD content so now we have anandtech.com/tag/ssds.Take care,
Anand