El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    El Reg Redesign - leave your comments here

    December 19 Update no.4 - changes

    Changed screen outside site background colour from white to grey.

    Top Art in stories - now editorially selectable - in response to feedback about relevance (see above).

    Reduced headline font size on Hero “story” at top of front page, articles and forum pages.

    Masthead - entirely clickable to get back to front page(with exception of area containing social media buttons).

    Footer - “The Register” text now clickable to help return readers to front page.

    Visited and hover states swapped for better readability.

    A Christmas masthead!

    One week on. Update No.2 - our story is here

    Update No.1

    just letting you know that we are listening to your feedback. A quick update for now - we’ll report back to you next week.

    Half-second delay added before the mouseover triggers drop down nav. We hopes this eliminates those annoying accidental pop-ups.

    Two bugs reported - we have fixed one, restoring the ability to switch between desktop and mobile versions. The second. namely the loss of right click to open new tabs affects IE8 + IE9 users - just under six per cent of our readers, We know how to fix it - and it’s on our to do list. We’ll get this out before the end of next week.

    Bye, bye print article icon - rarely used, not coming back. We still support this feature - so you are welcome to get hacking. *

    Here is a checklist of the changes we have made.

    Grey (mostly)  axed from colour palette  -  site is probably too monochrome now - but where better place to start than black and white?

    Top ad moved  -  to get more space-for and attention for editorial content.

    Expanding section nav  - to make content more accessible

    Fixed navbar  - an aide memoire to encourage people to explore site

    Footer  - more logical home for many links

    Tidied up the right column  - We think it is easier to navigate.

    Pics at the top of nearly all stories  -  visual is good, right?

    Removed left column in the story page  - declutter

    Reduced number of “teaser” units at bottom of story page  - declutter

    Social media buttons and tags moved   - more logical places on the page

    Front page headline carousel  - rotating teasers, are they effective? Let's A/B test.

    Removed tabs and content buttons  - tried to make content accessible.-

    Feature removed - most commented   - will be unpopular with some - but ignored / unused by vast majority. We aim to rethink this feature - but at a later date.

    Feature removed print article - not used - This is not coming back

    1. J. R. Hartley

      Fucking shit

      No need to go all Office 2013 on us. Fuck me this is grim.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fucking shit

        You appear to have changed your prose style since the Art of Fly Fishing, Mr. Hartley.

        Office 13? Really?

        1. Gert Leboski

          Re: Fucking shit

          Well played DrewC.

        2. Jim 59

          Love it, well done

          This is indeed the biggest scandal since the great variable-width rumpus of '05 or whenever it was. Saw it this morning, nice surprise, think it looks nice. I like the old blue headlines being changed to black. And the header being shrunk and a bit less "Daily Sport" too. And it's quick. Not so keen on the pop-up pictures at the top but what the hell, why not. Consider making the font for the main headline a touch smaller, given we all have big screens now.

          It is quite surprising that such a nice job was done by an "in-house team". Oh, and about that...

          In addition, "Redesign v2" is coming in 2015 and is likely to involve an agency that can guide us through-

          NO! Your own team clearly knows what it is doing.

          1. AJ MacLeod

            Re: Love it, well done

            There's always one, isn't there? I can only conclude that you're either viewing the site with a screen reader or completely insane.

      2. Rusty 1
        WTF?

        Re: Fucking shit

        Yep, right down to the "menu" entries in fecking caps.

        Going back a few years, one Margaret Calvert was employed to make our road signs easily readable. Through the clever use of both upper and lower cases letters, with ascenders and descenders, most words were immediately visually recognisable by their shape, quite often without having to read the words themselves.

        Now, 50 odd years on, in the next millennium, this CAPS LOCK SHITE returns.

        Mankind is doomed.

      3. Gert Leboski

        Re: Fucking shit

        I wish I could upvote your response more.

        Whilst I don't necessarily agree with you, the concise, blunt response, first in the queue of real commentards, just made me crack up. Thank you Mr Hartley. :-D

      4. ashdav

        Re: Fucking shit

        Quick, Modern, Fresher.

        Hmm... So that will be..

        Quick - flatter (no graphics to render)

        Modern - (following the sheep)

        Fresher - (it looks like a fucking phone)

        Also looks like a wall of text. Why do you need consultants to to tell you this is WRONG?

      5. Jamie Jones Silver badge
        Unhappy

        ARGGGGGGGGGGGH!

        Sorry, it's horrible.

        I actually thought my browser had loaded the site without the stylesheet.

        How about instead putting resources into making the forum work properly -- highlights/notifications of replies / new comments etc.

        1. Hoppy

          Re: ARGGGGGGGGGGGH!

          Its dreadful.

          Like Jamie I had to check I had the correct version of site I thought I had loaded the one for idiots,

          "Pics at the top of nearly all stories - visual is good, right?" NO it bloody well isn't. I suspect most of your readers are literate and can understand the meaning of an article quite well with out requiring pictures. Although I do forget what a mouse is or struggle to visualise a switch without some form of memory jogger.

          That's not including any comments re fixed width etc. that my fellow posters have covered.

          We (the readers) are not fools and I suspect will dislike the "new and improved" style immensely.

          Oh yes while I'm posting- Please bring back the carousel. It was probably the most endearing feature of the front page bringing articles I mas have otherwise missed to my attention..

          1. Mage Silver badge
            Mushroom

            Re: ARGGGGGGGGGGGH!

            Images TOO BLOODY BIG, pardon my Klatchian.

        2. Steve Evans

          Re: ARGGGGGGGGGGGH!

          Ooooh, that's a point... I might be able to fix it (on the desktop at least) with some abuse in tampermonkey.

          BTW, what's the android mobile app like? Has it got any better? Last time I tried it it didn't last an hour before the bin summoned.

      6. (AMPC) Anonymous and mostly paranoid coward

        Re: Fucking shit

        Not too impressed from my tiny laptop screen. Miss being able to quickly scan the articles with just a discreet headliner on top. Plus I really hate flash warnings. So I am not sure this will catch on but appreciate the effort. Keep trying.

      7. nuclearstar

        Re: Fucking shit

        I hate the new site to be honest. Its terrible, reminds me of those websites like buzzfeed.

        The annoying navigation bar at the top needs to go too. And why is the page so small on my widescreen monitor, I got a widescreen so I could fit more on it, not to have white space everywhere

      8. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fucking shit

        My sentiments entirely. Utterly horrendous, roll it back ASAP.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      I'm fed up with fixed width sites on my Full HD screen - wasted space on sides & unecessary scrolling.

      Please consider reverting to the original Reg dynamic width one of olden times please.

      Cheers

      1. Jeff Deacon
        Thumb Down

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        Equally, I often read ElReg on a narrower than usual (these days) screen, and must constantly scroll horizontally to see what is going on. Please record my vote to restore dynamic width coding.

      2. Piro Silver badge

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        Clearly designed for a tablet held in portrait with such a narrow design persisting: my main complaint about most sites today. They've forgotten we all are forced into wider screens...

    3. Yes Me Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      BAD Vulture! BAD!

      Um, this confirms my experience that web site makeovers always make sites worse, especially when objectives like "modern and fresher" are involved. It is now harder to spot the lead stories, harder to quickly whip down the page looking for interesting stories, and also it's visually boring. All worse, nothing better that I can see.

    4. Geoff Johnson

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Lose the fixed nav bar and it would be OK.

      Fixed content is a waste of space, especially on small screens.

    5. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Where's the bloody Start button gone??

      LOL.

      It's fine. Looks a bit more like a newspaper.

      At least there are no Tiles. Thank you.

    6. Mark 65

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      I still see we have no full time SSL option so the login form is delivered up by http and is susceptible to on-the-fly shenanigans as detailed in one of the many articles on web security trumpeted at El Reg. Practising that which is preached would be a healthy start before dicking around with look and feel.

    7. web_bod
      Facepalm

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      1999 has called they want their fugly portal layout back - seriously WHAT were you thinking - it's an abomination - particularly against the bloody geckos you have plastered all over the background - I thought the Guardian was bad - but Jesus Christ - this layout is so noisy - have you never considered usability?

      It's awful.

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: El Reg Redesign - what a f&^*&^ mess!

      Net result of your changes: After a refresh, it takes me several minutes paging up and down to work out if there is any new content that I might want to read. It is now nearly impossible to determine which links I've already visited and which not.

      With the previous setup, the headlines of sorties I'd already visited were red -- ie. nice contrast to black == easily seen. Now they're just very slightly lighter grey.

      I have a 1920x1080 screen -- hardly exotic.

      Of that screen, excluding my browsers screen furniture, an area of 1860x840 is available to the register to use.

      Of that 450x840 to left is blank;

      410x840 to the right is blank;

      1000x180 is the top-of-screen invariant stuff logo etc.;

      665x430 is the pic and head line of the "Top Story" (As decided by who?) that I've either already read, or wasn't interested in when it first appeared.

      334x490 are more "top stories" (Decided by who?) that I've already seen; or wasn't interested in.

      334x170 are "Most read". (Why do I care?) that I've already seen; or didn't care about when they first appeared. What am I supposed to do? Change my mind because other people read them?

      665x215 Potentially new stories.

      So, that means just 8.94% of the usable screen real estate is actually used for something I might want to read.

      Now, you'd think that after I page down, that would increase to 665x840 -- a whole 35% -- but no! Because 435x160 is given over to a reminder to DONT MISS another of your puerile knocking the BBC stories that I WASN'T INTERESTED IN TEH FIRST TIME AROUND; AND STIILL AIN'T!

      And 665x170 has 3 completely meaningless pictures to 3 more stories that I've either read; OR WASN'T INTERESTED IN THE FIRST TIME THEY APPEARED.

      Like I said in the subject:What an f'ing mess.

      For over 10 years I've been here every day; for between 10 and 18 hours per day; refreshing the screen every 10 or 15 minutes; reading what I'm interested in and skipping what I'm not.

      Upshot: I will either: make the effort to write a local (Opera: View->Style->User mode CSS) to:

      a) discard (visibility: hidden;) all the repetitious crap that occupies 50% of my screen;

      b) expand the story_row divisions to fill my screen;

      Or, I will simply throw the tab that has occupied a pinned position in my browser ever since Opera first had tabs and allowed you to pin them; and just forget this place existed.

      Because as is, this place has just become too much like hard work to follow.

      "quick, modern and fresher" NOT!

      Try "pinched, repetitive and forced". Ramming "your choices" and "the social consensus" down my throat. Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

      1. BrowserUk

        Re: El Reg Redesign - How to fix it!

        This is what they send me: http://imgbin.org/images/21306.jpg

        This is what I now see: http://imgbin.org/images/21307.jpg

        No huge white left margins; No teasers; no statics; no large_story; no story_list; no DONT MISS; no STORY GRID IMG; no right col; no spotlight; no sponlinks; no crumbtrail; no social btns; no follow btns top; no story rhs more;

        And with jscript off; none of those stupid popup menus other have talked of but I've never seen.

        Unvisited links in light blue; visited link if faded red.

        Ain't perfect yet -- haven't worked out a way to use the full width of my screen yet; but so much better than the crap they pulled. I see everything I want to see -- eg. the stories -- and none of the repetitive crap.

        And, cos they forced my had NO ADS!

        (If your an Opera user and wanna know how; mail me!)

    9. CTM

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Very BBC news and co. So much white space it hurts my eyes. Why does every website redesign make my desktop / laptop look like a tablet / smartphone?

      I'm a techie. I'm like a mushroom. I'm in the dark and fed... even by my favourite websites :(

      1. Fullbeem

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        Needs a night mode then. A fellow dark room techie

    10. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Two things I would like to see:

      1. A by-line on the front page so I don't accidentally read anything by the likes of Orlowski* and Page.

      2. A better way of changing account details such as email addresses.

      * To be fair, it's fairly easy to spot Orlowski's drivel as the headline usually contains the words "BBC", "Freetard" or "Open Rights Group".

      1. The Other Steve
        Flame

        Bylines +1. Dark mode +1

        I also would like this feature, though for precisely the opposite reason, viz I would like to be able to quickly locate pieces by Orlowski and Page for perusal - and for the hilarity of commentard froth that typically appears below them - while avoiding the febrile ramblings of Hamill - who, unlikely as it seems, was apparantly molested by an iPhone at some point in his life - and likewise the fruity flavoured 'tard dribble that tends to appear below those.

        Other than that, it looks good as long as long as I close one eye, squint with the other and avoid looking at it inside or indeed anywhere outside of direct sunlight. The contrast! It burns!

      2. Dr Stephen Jones

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        I usually enjoy Lewis and Andrew's stories even when I disagree with them.

        Can we also have a filter so I don't need to read whiney easily-offended commentards like Mahatma Coat?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

          Can we also have a filter so I don't need to read whiney easily-offended commentards like Mahatma Coat?

          I'm actually pretty hard to offend. I'm just picky about what I read.

    11. big_D Silver badge

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      The drop-down teasers are annoying, I click on a tab, move mouse down the page to start scrolling and the menu pops up for a fraction of a second, then disappears again. Very distracting.

      Otherwise I like the cleaner layout, fewer distractions. I haven't used the home page for a while, I run your RSS feed through Feedly and pick out the stories that are of interest. I looked at the home page out of interest and it looks okay, but a bit "conformist".

      As to using the screen width, I sort of agree with the comment about a proportional design. I have a Full HD monitor and a 3200 pixel wide 12" display, but I only ever use 50% of the width (snap to the side of the screen) and the design is a tick too wide for that.

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        The drop-down teasers are annoying, I click on a tab, move mouse down the page to start scrolling and the menu pops up for a fraction of a second, then disappears again. Very distracting.

        ... except when it causes you to click on the wrong article, then it's a pain in the ass. I haven't started digging through articles yet today, but this is my first impression of the new design and it is not good.

        EDIT: I didn't realize the menu is stuck at the top of the page in stories (why different from the main pages?), but now that I have had a chance to read a story, I find it to be utter... words fail me.

      2. Lyndon Hills 1

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        I'll echo the comment on drop down thingys. might get used to them but it took me a minute to be sure I'd opened in a new tab, not just opened in the same one. Seems to be fine in IE Win Phone 8.1.

    12. Anonymous Custard

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      We also can't seemingly now right-click and open the article in a new tab (at least under the IE9 I'm stuck with here at work), so it's back and forth into each article which is a pain.

      Like most of the others above, really hating the new design look too, there was nothing wrong with the old one. Bring it back!

    13. Stuart Elliott
      Thumb Down

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      And still no concept that there are people reading your site with 4K monitors - the white gaps down each side are now bigger than the bloody content I'm trying to read FFS.

      "In addition, "Redesign v2" is coming in 2015 and is likely to involve an agency that can guide us through a more rigorous ground-up redesign"

      You might want to link the commentards to beta.theregister.co.uk when you're doing that, to save all this gnashing of teeth - let your users be your QC department.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Stuart Elliott

        the white gaps down each side are now bigger than the bloody content I'm trying to read

        Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, what would you fill the white space with exactly? Massively wide lines are unreadable. More ads maybe?

        The comp that I'm reading with at the moment has a 1920x1080 screen but I keep my browser window set around 1100 pixels wide. Trying to follow a 1920 pixel-wide line of text would be a nightmare.

        1. Stuart Elliott

          Re: @Stuart Elliott

          Well, having it so it doesn't look quite so barren, as per how it is now at 4K: http://i.imgur.com/lokr8fX.png

          Even if it uses just 20% more white space, at whatever given resolution is used, would be a good start.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        > And still no concept that there are people reading your site with 4K monitors

        What do you need so many monitors for?

    14. John 62

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      I came to the reg and there was only ONE HUGE STORY.

      Bring back the carousel.

      I found the last version was great for discovering articles. Too many storage stories, but the carousel at the top and the strip a couple of rows down highlighted a few stories for me I was most likely to read. Now there is only ONE STORY and it takes up my WHOLE BROWSER WINDOW!

      BBC Sport's YELLOW redesign wasn't pretty, but it was mostly functional and highlighted the top stories well

    15. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      As with the vast majority of opinion here - please back this out ASAP.

      Who signed off this grande heap de merde during change control? Back them out too!

    16. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Please, please get rid of that fecking expanding navbar. Pictures thrown in your face and vanishing any time the mouse hapens to brush by. Horrible.

      "make content more accessible"

      I assume that this is some novel use of "accessible", not the customary one of "making it easier to use for prople with disabilities", because it sure as f**k doesn't follow those guidelines.

      For much of the rest, there's always AdBlock.

    17. Stretch

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Aw you broke the register

    18. Old_timer

      Not liked but for good reasons

      I use having been using The Register most days for several years to keep up with new developments in a rapid, easily digested way.I don't like the redesign because:

      1) I don't need the 'Pics at the top of nearly all stories'. They take up room and very rarely add anything of value. 2) It used to be easy to see which stories I had read because they were marked in red. Now they're much less obvious. 3) The bit that I'm interested in (the 3 columns of headlines) now takes up around one third of my screen space with nothing at all on the left side.

      You're right. Nobody likes change but at least I can offer a rationale for my dislike of the new site.

    19. brigfam

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      What do you mean "Feature removed print article - not used". I use this all the time to print a multi-page article in a single print job. I also use it to consolidate a multi-age article into a single stream so that I can scan it quickly. That is how I found this feature removal today.

      1. Fungus Bob

        Re: Printer friendly removed

        "What do you mean "Feature removed print article - not used"."

        You can get to the printer friendly version by appending print.html at the end of the article URL or by inserting "/Print" before the date part of the URL.

        To print:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/14/building_a_lee_enfield/

        append print.html

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/14/building_a_lee_enfield/print. html

        which takes you to:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2014/12/14/building_a_lee_enfield/

    20. Squander Two

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Could you please add a delay to the appearance of the giant menu when we mouseover the top bar? I doubt I'm the only person who moves the mouse up there to navigate between tabs and move the window around, and every time I do half the page is immediately covered in crap.

      As for the rest, there are all sorts of annoyances, but I generally assume I'll adjust to these things.

    21. Conor Turton

      0/10, sack the designer.

      Its a bit shit.

    22. Identity

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Yeah, hate it. Too much white space BS. You guys getting old and NEED BIGGER TYPE? I may be able to navigate after I find everything, but IMHO, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' Back, back you crazy beasts! BTW, need "print article"

      1. Steve Evans

        Re: You guys getting old and NEED BIGGER TYPE?

        Oh thank god it wasn't just me... My first reaction was to check I didn't have a zoom of 150% set!

    23. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Well, like everyone else I can see I think this is worse, although it seems well-intentioned.

      Two obvious things: The pictures are *too big*: I come to read content not to look at a picture and see the first paragraph of the content. The print article button was also actually useful if you wanted to send content to pocket or a similar tool as it showed articles on one page, though obviously you probably don't want that.

    24. John Mangan

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      Surely after ten pages of mostly vitriolic bile and horror the lead article on the home page should be 'Reg Readers HATE new design' - with a suitably humongous and irrelevant picture of course!

    25. pjfraser

      Re: El Reg Redesign - please no pictures that are not relevent

      Pictures that add to the story are fine but there seems to be a policy of adding a picture to each article. In most cases the pictures are not relevant and are anoying

    26. Chris G

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

      1/2 second delay excellent!

      Now lose the big pic at the top of each article, scrolling past it is making my finger ache.Ta!

      1. Anomalous Cowturd
        Meh

        Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

        Agreed, but it's still way too white.

        </Toggles RedShift on early>

    27. Bob Vistakin
      Headmaster

      "Affects IE8 + IE9 users only"

      So if quality browsers are unaffected what's the problem? You also gonna sort out that scrolling glitch on Netscape 1, and how about the lack of images in Lynx?

    28. mafoo
      Unhappy

      So much useless white space

      Tiny font with masses of whitespace. <sadface>

      Overly massive lead article photo so i have to scroll a whole page to see any of the articles. <sadface>

      The old site had tones of information easily digestible in a small space. Thats the main reason i kept coming back to the reg. With the new layout its a chore to read.

      You've tried to have style over substance and have ended up with neither.

    29. asdf

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comments here

      What I have to say has already been said for most part. Basically the new site redesign is total dog shit. Its distracting and makes it harder to get to what I care about, the information in the articles. I hate UX preaching webbies.

    30. mercurivs

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comments here

      You should have a single responsive design, one that works on any size screen from a smartphone upwards, not a fixed width design and a separate mobile site.

      And speaking of the mobile site, it cannot ever have been set up properly, as I only see the desktop on my phone anyway.

    31. Mike Taylor

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comments here

      Visual is good - sometimes. For your highly literate, frequently dogmatic, consequently argumentative, sometimes provoking and always provoked readership, it is a distraction*. One of the major consequences of your re-design is that I can see less content when I land on your page (epic fail), my eyes are dragged to a usually redundant image - and I have to scroll further to start reading a story. None of these things are good, although they will have the added effect of *looking* good in your metrics, as they'll increase the amount of time on your site.

      * Unless it is offering up essential photography in support of, say, a new range of small laptops, in which case the bigger the better.

    32. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comments here

      I use the PRINT article all the time. Without it, The Reg will be MUCH more difficult to share with colleagues who will NOT click on some hotlink. I embed the whole print article in text and THEN they will go to the site to see the graphics. The people who took off the PRINT icon are NOT thinking of anyone outside of their narrow community of always online cyber surfers. This will directly harm my ability to share Reg articles and widen the audience.

      Really sad redesign. Looks like light-brained millennials with limited large organization experience decided to have a go at redesign without looking at of the research on online scanning and infor absorption. IF they had, they would have discovered that, while people peer at pictures in print, they read first online IF they do not have to scroll to scan. So The Reg's three column quick catchy headline was in fact the best design for attraction and info transmission with minimal effort. Daily I scan, click to tab for print option, and send to my colleagues who will not, out of security consciousness, click on any hotlink OR copy and paste to read something. Redesigning both the print and the three columns (not including sidebar) has just reduced the ease of use of The Reg by about half.

      Plus, now you look like WIRED and the pix take too much space on the view screen. WHOM did you hire for this redesign? The REG is a knowledge source, not a visual playground for those who do not have the responsibility to inform a wider world uninterested in spending hours perusing the site. IF the print icon remains gone AND you cannot think of a way to keep the very useful three column quick take format, even I as a long term Reg reader will wander off to sites that demand less of my work day just to scan, print, and share. This is how info sites die....someone gets bored and blasts the value model for reasons they have not researched or really understood.

      cheers, CC1D

    33. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comments here

      What part of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" did El Reg not understand?

      Time to charge up the cattle prod.

      Specific problems?

      Humungous pictures, even if they're relevant, blocking the top of every article.

      Top of article link to comments now reduced to a wizened little appendage.

      Adblock & Noscript probably shield me from come of the other problems.

    34. Martin E Rogers

      Re: El Reg Redesign - leave your comments here

      Well, if you're into A/B testing then how about doing that between the old and new formats and see what you get? Echo the comments on caps lock menus and mouse-over graphics.

      Yet another website falling prey to the "clean, fresh, modern" Flat UI and whitespace, whitespace everywhere antipattern. Only popular with web designers. Why don't you all just go snowboarding? Or alternatively, give us a 'density' option a la Gmail (after months of screams from users).

  2. Buzzword

    Mobile

    I know there's m.theregister.co.uk for mobile, but it would be nice if the main site would auto-scale for narrow screens.

    1. Black Plague

      Re: Mobile

      Yes, for the love of $DEITY, would you please auto-redirect mobile browsers to the mobile version or else start using responsive layout code (here's a lovely example: http://alistapart.com/d/responsive-web-design/ex/ex-site-FINAL.html)!!!!

      It's the second decade of the 21st century already! Most of us are reading El Reg on our phones and none of us want to constantly pinch-and-zoom in or be forced to use Mobile Safari for the reader view feature.

      1. b166er

        Re: Mobile

        Indeed,it feels like Uncle Reg is actually trolling.

        A redesign WITHOUT being responsive??!? Srsly wtf?

        I'm no web design guru, but even I could make this site responsive in about 5 minutes.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Mobile

          Responsive in 5 mins? You are hired!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Mobile

            5 mins may be one heck of a push but the style of site is very open to a few media queries to turn it responsive very easily as it is all laid in blocks which can just stack on each other - does depend on your backend CMS of course and how that has been made.

            The best thing (for you) is that you can insert the ads at relevant places as well which done well could give better exposure to said advertisers, probably more so than on a desktop - way more than your m. site at the very least.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Mobile

          > I'm no web design guru, but even I could make this site responsive in about 5 minutes.

          Did it ever occur to you that there might be a correlation between your stated skill level and your perceived ability to carry out the task you mention?

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Mobile

            He was promising to make a site which responds in 5mins - shouldn't be difficult to acheive that whatever your skill level.

            ( probably with a mixture of perl,Access-VB and ftp-ing changed pages to a server on each request )

            1. Dave 126

              Re: Mobile

              Chrome on Android, on 4.1" screen: Reg works okay, main page is a bit of a faff (pan down, right, left, down etc). Double tapping on text in articles makes it big enough to read, and is easy to do. Writing a post in the forums is a bit of a faff.

              On 4.7" screen: ditto.

          2. Mephistro
            Coffee/keyboard

            Re: Mobile (@AC)

            "...there might be a correlation between your stated skill level and your perceived ability to carry out the task..."

            You mean, like, an inverse correlation?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mobile

        So we could go adaptive tomorrow. However ... advertisers pay a fraction for mobile eyeballs if they are looking at mobile site - and pay decent rates for ads on mobile eyeballs on desktop site. There is nothing underhand about this - but it is crazy. We need to figure out a sane way to do this without self-harming.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Mobile

          The biggest problem is the top, where is the ad and the header where is the logo.

          Consider combining them by placing the logo at left and ad at right, at the moment it looks uncomplete.

          Maybe will be good to make slider instead only one story with big picture. Another option is to plase the top stories at the right of the big picture

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Mobile

          Sorry, maybe I am misunderstanding, but I fail to see why advertising revenue is any reason not to go responsive.

          The whole point of a responsive site is that the server kicks out the same code to all devices. It's the device that decides how to display it, using javascript and various CSS rules. So not only can you display the same ads on a responsive site, it's really the same site - it's just that the device formats a few things differently depending on the screen size.

          Basically, it's not a mobile site, it's the same site served to everyone.

          The 5 minute estimate was a little bit of an exaggeration by the other guy, but seriously, in less than a day you could wire up Foundation or Bootstrap to your page template, few CSS class tweaks on your page templates, and you'd have a responsive site that means I don't need to use your god-awful Windows Phone app which hasn't shown comments since I got the phone 3 months ago.

      3. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: Mobile

        "...would you please auto-redirect mobile browsers to the mobile version..."

        DISAGREE.

        I almost always prefer the full desktop version of virtually all websites. Mobile versions are too often daft. Make it trivial to avoid horrible and limiting Mobile pages, even if we use "mobile" devices.

        The other day I was auto-redirected to the Mobile version of a website with infinite scroll, the bottom of the page kept getting further away with each scroll. Guess where the 'View Desktop Version' button was! Bottom of the page!! I could almost catch a glimpse of it with each scroll, just before another dozen items were inserted between me and it. Impossible!

        What do you call a Web Developer that graduated bottom of their class?

        "Mobile Web Developer"

      4. Jamie Jones Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Mobile

        "Yes, for the love of $DEITY, would you please auto-redirect mobile browsers to the mobile version or ...."

        NO NO NO NO NO <u>NO!</u>

        My tablet has a 7 inch screen, less than a foot from my face, and a resolution of 1900x1200. I can therefore cope with more detail than many desktop usersl yet some sites insist on sending me to a crappy dumbed down version, with text you could read a mile away.

        Evil. I thought the crappy practice of browser sniffing and presuming the users environment with fixed-size layouts died around the time I.E. lost it's grip..... I was wrongwrong.

    2. Mage Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Mobile

      It's rubbish on a 4:3 15" 1600 x 1200 seriously un-mobile laptop too!

  3. Dave Griffiths

    Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

    I can't open windows in another tab anymore which adds a batch of clicks. I used to be able to throw all the articles in tabs and then get to them as I wanted. Now I have to read the main page, choose an article, click back to the main page.

    If it stays like this I won't be visiting anymore it takes way too much time.

    1. VinceH

      Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

      "I can't open windows in another tab anymore which adds a batch of clicks. I used to be able to throw all the articles in tabs and then get to them as I wanted. Now I have to read the main page, choose an article, click back to the main page."

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/headlines.atom and something like FeedDemon Pro is your friend.

      1. VinceH

        Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

        "http://www.theregister.co.uk/headlines.atom and something like FeedDemon Pro is your friend."

        I don't normally comment on up/downvotes on my posts - but this time I'll make an exception because I'm a little perplexed as to why my comment has received a couple of downvotes.

        The only obvious thing that strikes me as a possible reason is that the downvoters can't see the connection between not being able to open new articles in separate tabs, and using the feed and a reader. In which case: Depending on your settings, when you click on an an article in the reader, it can be opened in a new tab in your browser. This can happen regardless of how El Reg's front page is set up, and is entirely under the control of your own set up.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

          Well you shall have an upvote from me!

          1. VinceH

            Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

            "Well you shall have an upvote from me!"

            Which promptly got you a downvote from someone else.

            El Reg commentards are a weird bunch - which, yes, does include me. ;)

          2. chivo243 Silver badge

            Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

            Who gets the upvote? OP or the poster just above you? Due to the lag in posts being posted, you sometimes get nudged out by a post to the OP by someone else, and it looks like you're comment is for someone else, and make no sense about their post. Maybe these little functionalities could be addressed before adding more eye candy?

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

      Dave,

      Ya' gotta' right click now to open in new tab. PITA.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

        > Ya' gotta' right click now to open in new tab. PITA.

        I can Ctrl+LeftClick as usual to open in new tab. Firefox 24.7 ESR on OpenSUSE.

    3. Black Plague

      Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

      Yeah, that was a dumb choice.

      Chrome and Firefox still allow me to right-click and open links in new tabs, just not IE.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What browser are you using?

      Sounds like our first bug report , Dave. We have reproduced this in IE8 and IE9 - and will fix.

      We do not support IE7 and lower.

      1. Mephistro
        Thumb Up

        Re: What browser are you using?

        Holy shit! Time between reading bug report and identifying the issue: 15 minutes!!!

        Kudos to you, DrewC.

    5. Mephistro
      Devil

      Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

      Hmmm... At least 18 IE commentards -as of now- using IE. Prepare the pitchforks and torches!!!

      Disclaimer: 'Devil Icon' used for comedic value only. 'Joke Icon' would be, arguably, more appropriate . ;-)

      1. MyNetHandle
        FAIL

        Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

        I am sadly one of the 'IE commentards', but this is due to restrictions of working where I do. We don't get the option of alternative browsers, and since El Reg asked for feedback, outlining problems with the website in IE seems totally appropriate.

    6. Mage Silver badge

      Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

      I hate the change, but my middle button / mouse wheel still works in firefox to open new tab.

    7. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

      Android - hold link, select Open in a New Tab.

      Still works.

      That's my method too. Stack up some tabs for reading.

    8. This post has been deleted by its author

    9. handleoclast

      Re: Your redesign stinks, sorry, but it does

      I have to agree with just about every criticism I've seen.

      Failure of middle-click to throw to a new tab is absolutely indefensible. They had to deliberately disable it, whether that was the desired end or just an accidental by-product of some useless crap "modern" web design effect they wanted.

      But, I have to say, middle-click is working for me (Exploder 11/Win 7 - not my usual choice but it's what I happen to have in front of me right now). Maybe they have already fixed this or maybe it's whatever browser you're using.

      If it still isn't working for you, you could try control-left-click, which on some versions of some browsers is equivalent to a middle click.

  4. petur
    Meh

    The top 'article' (current one looks like Canon ad to me) takes waaaay too much space, I have to scroll down half a page to get to the list of articles (and that's on a big display). Same for the articles themselves.

    Are you trying to copy the ugly and inefficient layouts of other sites? Please don't.

    Why are new website designs going for bigger layouts - surely that's not the best way to handle big displays (which I got because I want to have multiple windows open - not easy when the websites start to scale too)

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      I'd like to make some conflicting points.

      It all seems a bit big. I thought I'd accidentally done something to the zoom level of my browser for a minute. I'm sure the text just got a bit bigger. But the thing I notice is the space between the text. Have you upped the line spacing? It sort of makes the writing look a bit lonely. And of course means scrolling more.

      Also on the subject of scrolling, although you've made your masthead smaller on the front page I can only see that, the banner ad and one single article. The headline is enormous, and the only picture is of a printer. Now if you're going into photo-journalism, then knock yourselves out and give us one giant piccie, so we scroll down to the articles having had our minds blown by an eyeful of beauty/shock/humour/cat. But instead what you've done is fill my screen with a picure of a very boring printer. Unless that's an advert for Canon - I don't really see the point of it. A thumbnail would be better.

      I'd say maybe things are a bit too big. But on the other hand, I have very poor eyesight. But then I have glasses to magnify stuff, what I struggle with is lack of contrast. In my opinion you've been removing contrast for your last few re-designs, and it's making your website worse. Just like modern UI designers seem to be doing. Drop-shadows, putting buttons in boxes, using borders and/or coloured backgrounds for different bits of the screen layout to distinguish them, these are a few of my favourite things... And I'm very sad every time they're taken away.

      So once I've clicked on your headlines, they go a hard to read grey. Couldn't you go for a different colour instead? Or just a slightly less washed out one. On comment threads you've got a very faint line in between posts, and it would be really nice if you could make that darker as well.

      You have de-cluttered nicely.

      Overall I'm quite happy with the re-design. But then I was happy with it before, and before your last redesign before that. In the end it's just a list of articles, and the articles are made up of words and pictures. So as long as they're reasonably well laid out and legible I'm happy. I'm not particularly interested in the fancy design aspect of things. It's the content I'm interested in, and that's why I come back. That and the vast, possibly suicidal, number of delicious pork pies you give away at your lectures... Thanks for Tuesday night, it was good fun.

    2. Triggerfish

      I have to agree the pictures at the front of the article are way to big.

      Unless you automatically start redirecting to The Reg mobile site as well that and the top nav are going to be a real PITA on a phone.

      1. Vector

        Agreed on the size of the Headline article. And I really miss the old 5 article carousel. I don't know if that headline is supposed to change or not, but it only changed for me on a refresh.

        Also agree that the article spacing is a bit wide.

      2. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        OMG!!! Where are the Comedy Thumbnail Pictures??

        I love those Comedy Thumbnails!!

        Colour me Sad if they're never to return.

  5. maffski

    [this space intentionally blank]

    Lots of whitespace over here, it all looks a bit tablet/bootstrap generic.

    Front page carousel - I appear to have been co-opted into the 'without' camp - I miss it already.

    Don't Miss two column headline thing - I like that, but still lots of white space.

    Over all, change. I've heard off it, sounded like an awful idea so I didn't try it.

    1. Andy Barker

      Re: [this space intentionally blank]

      I agree - the border / spacing around articles on the home page is too large. Makes it look like it is designed for large fingers on small screens. But then the toolbar works on mouse-over, and not click.

      Can't see anything in the change that I personally like, and plenty that I don't.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: [this space intentionally blank]

      I don't like the carousel of news. Although I seem to be in the group that hasn't got it, so don't know if you've improved it.

      I find it annoying that it moves when I'm halfway through reading the headline. So now I just ignore it, and scroll down the page where I'll find those stories anyway.

      On the other hand, if it's not too huge, it doesn't affect me. So if some people like it, it's a good way for you to have more stories in the more valuable real-estate at the top of the page, and I can just scroll past it anyway. So what's not to like?

  6. Chris G

    Not broke

    So why fix it?

    However, the only thing I actually dislike is that after having clicked on the Banner to return to the Headlines page; every time I cross the navbar a load of headings jump out at me,VERY irritating.

    Social media buttons ? Nobody likes me so I don't care! Aside from that everything looks fine.

    1. Martin Gregorie

      Re: Not broke

      I agree with the first poster in this thread: the flashing as I slide my mouse over the second level menu bar on my way to the top-level bar is very irritating. I also dislike having pictures associated with the top-level menu bar hide the second level bar.

      However, my main beef is that the contrast in colour between an unread article and one that has been read is far too small. It doesn't have to be as big a change as the old blue/scarlet switch, but the current black/dark grey switch is almost impossible to see at a glance: black/dull red (seen already) would make scanning for new articles a lot easier.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not broke

      Same here.

      The enormous pop-ups on mousing over the headlines is in danger of giving me an epileptic fit.

      And the absolutely enormous headline picture, what on earth were you thinking?

      To be honest, I liked it the way it was.

      Out of curiosity, what prompted the revamp?

      As someone said above, why fix what isn't broken?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not broke

        Flash is evil and leads to obesity and hair loss, kill it now before it grows.

  7. FuzzyTheBear
    Pint

    AH ! BUSTED

    So i was right .. there's been a change and i posted before you had time to confess DrewC :D

    Some readers DO pay attention you know .. I can resume drinking my beer .. i ain't hallucinating .. yet .. but working on it ;)

    .

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Don't shoot the messenger

      Confess? It wasn't me...

  8. Johnny Canuck

    Have to agree with petur, the top article takes up too much room. The login bar, Reg banner, navigation bar and top article take up 3/4 of my screen on 1920x1080 monitor.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Duly noted, However the issue raised is the top article only as the login bar, reg banner, masthead and nav bar combo is slightly thinner than before.

  9. Old69

    Hard on the eyes

    Hard on the eyes - too much white, too much contrast. Too much scrolling - too much space - hard to take in the headline articles at a glance. Almost made me puke as I sat down with my dinner to catch up on the El Reg news. The site won't be my top bookmark any longer with this style.

    1. Mark Allen
      Thumb Down

      Re: Hard on the eyes

      Agree with the harshness of the white - far too bright. The old site was heavy on the all white everywhere.... this is getting worse. The huge areas of white are actually leading to headaches for me. I often find if I am trying to read El-Reg at the end of the day, the brightness of the screen eventually means I have to leave the computer.

      Too many sites have been doing this lately. Going brighter with the white and shrinking the text. I'm going to have to learn some custom CSS I guess to try and tone down the glare.

      (Ouch - I am already having problems on this page... I'm not actually going to be able to manage my end of day read...)

      Also not a fan of the pop-down menus. They are a bit too fast as I keep having to move my mouse away from the menu bar as I accidentally sweep past it.

      1. Adrian Harvey

        Re: Hard on the eyes

        Slightly off topic, but I have found f.lux http://justgetflux.com/ - which adjusts the white colour temperature of the screen to match your lighting at night - makes huge improvements to my eye strain level at night. It's free, so worth a try.

      2. HywelPhillips

        Re: Hard on the eyes

        Yeh, me too. It is giving me eyestrain.

        Too much white space, the fixed width layout isn't helpful on a 30" screen, the menu bar with popups is annoying.

        But most of all it is just hard to read for my poor aging eyes :(

        1. Ben Tasker

          Re: Hard on the eyes

          Agreed, far too much white for me, it's giving me a headache.

          For the record, I'm only 27, so it isn't and age thing.

    2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Hard on the eyes

      I agree. I am currently mocking up a black theme as part of my CSS overrides for El Reg. I can't take all the white. Sadly, there's no ability to choose between various colour schemes in and apply to your profile while logged in, so it's "create overrides, then distribute to every bloody browser I use".

      Why don't more sites offer black themes? White on light on dark is way easier for some of us to read than dark on light. Must be getting old. Bad eyes.

    3. breakfast Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Hard on the eyes

      I concur, not keen on the whole "not clear where the column of actual content begins and ends" thing- not only is there too much whitespace by a ridiculous amount, but it makes the content look ragged and untidy. The biggest thing I miss about the previous design is the colour outside of the content space. The old grey background worked well for me.

  10. Spoonsinger

    WTF have you done to this site?

    It looks all crappy circa 2011 tablet orientated. (Basically the same sort of kak Ars Technica did and that was - and still is - just pants).

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: WTF have you done to this site?

      Ars looks a lot better if you log in and play with the settings some. You can move to a much more dense display of the articles, and have them in list form rather than that stupid verge-like tile format. Plus, dark theme, yay!

      Ars does a lot wrong, but they do science reporting right and they offer some flexibility in the display of their site. Gotta like that.

      1. CTM

        Re: WTF have you done to this site?

        So we should expect to login to El Reg and Ars and experiment to make it look good? Shouldn't it look good by default?

  11. G2

    ow..my eyes.. what in the world made you change that nicely compact layout? looks like a tornado messed the site :(

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    no please, why change? been coming here for at least 8 years a few times a day specifically because it was easy to take in all the bits we needed..now it looks like another wannabe-web3.0 poo-palace.

  13. AndrueC Silver badge
    Meh

    Too much space taken up by the 'age' field.

    Possibly just too much whitespace overall. Don't like the lead headline - it's the only article I can see on my laptop screen when I first land on the site.

  14. 45RPM Silver badge

    Aww. You made it match iOS 7. Was that intentional?

    1. Marco Fontani
      Joke

      Damn, busted!

  15. Wizardofaus
    Thumb Down

    No. Just no....

    Design by the same team who did the new Guarinad site?

    Same problems as they have:

    - probably great for people looking at the site on a phone, but really difficult to read on a decent sized screen in a small room. I just can't get far enough away to view without doing 2x zoom out, then it has acres of empty white space either side.

    - huge picture that consumes acres of real estate. If I am looking for pictures I go to a photo site.

    Nice red rollovers though. Very 1990's. Sorry. Did I say nice?

    1. Ketlan
      Thumb Down

      Re: No. Just no....

      'Design by the same team who did the new Guarinad site?'

      Yep, looks like it and they both look like shit. I put this on the same level as the change in Office to that bloody awful ribbon - no-one likes it, it's crap to use and we're probably stuck with it no matter what we say.

  16. Michael Shelby

    Expanding section nav

    I'm not a fan. When I read the last line of text on the screen and hit PageDn, I expect to be able to see that line of text again at the top of the screen. Now that line of text is hidden behind the expanding menu! Maybe I'm odd, but I like being able to re-read the last few words of that line to make sure I didn't accidentally scroll two pages instead of one...

  17. Mark 85
    Thumb Down

    Don't talke this personally

    To much jumble. Everything seems scattered. The top article and top stories too big. The flashing menu bar is very AOLish/Huffington Postish and distracting. Put the gray back to separate the article area from everything else as the ads, etc. Maybe some separator bars on the right to separate the wheat from the chaff. And, the gray for "read" articles is part of the too monochrome.

    Yep....looks like the Huffington Post and AOL were used as templates. Really a pity.

    You get points for trying, though.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Don't talke this personally

      "You get points for trying, though."

      No they don't. It wasn't broke so they shouldn't have fixed it.

  18. Nya
    Thumb Down

    Don't like

    Nope, in the don't like crowd. The old page was much nicer.

  19. Kevin 6
    Thumb Down

    Looks like crap

    Should fire the guy who did it. Preferably out of a cannon into a brick wall.

    Hell do the same to the person who suggested it.

    I thought the site got pwned by some ha><ors when I first saw it, but then thought they usually have better layouts.

  20. tfewster

    Pics at the top of nearly all stories - visual is good, right?

    No. Takes up too much space and isn't relevant to the the article.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Pics at the top of nearly all stories - visual is good, right?

      I don't mind pics if they are directly related to the article, are part of the story and unique to that story. Library pics ought to be a big no-no. Please don't do the BBC trick of sticking the standard library photo of some network cables on every IT story. It doesn't add anything.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pics at the top of nearly all stories - visual is good, right?

        ... but if you really *have* to put in some sort of image, make it a really thin banner one, and it'd be way less annoying.

  21. Barry Rueger
    Paris Hilton

    Crap Crap Crap Crap

    Call me old school but I like to use these old fashioned things called WORDS to get information.

    GIANT pictures are not words, and in 99% of cases do not add any useful INFORMATION. Even if they're real purdy.

    WHITE SPACE is not words, and if the page has more white space than words, it is wasting my time.

    And oh yeah, in case this is also planned: VIDEO is a horrid way to get across information, and it is exceedingly rare for me to watch any embedded video.

    I've been a Reg reader for more years than I can remember, and it's one of maybe two or three sites that I have consistently kept open in my browser for all of those years.

    If you go for the stupid eye-candy instead of content I'll be gone.

    (Paris because, like this redesign, it's all about style, not substance.)

    1. Oninoshiko
      FAIL

      Re: Crap Crap Crap Crap

      total agreement. I thought someone had deleted the CSS.

      Ditch all the random pictures in the middle of the article list

      set the size and position of article headlines to be easily scanable with the eyes.

      LOSE THE OBNOXIOUS POPUP MENU

      No story should take up half the screen, I don't care how good/bad your cromebook printing was

      Honestly, we could probably do without the righthand menu.

      for the love of all that is holy, make it scale dynamically to width.

      Would like the contrast between clicked and non-clicked articles to be back to normal.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Crap Crap Crap Crap

        "I thought someone had deleted the CSS."

        Me too!! It looks like that horrible "Modern" design MS have gone with.

    2. PhilBuk
      FAIL

      Re: Crap Crap Crap Crap

      Totally agree - ditch pictures and video (if planned, we know it is).

      PLEASE PLEASE get rid of the effing pop-up menu bar!!!!

      Phil.

    3. Barry Rueger

      Re: Crap Crap Crap Crap

      Actaully, I'll admit that it could be worse.

      They could abandon the forums and install Disqus instead.

      1. Kevin 6

        Re: Crap Crap Crap Crap

        Barry PLEASE don't give them any bright ideas.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Crap Crap Crap Crap

          "PLEASE don't give them any bright ideas."

          Well, if they did it would probably solve a difficult problem - whether to continue visiting this site or not. Disqus would certainly tip the balance.

  22. Kilroy2k1

    Do Not Want!

    Not impressed. its too mono, not enough to break up the overbearing whitespace. it looks like its leaning towards microsoft's "square, pastel and designed by 3yr old's" look. It didn't work for them, it likely wont for you.

  23. Arthur the cat Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Only possible comment

    500 The Bees They're In My Eyes!

  24. VinceH

    I don't see the front page, since I use the feed - but some of the changes within articles are a little annoying.

    The navigation bar is fine - but the thumbnails menu (the expanding section nav) that appears when your mouse is over it obscures the article you are trying to read. It isn't a problem if the article I've chosen to read isn't the topmost one in my reader - but if it is, I have to move the mouse before I start scrolling.

    You have a similarly expanding (and therefore obscuring) pop up info box for the article author - so if I need to move the mouse to avoid the expanding section nav, I have to remember to move it such that that link isn't going to end up under the mouse as I scroll the page.

    While neither are the end of the world, they don't strike me as being examples of good UI design.

    Of the rest of the changes listed, of the stuff I've actually noticed, it's really just aesthetics - and of the stuff I haven't noticed; I haven't noticed it because it doesn't affect me (perhaps because my starting point is the feed).

  25. channel extended
    WTF?

    Taken over?

    The site now looks like it was taken over by the guy's in turtlenecks. Visual is NOT better. Next you'll be trying to shove video at visitors claiming that's more modern and hip. We don't do hip. I come to this site for news, not crap like this. Due to age, my vision is not what it used to be so I view this site magnified. Try that and see just how bad you made it. The question is will I stop coming due to the new layout, I don't know.

    Guy's what happened to K.I.S.S.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I swear I switched that webcam off.

      How did you know what we are wearing?

      1. T. F. M. Reader

        Re: I swear I switched that webcam off.

        The way you express yourselves conjures up an image in our minds... ;-)

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That Nav Bar!

    The fucking thing expands on hover (and immediately at that), so as I move my mouse across the screen from the content area to the chrome (e.g., to click on another tab) or back from the chrome to the content, I end up with a screenful of irrelevant navigation links.

    Expand on click, please, not hover. Also, have you tested with users having touchscreen devices (not necessarily mobile)?

  27. Florida1920
    Facepalm

    The big picture

    That huge graphic at the top of the home page is a waste of space, as is the BIG HEADLINE.

    Not sure rearranging the page is an improvement. As someone who reads El Reg a few times a day, I got used to finding my way around. Learning to read the new layout doesn't add value IMO. Just like Playboy, most of us look at El Reg for the articles, not the pix. Unless they're graphics that add value. The new look won't drive me away, but it doesn't add anything to my desire to visit, either.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The big picture

      > Just like Playboy, most of us look at El Reg for the articles, not the pix.

      I thought that deserved an upvote. :-)

      1. CTM

        Re: The big picture

        Word up! :)

  28. lawndart

    says:

    When do we get the "lovely new makeover"?

    Because we certainly don't have it now.

    At first I thought I had inadvertently zoomed my browser. Imagine my consternation when the GIANT PRINTER image turned out to really be a GIANT PRINTER image.

    Look, I only have a 1920 x 1080 screen. I would prefer it not to have to scroll down to find the articles.

    And then scroll down even more to find the next row. And wonder why some articles are twice as wide as others.

    Also my Opera speed dial only shows the GIANT PRINTER so I can't tell whether you have updated your articles which is a nuisance.

    I'm all for experimentation. Try again.

  29. D Fife
    Thumb Up

    Nicely done

    I hate to say it, but ... I really like what I've seen so far ;-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: Nicely done

      I like it. The red banner is a bit too red right now, but otherwise you've added some nice features.

      Also, looks like you pissed off all the reg-tards at once today, which is always fun. Nice bit of trolling there!

      Oh - when do we get some new comment icons? Sometime before the singularity occurs in 2045 I hope? Aren't these the same ones we've been using for 6-8 years now?

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still no https? really wide margins

    Tell me. Is your monitor rotated 90 degrees? Mine isn't. Surely your webserver knows that my display is 1600x900, not 800x900

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Re: Still no https? really wide margins

      Did my post get autoposted or did I inadvertently click Submit?

      ...continued... also while the ?new? font is fine, the spacing is just too much. Unless you're going to make every word/line clickable, there's no point in having that much space between lines.. Unless you're trying to make up for lack-of-content.

    2. Mike VandeVelde
      Headmaster

      Re: Still no https? really wide margins

      What do people think that HTTPS is going to hide? These are static pages!! The "metadata" is still out there, what do you think you get out of obscuring the content when all someone has to do is follow the link you followed to see what you saw? It's useful for something like Facebook where what you are looking at is customized to you and possibly private, but here would it not simply be a waste of processing power??

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: Still no https? really wide margins

        "What do people think that HTTPS is going to hide?"

        How about your password?

        Seriously, Http for login is really a bad idea these days!

  31. A Known Coward

    What's it supposed to look it?

    Can we have some screenshots of what it's supposed to look like? I very much doubt it's exactly what I'm seeing, because that looks like something from over a decade ago, low res, sparse and hard on the eyes, but who knows?

    What's immediately apparent is that there is no anti-aliasing on any of the text (was fine before). This is in Opera 26 (Chromium) on linux.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: What's it supposed to look it?

      @Known - Text looks perfect to me on Chrome 40.0.2214.28 beta-m. Browser issue?

  32. Bleu

    It would be really good if there was a flickering animated gif, at least flipping between the colour negatives, at the top of every page!

    On a more serious note, I don't usually post in the fora, design is not suitable for reading from a small device.

    Really think a flickering gif on every page would be fun for at least two or three months.

  33. Alanex

    Eh...

    No thank you.

    The ONLY good thing about the redesign is that you haven't gone for the annoying 'loading more...' trend to load more articles as you scroll down the page. I hate those kind of sites where you can't bookmark your current location and any reloading of the page requires you to scroll and load, scroll and load, scroll and load until you get back to where you were.

    So well done for not doing that but in every other way the site is horrible now.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Eh...

      It really says something when the only way to say something psoitive is to scratch around to find something that wasn't done that would have made it worse.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile...

    ...how about if we could downvote each other's posts without reloading the whole page every time? Bit annoying, especially when I'm using my mobile allowance, generous as it is.

  35. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Print article

    Well, that was my way of not slogging through half a dozen "pages" at one or two paragraphs of content per page. It was pretty rough when 8 "pages" boiled down to half a properly formatted page.

    For an example, look at the book & car reviews and the current cloud printing inkjets articles.

    So I'll probably be cutting way back on my reading, as I just don't have the time & patience. I'll also be turning AdBlock back on.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Print article

      I am not a fan of page spanning either - p.s. we still support print article .

      1. paul481

        Re: Print article

        Then WHY have you removed the Print View button, and WHY did you post 1 hour earlier you are removing it. As I pointed out earlier, I also used to follow what was a very similar site called 'The Inquirer' (McGee ran it) but about 4 years back they completely cocked up the presentation, requiring readers to lose far more time to scan articles, so it became too annoying to visit anymore. Another site, think 'Pocket Lint' also made their site slower to find useful articles, so ditched that.

        El Reg has always been one of my top 5 tech sites, so visit most days. I hope you too dont lose your tech credentials and go all marketing, as you'l lose an old reader. The site was ok as it was, little to criticise as evidenced by my first complaint on your presentation in 10+ years. I have a 5" smartphone, but stick to my 24" FHD Windows desktop for reading articles

      2. andy 28
        Coat

        Re: Print article

        'we still support print article'. You're suggesting that being able to print loads of pages of crap layout and adverts is comparable to a proper readable and printable view?

        It was bad enough in the last redesign when the 'print' button at the top of the article got replaced by a twee icon somewhere down the left of the page. And now there's nothing. The only progress I can see is for advertisers, not readers. And without readers....

        Some of us have a shit work network. Articles were readable by lining them up in printable view. The first might have finished loading by the time the last was queued up. But no more. It seems that I can spend ages scrolling around clicking next, next, next. Or move on. Not as if there's Lester to make us laugh, except for a few recipes.

  36. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    Arrgggh!!!

    Almost as bad as the Guardian's new website where half the content is dangling off the side of the screen and there's no horizontal scroll bars.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AAAARGH!*

    ...the pandemic whitespace inflation has reached El Reg -- of no use to anyone but the tapfinger crowd, and wasting everyone else's screen estate.

    Scrollwheel here I come :-((

    * generated in parallel with, and independent from J.G.Harston's "Arrgggh!!! " !

  38. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Meh

    Are clicked articles supposed to change from black to grey? A bit more contrast would be nice.

    I've never been too keen on the "white space fetish" that has plagued design for ten years or more. Give me a Gutenberg Bible layout any day.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh Dear

    I know you say that this is just a brush-up but it's not a good one and quite honestly if you've got a complete redesign coming next year then I can't see why this is warranted. What problem were you trying to solve and how is this a solution? (Sorry, don't mean that as harshly as it may have come out, but I don't call this "quick, modern, fresher").

    It's just way too monochrome - as a result the eye can't easily separate one story on the front page from another. Don't like the font/capitals used for the menu. But I don't hit your front-page to be honest - come in through RSS feed - so the main gripe I have is that on a article page, with a screen height of 1050 I get to see just THREE lines of the article text!!! Fix that (by chopping the image down hugely) and it would still be an unwarranted change in my opinion but at least one I can live with.

  40. Spook

    Comments

    Sometimes I know the story and just want to read the comments. You show the number of comments on the main page but it doesn't link directly to them, only the story.

  41. TMMITW
    FAIL

    Why bother?

    Obviously different but in no way better. Don't make changes unless they offer a real improvement.

  42. Chris T Almighty

    Awful.

    The excuse that you can't make it responsive because of advertising is really weak. If someone charged you for this redesign, you were had.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Awful.

      It is not question of can't do - it's a question of won't do until we work our way through the business implications. We have 50 mouths to feed here.

      P.S. Anything we do on this score in first instance would be adaptive not responsive.

      1. web_bod

        Re: Awful.

        Screw it - you've given me a headache - you've still got your 50 mouths, but you've lost a pair of eyeballs - I used to click the ads.

        I don't know why you had to dick around with the article layouts like this - I am not 12 - I come here to read some bile ringed tech news - not gawp at full screen images (ok they're not quite full screen, but on my laptop they are bloody close).

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks OK to me.

    It's a lot brighter, but it feels a bit WALLOFTEXT.

    Could you have alternating lines of (say) grey and white for the articles? So the first three articles have a white background, the next ones a grey background? Would that suck? It probably would but I don't know, that's why I do tech support and own a PC rather than doing graphic design and owning a Mac.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Looks OK to me.

      There is a lot of headlines in the front page main grid - but more pics than previously - so not quite as much a wall of text than before

  44. Mark Jan
    Thumb Down

    If it Ain't Broke...!

    You did something similar a few years ago and the reaction was similar - a huge outcry and you had to largely backtrack. The Reg v1 was the original and still the best.

    You've now gone even worse than the changes you made then!

    Please, please don't listen to the agency guys or go all web3. Just stick to what's made you successful in the first place - good info written up in a fun way in an easily readable format.

    If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If it Ain't Broke...!

      I wasn't involved in last redesign - but I can say that there was little if any backtracking going on.

      1. CTM

        Re: If it Ain't Broke...!

        You weren't involved in the last redesign but you can say there was little if any backtracking... Could you explain? At the moment it sounds that isn't possible...

  45. Synonymous Howard

    I'll stick with the mobile version everywhere thanks

    mobile = less cluttered

    mobile = less ads (see above)

  46. Chris G

    So the consensus is...

    NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Superb!

    Much better match with our corporate colours and intranet, which means the Reg can be perused at length without passers by being any the wiser.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Superb!

      Do you work for Coca-Cola? Or Pravda?

  48. Dr Trevor Marshall

    Where has all the content gone?

    .

    I DON"T OWN A FRIGGING iPAD or iPHONE

    Why do you cripple a perfectly decent news site to pander to the likes of those who do?

    .

    I'm outa here....

  49. User McUser
    Meh

    OPINIONS: I have some

    1. Putting a banner ad *above* the masthead pushes everything down which combined with the large "featured story" graphic crowds the top of the page making it look like there is less content.

    2. Having the three-column article list with the same background color as the main page body makes it look squeezed for some reason, like its narrower than it was before. Probably an optical illusion (or a lack of one.)

    3. I liked Blue and Red for "alink" and "vlink" way better than Black and Grey.

    Edit: 4. I agree with Michael Shelby's earlier comment about the nav bar on each article - you're blocking several lines of the article I'm trying to read with that thing!

    Other than that, seems OK.

  50. trialanderr0r
    Thumb Down

    When I first saw the new landing page I seriously thought El Reg had forgotten to pay their domain name fees and the url had been squatted by a popup aggregator/printer seller...

    Generic and banal....

    The old site had its issues (indeed no option to "view as a single page")

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    auto-detect mobile

    I know there's a nice mobile site available, but the main .co.uk servers should automatically provide a mobile version of the site when viewed from a phone. Pinching and zooming around the main site on a phone shouldn't be required.

    As far as the desktop site re-design...it's fine. Just let me phone automatically receive the mobile version.

    1. Sir Sham Cad

      Re: auto-detect mobile

      Chrome on android 4.4.4 but every time I browse El Reg including this visit I get auto redirect to m.theregister.co.uk so not sure what's happening to everyone who is experiencing the opposite.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: auto-detect mobile

        Did you every follow link to El Reg from twitter? I think there was a/b test on mobile auto redirect.

        There is a change to the desktop link at bottom but that appears to have stopped working for some reason. Bug report.

  52. Bryn Evans
    Happy

    Works For Me

    Dare I say "I like it" ?

    The text seems larger to my OLD eyes and the layout sits nicely in a 4:3 format TV?Monitor.

    Question - I found myself already Logged In - Was that intended ???

    1. Bryn Evans
      Go

      Re: Works For Me

      Just tried on my RiscPC (remember Acorn ?)

      Still works ok, so well done for not breaking anything.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Still works on RiscPC

        Must admit that this did not loom large in our thinking. But I am happy it still works!

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And will we get...

    ...a background story in the "joss-sticks and whalesong" category?

    I love stories from that category!

  54. Bad Beaver
    Facepalm

    Gaaa, the whitness…

    So much white … I second the impression that there is too much whitespace (like… everywhere), too much scrolling and it is BURNING MY RETINAE as I type this. Looks generic, cluttered and made for tablet use. I guess we'll live but it will take a while to adapt. The old design was not broken.

  55. Irongut

    Yuck

    Ugh you've gone all Office 2013 / Win 8 with far too much unbroken WHITE and no shading / gradients / lines to separate the different sections of the page. My first thought was that the stylesheet had failed to download for some reason so I hit refresh before spotting the redesign story.

    Could we please get an alternative theme with an off-white background or even an inverse theme with black background for those of us with a bit of Mogwai in our genes? The current one makes me want to put shades on.

  56. Philip Hands

    Ick

    I didn't think much to the old thing with the changing content at the top of the screen that's just a repeat of the stories listed in a sane order below, but at least it was easy to ignore.

    This is much less easy to ignore -- although I guess I'll manage it by not bothering to look at the site.

    I'll check back in the new year to see if you've regained your sanity.

  57. ZSn

    sod the refresh why no https?

    Not sure why you went for a 'refresh' how about an https site? You do bang on about security quite a bit you know - go on, make it a bit more difficult for NSA.

  58. Vulch

    Fixed bars bad

    Dump the fixed menu bar or if you won't get rid of it at least give it a permanent hide setting. The only thing it does is make you lose a line or two when you page down and breaks the reading flow as you jog back and forth.

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OH FUCKIN DEAR, ANOTHER MIDLIFE CRISIS!!!???!!!???

    CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGR IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK, CHANGE IT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Also, no new ICONS.......where's my football ICON? Change it fuckin back for fucks sake.

    Were you bored? Is that it? fucking hell!!

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: OH FUCKIN DEAR, ANOTHER MIDLIFE CRISIS!!!???!!!???

      Icons, yes, where's the tinfoil hat?

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    pictures at the top

    The pictures at the top aren't big enough. Can we have them bigger please

  61. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is this site now NSA approved?

    Cause they've fucked everything else up too.

  62. A Long Fellow
    Thumb Down

    Not good in either usability or readability

    Love el reg, having been with the site almost from the very beginning. That said, I'm not too keen on the design; the more I live in it, the more I dislike it.

    I was okay with the "five featured stories" at the top of the main column -- the single headline story is going to be a hit-and-miss proposition, now. With five stories, there was a better chance that at least one would be interesting.

    In general, it feels as though the information density has dropped a lot.

    I also dislike the black > grey link status. The grey-on-white combination fails 3 out of 4 accessibility standards. This is important: the design is hostile to users with non-optimal eyesight.

    And finally, I take issue with the 'live popup' sections at the top of the screen -- particularly since they're pinned to the top of the window. This means that going up to any of the browser application menus or the browser window's buttons will probably -- unless I'm very quick about it -- cause irritating visual interference with what's on the screen. Putting that kind of thing left or right would be better, since it would not interfere with browser activity.

    All in all, it's quite off-putting. Sorry.

  63. Adrian Taylor
    Thumb Down

    Too Many IMages

    too many images, once you go above a certain number the eye will cease reading all the headlines and its difficult to know you have seen averything

    annoying pop down menu

    i dont see any reason for top stories or most read section

    i like simple, scroll down in date order

    you have made the site less more like any other media/tech site...

    i used the old register design to show friends that you dont need all the garbage to make a decent useful web site... ho hum...

    and information density is much poorer !

  64. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Things I like about the new design:

    1) Articles have pictures on them. Yay! Pictures add a lot to the experience, I think.

    2) New masthead: the awesome motto of awesomeness is now nestled under "The Register." Biting the hand that feeds IT, forever!

    3) Social Media buttons are more visible on article pages, make more sense, aren't blocked by my anti-spam stuff. Works out well, looks very nice.

    4) I like the new footer. All the info you want, but not crammed so close together the links feel claustrophobic. Much nicer.

    5) Articles on the front page have little counters for comments. It's cute. Shows the community engagement.

    Things I don't like about the new design:

    1) Articles have pictures on them. Boo! This means I have to pay a lot more attention when choosing my article images. Work, work...

    2) Author info, posting time and social media buttons are below article picture. It seems counter intuitive. I keep looking for them above the picture.

    3) The whitey whiteness of whitening. My kingdom for a black theme.

  65. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pictures get in the way

    I have to scroll down before reading even the first line of story, because a (mostly useless, generally stock) image is in the way. Do you want me ask if it is worth the trouble?

  66. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    First reaction..

    ... was that the site had been hijacked in some way, but it appears that it wasn't but is meant to look as if it is.

    On a large screen 1920x1200 it is horrible, too much white round everything. Not enough contrast to show what articles have been read awn what haven't.

    This might work on a smart phone when you have people stabbing at it with thick fingers, it does not work on desktop or laptop screens.

    A rethink is necessary on the part of the designer because only a little change was possibly needed from what was existent.

  67. marky_boi
    FAIL

    WTF !!!

    fixing for fixings sake , site is crap Where is the auto scale good. I think my cat could do a better job.... hang on i hva no cat !!! seriously i will ditch the site if this steaming stays on....

  68. Orange Skydiver
    Meh

    comments

    Getting rid of the left hand column - ok.

    Adding the picture at the top of the story - waste of time - get rid.

    The bar that hovers at the top of the page when you scroll - hate these on every website that does them - get rid.

    Visited link colour - needs higher contrast, it's not as obvious what you've looked at.

    Generally de-cluttered - ok.

    Personally I wish you'd put a fraction of this effort into proofing your articles. Not a day goes by when I don't notice typos and mistakes in the copy. This is a real problem. There were no real problems with the old layout.

  69. trance gemini
    Meh

    i warned you

    ... that all that phonefondling and slabslapping would make your eyes go bad

    just put a light grey background on the article boxes and that should take the edge off the whiteout effect

    or how about start flogging Reg sunglasses in your shop?

  70. Uffish

    No complaints

    I use an old, underpowerd 32 bit laptop and No Script and it still displays correctly (ie I can read it easily) .

    Must admit that my primary concern was that the Registerwriting style had not been affected - quick look at the headline and all the eyecatching smutty inuendo is still there so all is ok.

    Even with NoScript off everything seems to work quickly and clearly - well done.

  71. Benjamin 4

    I don't think there's any part of this that I think is an improvement.

    Everything is too big, with too much white empty space so its hard to differentiate between stuff on the homepage. The always on top title bar means that using page down to scroll chops off a line of text.

    I miss the carousel on the homepage, it was helpful to easily find some of the more interesting stories, as were the links at the bottom of artucles.

    Why do companies repeatedly feel that they need to change something that works as it is? I don't want a 'more modern and fresh experience'. Pretty soon we'll just get blank screens with nothing on them because it's too difficult to use otherwise. Come on, give your readership some credit, we're not complete idiots.

    I regularly read, but don't normally comment, however I feel I have to make an exception here.

  72. Greg J Preece

    I just came here to watch people nerd rage over a fairly minor update. Looks fine, though not adding responsive in any redesign these days is deserving of a whippin'.

    Now, back to whiner watching.

  73. Adrian Taylor

    if you had asked

    if asked about it i think many readers (yes readers) would have told you that the lack of annoying click bait pictures is one of the main attractions of the register

    what's wrong with reading stuff ? We're not as stupid as you think we are !

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: if you had asked

      > We're not as stupid as you think we are !

      Speak for yourself. :-)

  74. Camilla Smythe
    Black Helicopters

    Did Murdock... Icon --->

    Spring the GeoCities wing from the Asylum during his latest escape?

  75. Bloodbeastterror

    What exactly was wrong with the old one?

    End of message.

  76. John LS
    FAIL

    Me no likee

    Top article way too big and white everywhere stop now please

  77. Chad H.

    Oh Gawd. Change it back, now, this is horrible.

    Why on earth did El Reg get the Windows 8 Designer to redevelop the site? It was fine as it was.

  78. Mike48US

    Nope, I don't like it. Pretty pictures are nice but I come here for the articles. Will I learn to live with it? Probably, as this isn't my first redesign experience. But like the saying goes"You're getting it for nothing.. quit your bitchin".

    It just seems too busy, and I generally like to click on things in order to have them respond. The automatic nonsense just irritates me.

  79. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    YOU SHOULD HAVE EASED US INTO THIS CHANGE WITH MORE FINESSE.

    Not slap us in the face with it.

  80. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'VE HAD TO TURN THE BRIGHTNESS DOWN ON ME MONITOR.

    FUCK YOU VERY MUCH!

  81. Ben Boyle

    Might just be me but on my 1680*1050 screen the logo in the banner is looking a little jaggy.

    Won;t stop me reading but I'm in the "Ewwwwwwwwwwww!" camp too. I like the overall layout of the articles on the main page but for me there's too much bright white space and it feels almost... unfinished?

    And those popup/flyout leaders when you hover over the subnav are crazy annoying :/

  82. Tempest8008

    BOFH yourselves...

    Honestly, "modern and fresher"?

    AND you're going to have a consultant firm in to give you advice on further changes?

    In both of these cases the BOFH would have to have multiple situations where inconvenient falls clear the way for common sense. And there's always the server room halon system...

    Add another vote to the "Don't like it" column. I find it harder to read, and you're forcing me to relearn a bloody website.

    I found The Register easy to navigate, clean and simple before. It got me to the MEAT of the site, which were the articles. Now I'm having to work harder to get to the information I want.

    There's style and then there's simple function.

    I'd prefer El Reg to be about the latter.

    1. Terrence Bayrock

      Re: BOFH yourselves...

      Here here......

  83. David1

    Effing awful!

    It's terrible. Please revert to the old design while you do a rethink.

  84. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some Constructive Suggestions

    1 - Put section headers on Top Stories, Most Read, and Spotlight.

    2 - Cut the Spotlight picture in half and move the text to the right of it to show more per screen.

    3 - The Top Stories header (at top right) should link to the Top 20 Stories.

    4 - Add Week's Headlines to top navigation bar (change items to initial caps if need to reduce space).

    5 - Aesthetically it's really black and white. I'd consider blue for bolded text that is now black.

  85. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thank you

    For leaving "this week's stories" alone since that allows me to do what I really want, which is to quickly peruse stories that are new since my last visit to see which ones I'm interested in reading.

  86. Alister

    Sorry, I'm not a fan. The large picture and headline of the featured stories take up too much room, the top menu is annoying when you move your mouse anywhere near it.

    Also, the pagination on the comments seems to carry over two or three stories to the next page.

  87. Salts

    Err...

    Is it April 1st?

  88. ma1010
    Thumb Down

    Fairly horrid

    As has been pointed out by others, it wasn't broke, so why "fix" it? The old site gave me a quick way to look around and see which articles looked interesting to me. I never felt the previous layout was "cluttered," but the extra-big pictures on the new version *do* look cluttered to me. I would vote to go back to the way it was before. It just worked better.

  89. Return To Sender
    Alert

    No. No, doesn't do it for me

    First up, it would have been nice if you'd posted an article at the same time as pushing out the change so I didn't waste 20 minutes trying to work out what I'd done to my browsers

    Second; there's a huge amount of wasted space on my main screen. Either make the page aware of what it's rendering on and use the space accordingly, or don't bother. And please don't make the header pic a third of the screen, it's pointless and irritating. I read the articles for the information, it's not a picture book fer chrissakes.

    Third; not opening the article in a new tab? That's so basic I can't believe it's a deliberate design choice rather than a cockup, kindly fix it forthwith (edit: ah, it changes from black to a dark grey. Didn't spot that on the screen set the way it was. Grey. Really? C'mon...)

    Fourth; what have you done with the 'visited' CSS so's I can see which articles I've already read? I use that sometimes as a fast-scan when looking for an article, not to avoid the article.

    Fifth; article spacing on the main page; too much. I'm spending far more time scrolling up and down than before, it's a pain. And if you've got to have pics for the article, leave 'em in the rotating banner, or on a mouseover or something, don't throw another another possible row of article headers away just to look exciting and funky (or whatever).

    That's from five minute's worth of browsing, so first impressions. But I'm concerned that as it stands it's not going to grow on me. The value of El Reg to me is the content, not the presentation so much. By all means make changes, but please don't lose sight of what people come here for. We enjoy the tabloid humour, since by and large it's not accompanied by tabloid-level journalism; let's not have the tabloid presentation style suited to limited attention spans for people who struggle to reach the end of a sentence, let alone a whole article.

  90. Johndoe888

    As an Admin of a popular site I know we have a makeover in the pipeline because the sysop / coder has put a poll on site about it and we have been shown a preview (black), YUCK, another black site :(

    Fortunately our coder is currently far too busy with other work to finish the job :)

    The best that I can say about the new look Reg is at least we escaped web 2.0 (lots of flash and other stuff that is heavy on the clients browsers), and thank F*** it's not all TIFCAM !

    I want the old style back, why not have a preferences option as to which version of the the site we see and let us choose ?

    Edit, upon clicking Submit, the top of the page showed ~

    "Grey (mostly)&nbsp; axed from colour palette &nbsp;-&nbsp; site is probably too monochrome now - but where better place to start than black and white? Top ad moved&nbsp;&nbsp;-&nbsp;"

    Is this &nbsp a bug or a &nbsp &nbsp glitch ?

  91. EndianX
    WTF?

    Not your finest moment

    1. The enormous image at the top of the stories is too much. I want to see the words. I'm not so dim I need a large picture of Putin / Soldiers / A Printer in order to appreciate what a story is about. Between the header, the large text and the image I can't see *ANY OF THE BLOODY STORY*

    2. Blank and white, and black and white, and black and white. Too monochrome

    3. I don't need enormous text to tell me which stories I should read. I can choose that for myself.

    4. That bloody menu bar....

    5. The 'more stories' bit at the bottom looks just like the 'more from around the web' crap you see on many sites these days so (a) it instantly aggravates me and (b) it looks awful.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not your finest moment

      The more stories unit has been there for a long time. We have simply removed other related stories unit.

  92. Zog_but_not_the_first

    And more..

    I don't like the drop down ribbon at the top of the page. More hindrance than help.

    Overall, a few niggles that I dislike, but importantly nothing that makes me say, "Gosh! That's a lot better". Sorry.

    Suggestions: https please, and a few more icons.

  93. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The new style is okay BUT:

    - I'll agree with the others regarding constraining yourselves to the centre of the screen. A lot of wasted space at each side.

    - The new aspect ratio used for displaying images makes me feel I'm peering through the slot of a letterbox. A bit more height is called for, right now there isn't sufficient area to show a full face without chopping bits off or making it a flea circus.

    Browser here: Firefox 33 (self-built) on Gentoo Linux/AMD64. Resolution: 1366×768

  94. Adrian Taylor

    and the in text links are too blue and off putting

    and the in text links are too blue and off putting

  95. Chris Gray 1
    Meh

    Confusing colours

    Sorry, I've only read the first page of responses, so this might be a duplicate. I run with JavaScript disabled nearly everywhere, so on the home page, a have-read article's headline is in red and so is a headline the mouse moves over. I would actually prefer that moving the mouse over something *not* change that something at all, but can you at least make the move-mouse-over be less jarring, or at least some other colour?

  96. Julian Bradfield

    Tend to agree with most of the above. The immediately obvious thing is that it takes up more space for less content, and yet it's harder to distinguish one block from the next. Fixed sidebars are wasteful. Fixed width is always wrong.

  97. aBloke FromEarth

    Yes

    Lovely and clean! The layout's really improved.

    Added bonus: not a hint of joss sticks or whale song.

  98. E Haines

    Top nav bar a bit broken

    I use the minimum font size feature in Safari which prevents sites from obnoxiously displaying 3 pt type, and this apparently causes the nav bar to make the "Weekend edition" bit hang down permanently on the next line, covering up anything that might be there. Same thing in Firefox. You'd want to fix it so it doesn't break if the user changes font sizes. Also get rid of the ALL CAPS...nobody likes that. Nobody, ever. (And yes the popup thingy is quite annoying too.)

  99. DJV Silver badge
    Flame

    No...

    JUST

    NN.....................NN.........OOOOOOOO........**

    NNN..................NN.......OOOOOOOOOO.....***

    NNNN...............NN......OO..................OO.....***

    NN.NN..............NN.....OO....................OO....***

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    NN.........NN......NN.....OO....................OO....***

    NN..........NN.....NN.....OO....................OO....***

    NN...........NN....NN.....OO....................OO....***

    NN..............NN.NN.....OO....................OO......

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    NN.................NNN.......OOOOOOOOOO......***

    NN...................NN..........OOOOOOOO.........***

  100. Mage Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Terrible

    I feel like I'm using 640 x 480 screen instead of 1600 x 1200

    Bring back the old site.

    It's like a design for TV?

  101. Don Coglioni

    nav bar flash: annoying

    Hi there, is it just me wiggling my mouse around too much, or the top nav bar flash when you pass over it for some reason (... move mouse from some link in the page to a new browser tab, springs to mind ) , and it dutifully fires a very brief hover event, is quite annoying ?

    Plus, I add myself to the Get Back Fluid Widths camp.

    Oh, and on the frontpage, I find it a bit hard to understand where a news "box" (actually div class="headline") ends and the next (laterally and vertically) starts. Also, I see in the markup you've got a data-epoch attribute in the timestamp span. I might be mistaken, but that's not much of a date microformat ...

    Also on the fronpage : 650x431 pixels for the large story box is a bit too much. Perfect for Page3 boobs, but not for the Register, I think.

    my 2 x 10^-2 euros

  102. Wade Burchette

    In the words of Homer Simpson to Ned Flanders

    "You suck-didly-uck new Reg!"

  103. Morten Bjoernsvik

    Still not looking good on mobile

    On mobile I've always hated using ElReg. Now it is certainly better, But I still need to zoom in. On Mobile devices You need larger fonts,links and one collumn view.

  104. Captain DaFt

    http://youtu.be/cDGlN6mluGA

    That is all.

  105. Mage Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Madness

    main images MADLY too big. If I zoom out to make image correct size the text is greeked.

    Browser unfortunately can Zoom out on everything or on text only. But can't reduce image size and leave text alone.

    This is HORRIBLE. I don't want a kiddies Picture book. I want TEXT!!

    Idiots.

    I come here to READ! Not gaze at photos or Gifs.

  106. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    My comments.

    Headline too big.

    Story picture waaaaay too big.

    El Reg banner logo looks very 1990's, mostly just blank red space.

    Overall look of the site is too bland.

    Roll-over menu bar is a real pain in the backside. (I tend to middle click the stories I'm interested in to open a load of new tabs then read - moving up to the tabs "flashes" am irritatingly huge pop-up at me)

    Too much "stuff" all the way from the top border down a screen and a half before I get to the article.

    Getting back to the banner, why not move the actual logo to the left of the "red top" then put the "Hello user | sign out", the "Cash'n'Carrion Whitepapers The Channel" and maybe even the search box inside the "red top".

    Next, make the story image 100% relevant and a suitable size, ie in the story "No more free Windows... and now it’s all about the services", crop out the huge blue area at the bottom of the image and get rid of the image for "FreeBSD developers VANQUISH Demon bug" altogether. It's a tech web site with tech aware readers. We don't need a picture of a fly on a keyboard to let us know what is meant by "bug".

    If there's no press release or picture of the person/thing the story is about, then don't bother with an image at all. A huge Goggle logo pasted over a skull doesn't add to the headline. Surely you've sat through depressingly graphic powerpoint presentations and had a moan about over use of graphics, images etc? I know there's regular comments from your readers about that very subject. Please don't do it on the site.

    I would suggest scaling the story image to be no more than half the article width and putting it inside the text, top left and flow the text around it if you really must have pictures. Oh, and if you want to get any awards for accessablie content, put something useful in the alt tags.

    Someone wise once said a picture is worth a thousand words. A quick review of the latest 10 or stories tells me you've managed to fit a thousand words into one in most cases. And the Word is "meh!"

  107. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Those images are big aren't they?

    I'd like to say more but I still haven't managed to scroll down to the text yet... It must be even better for those with a bog-standard 16:9 laptop.

  108. ad47uk

    copying others

    It seems like the type of design you have gone for is the norm these days, digital spy is almost the same, our local paper site is about the same. i think web designers seems to come out of the same mould these days. I hate these stupid menus at the top that seems to be on almost every site now.

  109. GBE

    Didn't notice the change.

    I honestly didn't notice any difference until I read the article about it.

    I do now see that the layout of the comments page is broken rather badly (at least in my copy of Firefox). There's a tall column of coments with several inches of whitespace on each side. Below that, there's the login/logout stuff shoved up agains the right hand edge of the window. Then below that there's a column of ads a few inches wide and a couple feet tall with 10-12 inches of whitespace on the left. Then the footer way, way down there below all that.

    Fail.

    I honestly don't understand why peple think web sites have to be redesigned every year or two simply for the sake of change. Is the web designer union that strong? Web sites don't ever seem to get any better -- just different.

    I assume the real purpose is to intentionally move everything around so that people can't find anything. That way they have to waste time stumblling past more crap and more ads before they find what they actually came for.

    I'm pretty sure large brick and morter retailers swear by that...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Comments layout broken?

      We have not touched the comments layout - so am not sure what is going on here. If you have time, please send us screenshot, browser version, OS to webmaster@theregister.co.uk

      Thanks.

  110. CmdrX3

    I'm no design expert but...

    To be honest, I'm not loving it. Maybe it's just because it's different and I'll get used to it, but I just seem to be scrolling forever to get through all the articles. I know you've tried to declutter things, but for me the FP looks even more cluttered than it did before, but like I said I'm no design expert. Pictures though is good, I like pictures.

  111. Jim Willsher

    Bloody hell! On a 24" screen at 1920x1080, the headline picture is insanely big! I thought those sheep were in my living room FFS!

    1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
      Happy

      "thought those sheep were in my living room FFS!"

      Yes, as a Welshman, I have to conceed that that part of the site design was welcome

  112. Candy

    Images too big.

    It's difficult to really assess the redesign when there's a fundamental flaw for me. I have to scroll down a whole page to see any text in any article. The images are massive. Thumbnails, please. Really. Please?

  113. Red Bren
    Facepalm

    My tuppence worth

    I read El Reg for entertainment and enlightenment, so I'm prepared to put up with advertising so that the staff can eat. Sometimes the ads have even worked! However, top banner and sidebar advertising selling the same thing? I don't need to see it twice, I'm not going to think "I wasn't sure about that product when I saw the banner ad, but now I've seen the portrait ad, I'll buy five!". Can you drop the Top banner ad, so we can see some more headlines? You can show me more ads once you've drawn me in!

    The Top Stories are in the wrong place and take up far too much room with the large picture - you could fit a thousand words in that space! What I want to see when I open El Reg are the Latest Stories at the top of the page, without having to scroll down for them.

    There's too much repetition on the page. Is there that much difference between Top Stories, Most Read and Spotlight? Just keep Most Read but with the format of Spotlight

    Finally. For the love of all that is holy, can you switch off the Expanding Nav Bar? Or at least put a delay on it so the menu only pops up if I hover over it? I don't want it jumping up at me every time my mouse goes near it, especially if it covers over the very thing I want to click on, so I have to move the pointer down past the unwanted pop-up, then back up again once it disappears.

    1. Red Bren
      Happy

      Re: My tuppence worth

      It looks nice on my mobile though...

  114. Roo

    This will be lost in the tide... But here goes...

    Reg, that reformatting effort was very, very brave.

  115. James 29

    Please turn it back

    The new layout looks very white and dated

    This is not modern or fresh

    The text and pictures are very large, even on 1080p screens. The site does seem designed for tablets rather than anything else.

    Please bring back the old layout

    1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

      Re: Please turn it back

      I use. Tablet most of the time, and to me, any site 'designed for mobile/tablet' is crap.

      Remember that thing called HTML, that could flow and adjust itself to any device size?

  116. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tabloid to tabletoid?

    It all looks very iPad and designed more for thumbs than mice.

    Major dislike.. How (if possible) can I disable the expanding nav bar / mouseover behaviour using Firefox? I like simple menu bars I can click on, not ones that eat 1/3rd of the browser display every time the mouse gets close. I'm guessing this behaviour is to suit touch screens.

    What's wrong with red to show stories I've read? The black/grey scheme is much less obvious.

  117. Anthony Hegedus Silver badge

    I thought you'd been hacked

  118. Frederic Bloggs

    "improving comments"

    Clearly I am on some moderation list, but if you want me to "improve my comment", then how do I do that now? There is no link, nor is there an edit box any more.

  119. Gert Leboski

    Severe but practical.

    I'm not all that struck on the top nav menu and all that blurts over the page from it, but to be honest, I think I quite like the new layout. It feels quite natural to use for me. I only ever use it on desktop and iPad, which I haven't tried it on as yet, but I will do. I'm not sure how that menu will feel on a tablet. hmm

    To be fair though, I have rarely forayed into the nav menu in all the years that I have been reading here. I usually just skim the main page for articles of interest, poke around the comments and I'm off again. Sadly that's a few times each day, on average. So really, for me, it's the main content area of the page that gets my attention, nothing much around the edges. Apart from being really "appealed to" by the always relevant advertising on this site. ;) In fact, it's the only site throughout the entire web that actively makes me just spunk money galore as a direct result of advertising. *

    * Just doing my bit to help. Feel free to use it as a testimonial of sorts when talking with your advertising peeps. :-D

  120. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Why?

    Just... Why?

  121. Haro

    I love it!

    Had to put this in here, just to be different. Really, I'm colour-blind and I don't care. Just give me the articles.

  122. Rick Leeming

    urgh

    When will people work out we don't all use a tablet or phone all the time?

    Mobile theme yes, but can we have a real website for real use?

    this is horrible on my desktop, and mouseover menus are a travesty best left in 1998.

  123. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Just spotted another "gotcha"

    In us_navy_deploys_poncey_laser_cannon, we get a huge image to "highlight" the story, then two lines of text then the same huge image again.

    PLEASE DON'T DO THAT. I'll assume for today that it's teething troubles, but did no one actually look at that page before clicking on "publish"?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just spotted another "gotcha"

      Thanks for the catch - teething production issue here. Think this will fade away.

  124. The Dude

    thought me browser wss hijacked and opened the wrong site....

    first impression: far too busy. Looks like a bog standard lamestream media site. I might grow more comfortable with it, but really I liked the old layout.

  125. Scaase
    WTF?

    NO!

    Just... no!

    From the glaringly over bright page with text bordering on the ridiculously large, to articles that - unless I have my browser at near enough full-screen height - I have to scroll down just to START reading because of a massive, unnecessary image on each page? No no no no no !

    Sorry, but I find this redesign supermegafugly

  126. Leo Edwardsson
    WTF?

    Flagrant design error. Register over. Rubbish = very yes

    There aren't enough swear words in all the human languages that have ever been spoken to express how much I dislike this. Not even if you count the try-hard phonies like Esperanto and Klingon. I'm Australian, so when I find myself struggling to muster sufficient profanity, the aggravation has exceeded all bounds of natural law and common decency. Change it back forthwith, or by all that's Chromey I'll remove you from my list of homepage tabs.

  127. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about being a responsive site?

    Everything listed in what you have changed is not revolutionary, and certainly not made the site more modern, just more like it should have been 5 years ago already.

  128. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    THIS IS YOUR WINDOWS 8 EL REG!!!!!

    GO BACK TO THE XP VERSION YOU TWATS!!!!!

  129. malleeMan

    The uncategorised retro style was perfect - I felt in control of the content

    So El Reg goes all modern and now looks like every other news site. Hire an agency and it will get even worse.

    Every time a designer gets between a reader and content, something gets lost. We start seeing things with a designers perspective . . . and what do they know. They know white space, dotted rules and superfluous information - that's what they know. Your old style just presented stories, not content pre-digested by those good with coloured pencils.

    It's a shame really. El Reg was an eccentric site with an effective, easy to use retro interface. Now the designers union has homogenised it.

  130. haaz

    A new design! Just what I was thinking.

    Indeed, just yesterday, I thought, "Hey, I've been reading El Reg for years... haven't they changed it 't all? Mm, they could use a little touch here and there. Ah well. Good stuff, I'll keep mindless devouring.

    Still not sure what I think, but yeah. Not offended or nothing so far.

  131. Guy 2
    Stop

    Oh boy

    I'd just upgraded Firefox and thought it was that, then up came the article about the redesign. Using either firefox or ie I've got about 50% of my screen completely white, either side of the screen, not pretty. The top third of the screen is taken up by a humoungous picture with the caption running opaquely through the bottom of the picture. I've a mate that's a printer, if he sees this in print he ends up rolling on the floor in tears at the ineptitude/inexperience of the layout designer, because it makes the text hard to read. I have to concur and think this is equally applicable to web design.

    The white at the edge of the screen is like having two bright lights on either side of the screen, not very pleasant.

    I've also only got one and a half row of articles at the bottom of the screen.

    Was your UA testing internal, because you need more people commenting on it before you send something like this live, banks, big business (I've consulted at both) have big UA Testing teams.

    Right end of comments because even the comments screen is hard to use. I do hope you can switch back quickly because this is plain 'orrible.

    1. Ben Tasker

      Re: Oh boy

      Holy crap, there's an article about the makeover? Hadn't even got that far down the front page before I headed for the forums to bitch about the new layout.

      The homepage is unreadable for me, I spend a good proportion of my day looking at console's (black background, white text), such an extreme wash of white is really fecking uncomfortable.

      If it hangs about, I'm going to have to get my news and my kicks elsewhere because I don't think I'll be able to read more than one article before I get a headache, certainly won't be able to keep my OCD happy by reading 'n' pages of comments afterwards.

      1. Ben Tasker

        Re: Oh boy

        And now I realise I've commented on the article.... came in through the forums :)

        One other observation - might just be me, but the image on this story - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/11/ripa_legislative_overhaul_experts/ looks like it's been overstretched to fit the space, which makes it even less useful than it was before.

  132. Matt Brigden

    my eyes you idiots my eyes

    Too bright you fools too bright . Do you not realise we spend more hours than you in front of screens regardless of if we are working or merely pretending too . Too much white = bad . Tone it down . I am not saying beige lord help us but not so much of the I'm going to rip out your retinas white .

  133. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BUG REPORT.......

    ....ITS SHIT!!!

  134. Kev99 Silver badge

    Redesign

    Phhhbbbttt!!!

  135. Sureo

    I hate hot links that pop up all over the screen when you move your mouse around. If I want to see one I can click on it.

  136. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LOOK.....ITS NOT TO LATE, JUST ROLL IT BACK LIKE A BAD UPDATE

    I'm a poet and i didn't know it :()

  137. Jove Bronze badge

    Very stark; almost utilitarian.

  138. Randolf McKinley

    Skype?

    They buggered up Skype a while back, too sparse, too much white space, now El Reg has followed suit. Good one. Not.

    And why are the fonts so bloody big?

  139. eddystone82

    Can we have a switch please?

    Can we have a classic style switch please? This is bad. Not as bad as the new Guardian layout but why do we have to have everything spread out so much on these redesigns, as other people have said, really tiring for the eyes.

    1. Ben Tasker

      Re: Can we have a switch please?

      I second that request.

      Looks fecking awful on my monitor, and I used to use the 'Most Commented'.

      The front page feels like it's shouting at me, font's just too big and there seems to be a lot of space wasted.

      The menus are bloody annoying too, every time I bring my mouse down from the address bar the things trigger

  140. Atomic Duetto

    I'm on an iPad and it looks crap... Far too much white space, huge fonts and shit layout. Fer instance, I have to scroll when hitting the comments page just to see the first comment.

    Could I have a link to the old site please

    Can I have the most commented list back too.. Or are you afraid people won't read all the 'articles'.

    It really is shit.

  141. as2003

    Moving deckchairs

    Ignore these luddites; the reg has been due a makeover for a very long time.

    I applaud the move in the right direction, but you still have a long way to go.

    You may have moved a few deckchairs around, and administered a lick of paint here and there, but you have some serious flaws in functionality. The most obvious of which is the inability to get any notification that your comment has received a response. With user engagement comes page-views. You're pissing free money up the wall.

    And for the love of god please hire a professional graphic designer.

  142. Gomez Adams

    Links no longer marked as read / red?

    So how am I supposed to keep track of which articles I have already looked at?

  143. chuckufarley Silver badge

    Meh...

    I can still read the news and that is good. It still uses a fix width format that is a waste of screen space on any modern monitor, which is bad. So as I said above, meh.

  144. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is the redesign going to get rid of...

    …all the right-wing bullshit that's infected the site over the past few years?

    Or is the plan to still troll readers rather than sticking to what they claim to know about?

    1. Anonymous Custard
      FAIL

      Re: Is the redesign going to get rid of...

      No it's just going to get rid of a fair chunk of the readership. Or at least blind them with dazzling white.

      I'm sure the advertisers will just love that...

  145. Neoc

    My 2c

    Mostly OK - default font's a bit large but I could live with it.

    Two things I'd like to see disappear:

    1) The auto-expanding menu. Please return it to click-to-expand. Every time I move my mouse to the browser's menu then back down to the page it causes one of El Reg's menu items to automatically expand. Very annoying.

    2) Default colour for visited links/articles has changed from red to grey. And a grey which (on my screen at least) is difficult to differentiate with the normal link/article titles unless I pay attention. I hated it in the "more stories" section of the old site, an I really loathe it on the main page. Please change the default "visited" colour to something easy to identify.

  146. Dwarf

    Ulgy and un-readable

    It used to be easy to come here and get info. Now I get VERY LARGE FONTS and the information content is lower.

    Use smaller fonts.

    Use ALL the width of my browser window.

    Dump the pointless graphics at the top of the page or I can't read this in the office any more and it will take longer to load on the train.

    Loose the slow loading adverts for the same reason.

    Did you know that modern graphics cards can display loads of different colours all at the same time, we're not in the 70's any more.

    Seriously. Drop the change for change's sake. Go back to what worked fairly well (bar the slow loading adverts)

  147. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hate it - sorry

    1. I opened El Reg and nearly went blind. The site is so stark now that when you open it in a dark room with only monitor and TV screen for illumination this site now is like a LED torch!

    2. Harder to navigate - it used to be that stories were laid out in order of age, so:

    1 2 3

    4 5 6

    =bar=

    7 8 9

    etc

    Now it lookes like it goes something like

    11111? 2?

    11111? 3?

    4? 5? 6? 7?

    The ? because I haven't actually figured it out yet as the story in position 1 is one I read earlier before the redesign, so fairly sure it isn't newest story.

    3. Fixed width menu bar - come on who thought of that? Seriously, slap them. It's not hard to make it resizable, trust me I've done it.

    4. I hate to think what it looks like with adverts, suffice to say I'm not going to turn off adblock to find out.

    I know everybody hates redesigns, but seriously this reminds me of the GMail redesigns where they made it worse in the interests of "making it better". I'm sure that eventually I'll get used to it, but I'd really rather not.

  148. paul481

    Why have you removed the Print view ?

    I followed El Reg most days for well over 10 years; used to follow the once similar 'The Inquirer' until about 4 years back they had an awful makeover, slowing my access to news of interest, so I stopped visiting.

    I like to archive articles of interest - but want to save just the article, not the irrelevance surrounding it, hence the need for Print View.

  149. Terrence Bayrock
    FAIL

    Why mess with it?

    Yuck

    Too much white space

    make the text denser on the interline spaceing

    top article overly massive (why?)

    side-bar text box too large

    skip the colourful drop-menus on the nav bar & just post links...

    bring back the ever-loved shareware - software downloads page(s) :) !!

    It's the content !!!!!!!!!!

  150. hEdly
    Facepalm

    go back to the previous version

    Not a fan. The old version was just nice and simple. It was easier to scroll through the headlines and pick the stories that I really wanted to read.

    I don't like the big storie at the top center. Why is it there? Is it the newest story? No it isn't because I found it way down on the list. Is it the most popular? No because I would assume that would be over with the top stories. And why isn't the change in web format the top story for like the next week or more? Sheesh, this article was way down on the list.

    Also, why are the "top stories" on the side. and how is a top story different than the "Most Read Stories" down below? One would think they would be the same.

    Then what's with that article kind of in the middle of the page that breaks up the flow?

    Why do some articles have images and other's don't? Also the images are too big, the thumbnails on the old page were smaller and didn't break things up so much --> better flow.

    too many sites are all snazzy and dynamic and I try to avoid those. I want a simple interface to find the info I want to consume. If it's too busy with too many adds then I go elsewhere. Even though this version is relatively simple and clean, I just makes it more difficult to read. Did you all change fonts?

  151. JeffyPoooh

    Given that it's all database driven...

    One could imagine a Universe where the users (readers) could select their favorite 'Shell'.

    With a Click to Save Preference feature.

    It's perfectly do-able.

  152. Snake Silver badge

    A measureable improvement

    The large variety of replies are from, well, computer techs, geeks and nerds with no experience in publishing.

    Since I HAVE experience in publishing I will say: Thumbs up.

    Fellow posters have no idea of "white space" in a publication, they think that a page should be a continuous sheet filled with words, data and images. They can't understand the concept that white space increases readability to the human eye and is necessary for increased comprehension. Your new format cleans up and increases column gutters, a very nice graphical change. The drop-down menu is dynamic and creates an instant level of interactive feedback, very modern and a good use of space. The single headlined image is a VAST, VAST improvement in layout dynamics - I can't stress that enough. Tremendous!

    The system will need tweaks to come up to everyone's expectations but I say "Great job!" to the designers, writers, programmers, layout artists, editors and contributors all at The Reg.

    1. web_bod

      Re: A measureable improvement

      But sweetie - this site is targeted at geeks and techies - it's great that you work in publishing - but this isn't a reflective bit of paper - it's a back-lit screen - so in this environment so much brilliant white with a narrow typeface is actually more effort to read and results in more eye train particularly when you look how closely spaced the characters are compared to the line and paragraph spacing.

      1. storax
        Thumb Up

        Re: A measureable improvement

        "...particularly when you look how closely spaced the characters are compared to the line and paragraph spacing."

        ¡¡ YES !!

    2. Jim Hague

      Re: A measureable improvement

      Bollocks on stilts. And a noted piece of snide about us stupid unfortunates who, er, comprise the Reg's readership.

      My monitor is NOT a page of print. You're making me read while shining a bright white torch into my eyes either side of and behind the text. You think that's a good idea? That's making text easier to read? Really?

      And that making me scroll the main page to see what's there? That's a good thing? I think you may have noticed that on Planet Geek we beg to differ. Please, please, esteemed El Reg - on my Apple Cinema 30" I can now see precisely three stories on the front page below the main image. That's incredibly wasteful of both my screen space and my time.

      Frankly, I'd like the site to go back to the design before last and stop trying to dictate to me how wide I should have my browser window and refusing to make use of space that is available. Or, effectively, that I should resize the window each time I switch tabs.

    3. Daggerchild Silver badge

      Re: A measureable improvement

      "they think that a page should be a continuous sheet filled with words, data and images. They can't understand the concept that white space increases readability to the human eye and is necessary for increased comprehension"

      Unless:

      1) The audience read a lot of technical manuals, research papers, or other dense dataforms and now have a rapid visual ingest rate and are proficient at skim-scanning blocks of text.

      2) They've used the same fonts on computers for so long they now have dedicated neurons that lock and grok them with unusually little effort.

      3) They aren't using the assumed display device, and the design proportions are now completely thrown out and many eye movements are now required to read a sentence that previously fitted wholly in the retinal hotzone, and many physical+page movements and visual resettlings+rescans are required to accomplish what previously required one to none.

      e.g. I can wave my eyes over a page of computer code in my favourite font and *subconsciously* notice a comma where there should be a fullstop.

      e.g. medium.com use a huge unfamiliar font and *acres* of whitespace, when you aren't scrolling past an even larger image - my eyes have *immense* difficulty ingesting it. The articles are metres long. But I'm sure it would be *lovely* on a tablet with momentum scrolling.

    4. Terrence Bayrock
      Facepalm

      Re: A measureable improvement

      Perhaps in the hardcopy world would your comments have credibility.

      Also, target your style for the audience; since the typical loyal el Reg reader is (in all probability) a techie, type fonts and other publishing nuances are lost. Content is king (or queen) ; leave the flashy stuff to the Hollywood tabloids or The Guardian.

      On second thought, even The Guardian's website, busy as it is, (unfortunately) outclasses this attempt. I acknowledge that the Reg publishers/editors were maybe looking to improve the website, but IMHO, this change is regressive.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A measureable improvement

      There is the whole problem! You are a publisher.

      You 'think' you know what the market wants, and spend NO time listening to the readers. You lot force crap changes on the readers with no knowledge of your core audience, and eventually piss them off so much they all fuck off. Then you are left with a loss making waste of a site thats gone from EXCELLENT IT opinion to doing piss poor book/car/TV/movie reviews.

      Here is a nail, you might need it for that coffin...

    6. paultnl

      Re: A measureable improvement

      You make the mistake of thinking that the publisher is more important than the reader.

  153. g00se
    FAIL

    Too much

    Too much white, too much black. Way too stark. Who told you that grey is bad?

  154. Camilla Smythe
    Coat

    I'll check back later --> Mine protects me from Pron

    ITMT the rest of you might wish to visit..

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    To view the future of El Reg.

    1. Kevin 6

      Re: I'll check back later --> Mine protects me from Pron

      sadly almost find that layout better then the shit they put up here

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: I'll check back later --> Mine protects me from Pron

        Why would you want to be protected from Pron?

  155. This post has been deleted by its author

  156. wsm

    White on white

    What bothers me most about redesigns is that they nearly always make a site less useful What is it that people think are proper design goals?

    I have seen this trend toward white-out design in too many places, now it has struck here. And that big graphic? I prefer the one that I could scroll through if needed.

    The whole site now looks overly bright (on the screen, not necessarily more clever) and less useful.

  157. pinkmouse

    The whole point of design is to steal a good idea and make it better.

    Not steal something dreadful and make it worse.

  158. This post has been deleted by its author

  159. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How very Yahoo!

    Has El Reg been acquired by Yahoo! ? The makeover reminds me of Flickr - - which ignored all the screams of protest and desertions. From being almost addicted to browsing that site several times a day - it now gets visited about once every two months for about 10 seconds.

    I can see El Reg going into the same "I wonder if they've regained their sanity yet" category - tomorrow.

  160. Shannon Jacobs
    Holmes

    Obviously driven by the ads to destroy your actual assets

    You didn't mention the two most obvious changes I've noticed so far. You increased the visibility of the ads and made the overall effect more intrusive (and therefore less attractive) and you made the comments less accessible (and presumably more controllable AKA easier to censor).

    What are your actual assets? I think you have two: Integrity and credibility. Rewording as questions, do you speak the truth, and do we believe you when you speak? Showing how much you worship the ads damages both of your actual assets. The probable result will be fewer eyeballs for you to sell, resulting in lower revenue, resulting in greater desperation, resulting in a death spiral. Nothing special there, looking at the state of Web-based journalism.

    Hey, why don't you try a different business model? Here's a version of an ancient suggestion adapted to your situation: I call it #MDFC (More Democratic Funding Campaigns), but you might prefer to think of it as "better than Kickstarter". Essentially, you would EARN a commission by supporting constructive projects related to your stories.

    For simplicity and because the Register isn't worth a lot of effort for customization, I'll use an example based on a problem. A hot one right now is Web neutrality, eh? After an article on the topic, you would offer 3 to 5 links to #MDFC projects to help SOLVE the problem. You would earn your commission (let's say 5%?) by supporting the project proposal and EVALUATION of how well it worked. You would make sure that each proposal is complete, including a feasible budget and schedule for ALL of the required resources. You would work to make sure (based on your increasing experience with prior proposals) that nothing crucial is omitted, like testing or the cost of a satisfaction survey. Most importantly, you would make sure the project has clear success criteria. If enough of the readers like the project and pledge money, then you would fund the project (and take your cut) and afterwards, you would evaluate it. (By the way, a project might be internal, such as additional research and another article on the problem.)

    Where does the money come from? You can hold it by acting as the "charity share brokerage" and we would trust you to manage our "charity share brokerage accounts". After we pledged all of our donation to various projects, we could look back at our donation history, see how much good we had done by helping to fund those projects, and hopefully decide it's worth another donation.

    Convince me you're interested and I'll reveal some of the viral funding aspects...

  161. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Two real problems

    Amongst all the complaining about change, there are IMO two very valid criticisms of the redesign:

    1. The prominence given to massive graphics over the text content. Any fewl no that you shouldn't be pushing the content below the fold, and certainly not for the sake of a picture that's merely an illustrative adornment.

    2. That bloody expanding navbar is distracting and hideous. How nobody spotted what a usability disaster that would be I really don't know.

    You also should be using a more responsive design that doesn't thrust a tablet-friendly format at large screen PC users, but then I'm sure you know that.

  162. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    Ok, it's more than four hours since I saw the old layout, so I can't remember what the hell it looked like, so I can't make any comparisons, but let's go into tester mode. here are some positive critisisms:

    * get rid of the huge popup menu. whenever I move towards my browser's menu bar and have to traverse your menu bar half the screen disappears. did nobody ever teach you about unneccessary movements? a line of exactly the same height as the menu bar popping up would be ok, but not that huge thing.

    * on the front page get rid of that huge picture and headline for the lead story. that ends up being the *entire* *visible* *content*. there was nothing wrong with the top three/four(*) stories across the top inch of the content panel. scroll down until "unwashed BBC 3" is just off the bottom of the screen. that's what the home page layout should look like, with "internet of sheep" being three picture+headline within a box enclosing the three of them

    * get rid of the "unwashed BBC3" sub-box two-column thingy. it's just washing two "boxes" of space. make it just another one-box headline

    * a few horizontal lines to break the stuff up, just before the next section that starts with three pictures - in fact, those three pictures+headlines is the layout of what should be in the "internet of sheep" box

    * a vertical line between the lefthand content panel and the righthand related topics/etc panel. As each panel is often a different length it looks odd having the content with a random blank space next to it. look at how the forum is laid out, the content had a box outline so there's a visual break between it and the empty space under the righthand panel

    * the picture leading an article is really too huge something like lefthand 2/3 headline, righthand 2/3 picture quarter the size of the current picture

    * dammit, get rid of the popup menu! yes mentioned a second time because it's pissed me off so much mousing over it to attempt to get to my tab bar to refer to other pages while typing this.

    so: ok as a beta test, don't release it into the wild, fix it up before making it live.

    1. Ketlan
      Angel

      Let's have a poll

      Obviously many readers hate the change while some seem to embrace it. How about a poll that will show precisely what the balance is? At least that way, the site editors can act in the best interests of the readers AND El Reg.

  163. John Tserkezis

    Here's something different: I don't entirely hate it.

    I have some head issues that don't deal with distracting unrelated content on the side, but I can take those out.

    To be constructive, the menu bar is a pain. Sure, if it's something that I'm going to use all the time to help navigate around the site - great - but it isn't, it's only taking up screen real estate. I'm quite happy to scroll to the top on the odd instance I want to use it. My laptop has only 600 pixels from top to bottom, so it occupies a large amount of screen space. 600 pixels man! I can get rid of that too, but the cost is I lose it completely - which I don't want to do.

    Pictures. They're huge. They're fucking huge. Worse still, having top pictures in "most" of your stories doesn't help, they're unrelated, and fucking huge. It's like you took a leaf out of the annoying marketing manual and thought since a moderate image is good, a fucking huge and unrelated image MUST be better. I don't want to turn off all pictures, and in fact the Win7 version of the reg I had most that were related, were also visible to me. But now that they're not, I'm >< THAT close to wiping out images completely.

    Social links. Really? Do you not read your own forums? You probably only have 18 readers that follow the networks to any degree, and all of them claim they DON'T use it for sharing cat photos. But they secretly do. Oh fine, leave them in, but I'll be scrubbing them out at this end anyway.

  164. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Turn Off the CSS

      I tried that. The article is more readble but because of the element order, the article is about 25 feet down the page after everything else. :-(

  165. Steve Knox
    Meh

    Most of it's fine

    (after the stereotypical kneejerk "OMFG UI CHANGE" reaction)

    But when you have ONE GIANT STORY at the top of the page, taking up almost all of the initial screen, you're alienating your major audience, who, let's face it, are return readers. We've either seen the top

    stories already or we'll get to them.

    Tone it down so they take up less than 1/3 of the home page.

  166. Daggerchild Silver badge

    Oh poo. Tabletisation.

    Well, I judge website redesigns with the following criteria:

    Q: What proportion of the browserpane is the stuff I actually came to see?

    A: On load, fullscreen 1280x1024, the amount of screen real estate *actually* relevant is ~30%

    Q: How much/many of these are visible without scrolling?

    A: 6 items. Maybe 7. Down from, what, 12? more?

    Q: What proportion of the pane is the stuff the *site owner* wants me to see, but I don't?

    A: ~40%, including the MAHOOSIVE image. So about 30% whitespace. Useful maybe on a tablet/phone. I'm not on a tablet/phone.

    A full dedicated monitor screen now has less actual information on it than a phone?

    Wait.. is a text browser now *more* useful than a graphical one?

    *checks* - 12 articles in one page. No summaries, smashed into blocks by adverts and nav links. And none of the links work now. So, no I guess.

    Ooh - m.theregister.co.uk works much better tho......

    ...

    ... Er.. I forgot how fast text browsers were.. erm... this is sickeningly fast.. and gives me lots of everything I want, instantly.... erm..

    Well, er, yes, you have a very pretty imageful, spacey site now. Just promise me you won't go full retard like medium.com.

    Meanwhile, tho, it seems I just found out you make a superior one :-/

  167. He's Dead Jim

    New York here.

    I just logged on to read the rage comments, and I gotta say, I laughed so hard at certain posts that I almost passed out.

    "lucky we didn't say anything about the dirty knife"

    P.S. - just curious if the print version option is gone for good or not. I don't see the icon.

  168. Sl1ck

    Oh Dear,,,,,

    Where to start?

    - Too much white and white space.

    - Too much scrolling.

    - Too much white and white space.

    - Pop up pics too large.

    - Too much white and white space.

    - Would prefer Reg bar to be @ the top of the screen, not the advert.

    - Too much white and white space.

    - Fixed width not my idea of fun.

    - Too much white and white space.

    - The Reg just became very hard work to read :-(

    Other than that - very poor showing.

  169. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    WTF?!

    Came into work this morning and proceeded with my usual "time to catch up on some morning news quickly just in case Adobe decided to release yet another Flash Player patch" and my first reaction upon loading The Reg was "uh what did the page not load properly *smacks Ctrl+F5*" to "oh god no..."

    And boy am I glad I'm not the only one.

    The old layout was absolutely perfect. Totally agree with the first couple of comments. If it ain't broke don't fix it... especially if the fix in question draws inspiration from Office 2013.

  170. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Faint vertical line divider to the left of the Top Stories column ...

    ... speaking as a typesetter/designer in a long-ago previous life before moving into IT.

    People's eyes will tend to wander all the way from left to right without a "stop" indicator and I think the top stories column is supposed to be read vertically.

    Also, hardly any colour - black on bright-white - is a little harsh. Maybe go for a shade of blue at least in the headlines?

    I seriously recommend having a look at the Guardian's website. You'll see what I mean about vertical dividers I think - and for a massively "busy" front page it's actually quite calm and easily navigable. Might give you a few tips.

  171. Grade%

    Ouch.

    My eyes were slapped by a giant photo as I clicked in. On a positive note, I spotted the Cash'n'Carrion link. The menu bar that follows my scrolling must die. Please kill it. Thank you.

  172. oiseau
    Flame

    What the f*ck were you all thinking?

    I'll be quite frank, like many other readers have been:

    You new design stinks to high heaven, litterally a POS.

    Please take things back to where they were.

    Please ...

    CIV

    PS: should also should take some measures with respect to those responsible. Drastic ones.

  173. hekla

    Problems with new site

    1: Get rid of the exploding nav-bar.

    2: Custom colours for read and unread stories. Browsers are designed to set these, so it is extra effort and COST to set them as well as a source for errors in coding.

  174. BrowserUk

    You forced my hand; and this is the result.

    This is what you send me: http://imgbin.org/images/21306.jpg

    And this is what I now see: http://imgbin.org/images/21307.jpg

    No teasers; no hot; no large story; no static; no dont miss; no right col; no spotlight; no sponlinks; no crumtrail; no story grid;

    S'not perfect yet. I haven't found a way to fill my screen yet; but at least what I do see is stuff I want to see.

    Oh. And, because you forced my hand: NO ADS!

    (Anyone using Opera and wants a one-click cure to the latest "modern, fresher" design fail; drop me a email.)

  175. thomas k.

    Could be worse, I suppose

    Not as bad as the recent "argh! give me an icepick so I can poke out my eyes, no, wait, this *is* an icepick poking out my eyes" Graun makeover, so kudos on that, at least.

    The stationary menu bar at the top (with the pop-ups as you roll over) is a nice feature, I'll admit; Ars implemented this in their last remodel.

    My pet peeve, though, is the inclusion of a "most read" section - why the fuck do I care what other people are reading? It's all about me, remember.

  176. Big-nosed Pengie

    Truly awful

    Really - did you actually pay that 10 year old to do that?

    Dreadful. Just dreadful.

  177. Dr Scrum Master
    FAIL

    When?

    If I refreshed a page at some unknown time in the past it's quite useless for me to know that an article was posted n hours before that point. Tell me an absolute date and time, not some relative duration relative to an unknown point in time.

    (And a big thumbs up to the, err, big thumbs down from most (all?) comments.)

  178. Fluffy Bunny

    Quite nice actually

    I actually quite like it. My main complaint is that the navbar at the top of the screen whacks you in the face every time you move your mouse over it. It really needs to have quarter second delay before it activates. Otherwise it gets really anoying every time you go to click another Intenet Exploiter tab.

    I have already gotten around the narrow column of text in the middle of a widescreen monitor by using the built-in zoom function in Intenet Exploiter.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Quite nice actually

      "I have already gotten around the narrow column of text in the middle of a widescreen monitor by using the built-in zoom function in Intenet Exploiter."

      Seriously? You like the idea of having to use a browser over-ride to make it usable when it's the job of the web designer/coder to make it work in the first place?

  179. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One thing I don't like

    is the new look requires a lot more scrolling just to accommodate mobile users with its big squares (notice that I avoided the word tile... oh, rats!) and I miss the front page carousel.

  180. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FFS

    Jumpy headers just like Digital Spy? With your recent weekender TV reviews and this we really ARE heading down a road toward being another crap social site, no longer the BEST IT site on the net.

    Who is trying to destroy this? Is it the bean counters? Only they would place style over content. I couldn't give a shit really about the look, as long as I can grab pages with wget (and I have to use that for offline reading because the Android app is SO piss poor).

    I'm finding myself, after YEARS of supporting El Reg, about to piss off. For good.

  181. ElectricRook
    FAIL

    One word DailyMail

    Go pirate the DailyMail app for mobile devices. Actually do this after taking penance for being stooge enough to reward some joker for selling you a makeover. Next you'll discover that you need to change your name to "globally align your corporate office with the customer imperative" or some other such nonsense. That would lead you to discover where Boot magazine went to after they changed their name to PC gamer.

    I suppose you have already rewarded the BOFH for reassigning the IP addresses of the routers to bond with the harmonic convergence of the winter solstice.

    sigh . . . just a sign that the end is near for el reg.

  182. ElectricRook

    April first?

    Is it April first in ol' blighty?

  183. T. F. M. Reader

    I will not say that it is all awful, but while I am relatively indifferent to much of the change some things are really annoying compared to the old version. This is before I checked different resolutions and stuff, or the mobile version (less important to me, but when I do use my phone I always use the normal websites, as some of the others here). I am using a big screen now.

    1. I like having as much of useful stuff on the screen as I can. This means that I really do not like the new layout which either leaves too much whitespace or presents too little information, depending on zoom level/font size.

    2. No need for oversized pictures, cute and funny as they might be - I'll appreciate the humour even if the illustrations are smaller. They are nice to have and they take a lot of space, making me scroll to the really useful content.

    3. The categories menu - Data Centre, Software, Networks, etc. - pops a huge bar with pictures and headlines that covers half of my bloody screen when the mouse accidentally hovers over it - please get rid of this horrible "feature".

    4. Search has become much more difficult to use - you need to hover over the magnifying glass symbol and only then the search bar pops out, to which you need to carefully navigate and keep the mouse cursor over it at all times. Very cumbersome. It was much easier in the old version.

    5. The pages load weirdly - the main frame appears shifted to the right with a lot of whitespace on the left. Only when I scroll down to the point where a part of the heading [right now, "El Reg redesign - leave your comment here"] is no longer visible the main frame jumps to the left and the right frame (with Most Read, Spotlight, etc.) appears. If I scroll up to the heading the right frame disappears again. Happens for articles and comments alike. Very annoying. This seems like a bug and not a feature.

    6. I liked the Most Commented feature. I find an unusually significant proportion of comments fairly intelligent, and knowing which topics generated most active reaction was useful, whether or not I eventually clicked on the articles.

    [Firefox on Linux with AB+, if that matters. AB+ has the option of not keeping empty placeholders on the page enable - mentioning that in case it is relevant to the amount of whitespace I see.]

  184. chivo243 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Jurassic Park Quote

    Yes, we have the ability, and we can, but should we?? I'm thinking no

  185. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Facepalm

    These large images!!

    WHHHHHHYYY!!

    They are always the same stock images ANYWAY. It's not like they would give any information.

  186. wolf471

    This is Horrible !! Please go back to the way you were

    The redesign is horrible please revert to the earlier version. Especially marking read stories in grey rather than red. And no stupid pictures please

  187. Jaxn

    Boo

    Liked the red read articles and no need for the "hero" article.

  188. Irony Deficient

    yet another viewpoint

    First, some history: the article about El Reg’s last redesign can be read here, and a follow-up to it after five days can be seen here. Don’t forget to review the comments to those articles — plus ça change and all that. Like at least one other commentard above, my preferred design was the one that was replaced in 2008.

    Regarding this redesign, my least favorite aspect of it is the increased presence and larger size of pictures; for me, each picture has a worth nowhere near a thousand words. Although I only use the Print Article feature rarely, I do in fact use it, unlike Top Stories, Most Read, Most Commented, Spotlight, Don’t Miss, and More from The Register, none of which I use. The stark monochrome of bold black text on a white background could do with a bit of softening. I don’t know if the masthead is a brighter shade of red than it used to be, but it certainly seems brighter against the new monochrome, and I wouldn’t mind it being darkened somewhat.

  189. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Add More VALUE #2 - Some past articles are valuable. Organize them better & forget site redesign

    Since you're actively redesigning the site, why not start organizing past articles into some kind of useful hierarchy or reference? .... Example: if a corporate client or family member asks me if they can trust Facebook/Whisper ... their new iOS / Android smartphone .... or a new LG-Smart-TV etc ... vis a vis privacy..... I'd like to be able to point them to relevant REG articles. But the search system is so hit and miss... So help us link enquiring minds to pertinent high quality Reg articles.

    At the very least, add an article 'like' system (not comment counts) and improve the Search system...

  190. coolAG
    IT Angle

    Start a revolution - bring back the old layout

    The old layout was so much easier on the eyes. Easy to identify the links and a lot of content. Quite handy to scroll though quickly in a boring meeting or while surfing sitting in the loo.

    Maybe we should start a revolution. Whats the digital equivalent of the occupy protests? Occupy vulture central?

    Naah I'll just cry in my cup of horrible coffee from the office vending machine.

  191. tokyo-octopus

    Kneejerk reaction coming up: nuke it from low orbit, please.

    After calming down and thinking rationally like an adult, I'll modify that to include "then plough it over and douse it in salt".

    Please don't force me to deal with the restrictions of a device I'm *not actually using*.

    Thank you.

  192. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Add More VALUE #1 - Instead of redesigning the site make the Reg forums whole...

    The Reg forums aren't forums, they're some kind of disposable transient noise...

    Why are there no 'Sticky' threads and ongoing discussions related to Reg subject matter? Why bother to comment when there's no follow-up the next day? Tomorrow is just another set of articles with new throw-away comments.. Nothing is ever covered or discussed in any detail, and it just encourages flippant rants and idle comments. I switch off from the Reg for weeks or months because of this....

    Instead, why not leverage the Reg as an active online community for tech? ... Engage them directly and encourage them to engage with each other... You know the mantra: be all you can be....

  193. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Add More VALUE #3 - Depth of TECH INFO included in articles is too varied...

    I recently asked the Reg for more detail on an article related to hacking / hijacking.... Namely: "does this run as a dedicated process or is it hooked directly into a windows sub-system? The article never mentions that, neither do any of the past Reg articles on CryptoLocker or similar strains of badness. This is a tech site, why not give us more insider detail".....

    The Reg team responded by including a series of invaluable links in the article. Wow! Cheers to the Reg team and especially Chris and Drew. Because adding those kinds of links sets the Reg apart.. Similar links in future hacks would be great too!

    So why not focus on similar quality instead of changing the site? Focus on more series-linked articles on everything from hacking to migration... But notify readers beforehand, so we can all stay tuned. At the moment its all too unpredictable or random from week to week...

  194. chivo243 Silver badge

    Can I opt out!

    Really, this is really, really, not El Reg. Can I opt out and get the old familiar friend back? Please!

  195. Roger Varley

    Most Commented

    Can we have the "Most Commented" tab back as well please!

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: Most Commented

      I missed it immediately ,but maybe this forum would break the 32bit integer like Gangnam style did to youtube.

  196. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nope

    No, had a few hours of this and it's bloody awful. Won't be back.

  197. Ralph the Wonder Llama
    FAIL

    Ow my eyes :|

    I look at El Reg several times a day, but crucially first thing in the morning. I had to shut my eyes to stop my retinas making a bid for freedom. Agree with most of the above, particularly and especially the first post, the one about the Grauniad (which has likewise ruined itself lately) and the menus. It's all flat, I can't find anything as effortlessly as I used to be able to, and it's just so bloody much like every other horrid "makeover" I've seen lately. Everyone else can be wrong, you know.

    I'm going to take some Nurofen and lie down.

  198. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    FAIL

    No no and Thrice no

    Those huse images are the killer. Why? Why? Why?

    Didn't you think of all the poor saps who have to view this on their corporate mandated 1366x768 screens?

    Then there is the way the posts are now ordered. What on earth is wrong with the old 'newest first' ordering?

    At least /. gave people a chance to view their latest changes before they went live via beta.slashdot. Here? Fat chance.

    IMHO, it wasn't broke but you somehow had to fix it.

    now where's the Total and abject failure Icon when you need it?

  199. Jamie Jones Silver badge

    While I'm at it, can we have a comments date back please?

    This is a techie site, not bloody Facebook. If I want to see when a comment was madem the date was perfect - not like the current "in the last few minutes" or "one month ago".

    Even worse, with javascript disbled, you just get the date of the post without the time!

    Oh yeah, this design is responsible for global warming, U2, and that annoying chap off the tele.

  200. TRT Silver badge

    Is it April the 1st already?

    Or is 12/12 now Trolling Day?

  201. Headley_Grange Silver badge

    You need some delay on the crap that flickers and drops down covering half my screen every time the cursor goes over it . It's bloody annoying and appears to be designed to bring on epilepsy. What was wrong with the old site? I hope you didn't spend any money on this.

  202. imanidiot Silver badge

    I don't like it

    It's bland, and uses only 1/3 of the available screen space and most of all it's just bland looking.

    The lack of clear separation between articles on the front page doesn't help either. The old site used the gray lines for that, which improved readability imho.

  203. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Aaaargh

    I didn't think it was too bad to start with - text seemed larger/wider spaced and some pics a little too large.

    Then I decided to turn Noscript off : fuck me that was awful! Way too much non-info and some of it moves as well.

    I had to wash my eyes out with bleach before I was able to come back after restoring Noscript.

    Please, please, please tone it down and consider that we don't necessarily respond well to the 'modern' styles. Unless, of course, this is all about satisfying the casual reader and not the commentards?

  204. MyNetHandle

    Can no longer right-click and open articles in a new tab - this means endless page-backs.

    Looks like you are now sponsored by Google and forced to use their new Material Design styles.

    There was nothing wrong with the original format. Ergo 'if it aint broke, don't fix it!'

  205. Caff

    new tab

    Right click open in new tab no longer works?

    1. MyNetHandle
      Facepalm

      Re: new tab

      Only in IE so far. Sadly locked down to internet non-explorer in the workplace :(

  206. Wam

    No, no

    Don't move my cheese.

  207. David M

    Horrible

    I agree with all of the negative comments here. In particular the new layout is very wasteful of screen space, and I really hate to pop-out (or whatever they're called) menus that keep appearing when I don't want them, and covering up what I'm trying to read.

    Suggestions:

    1. Go back to the old site for the time being.

    2. If you must do a redesign, make the focus on usability.

    3. Make a beta of the new site available so that your readers can comment _before_ going live.

    4. Your readers have huge cumulative experience in using and designing web-sites. Trust their opinions.

  208. ForthIsNotDead

    Utterly awful

    I don't even know where to begin. It looks dumbed down like the BBC news website, and absolutely devoid of any character whatsoever. I can't even right click a link to open it in a new tab FFS. It's like something out of the 90's.

    So el reg, it's been great, but I think it's time to move on.

  209. steamrunner

    In brief

    * I like the simplification and cleanliness. This is good. To borrow someone else's words: you have decluttered nicely.

    But...

    * Bigger-scrolly-modern is good... on a tablet. Not on a desktop (or laptop), which should be bigger-modern only. Not too scrolly, at least to get going. I have a 24" monitor and I'm having to scroll *immediately* to see pretty much any actual words/content. Not cool.

    * As for feeling the width: yes, I may sometimes run my browser in a 'half-width' window on one side of my screen, but usually I don't and thus end up having masses of blank white space at the sides and then — adding insult to injury — end up having to scroll to see anything, as noted above. This is a right pain. It's not hard to have responsive layouts for both 'wide' (desktop) and 'long' (tablet) devices.

    Grade: Great effort, but needs more consideration for users and in the details. Please improve!

    S.

  210. msknight

    In my very, extremely, honestly humble opinion...

    Too much white. You're not publishing on grade B, "scrape and slide," bog roll here ... get some colour in the sodding thing before I suffer a mental breakdown and start to believe that I'm living in the arctic or something!

    Also, I miss the five scrolling articles at the top. I mean ... now you've gone and made me have to press the refresh button! I mean ... I can feel the RSI claim coming on now... do you have the number for Apple's lawyer?

    But come on 'Eel Reg. This amount of white is bound to ca... ARGH! ... ARGH! .. Oh my GOD ... I'm SNOW BLIND!!!

  211. Britt
    FAIL

    Gah

    Me no likey.

    Moving my mouse from browser tabs inflicts upon me a horrendous barrage of pop up menus.

    You've reduced the site design to something lesser than the Facebook clickbait spam pages.

    I don't want to be mean to the guys who've "worked hard" on this design, but fire them, now.

  212. ian_m

    Its poo.

    Far far far far far far far, did I say far too much unoccupied white spice on screen for those of use viewing on decent sized wide screen monitors. Its like going back to using a 4:3 CRT TV...

  213. Mike Wilson

    Arrrghhhh... Drop down menus

    Stuff that drops down/pops up/whatever when the mouse passes over is ghastly, infuriating UI design. Whoever thought this was a good idea? The web is heavily polluted with this wretched nonsense. To make it even worse, the behaviour is different on different sites, so it never becomes intuitive.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Arrrghhhh... Drop down menus

      I don't use those category menu items anyway. I just like the news in one big steaming pile that I can sift through in a few seconds flat looking for pop-out words of interest. Like Boobs or The Doctor or BOFH.

  214. Larhten

    Ew...

    I hate it.

  215. AbelSoul
    Unhappy

    May seem a bit sheep-like

    ... but I have to concur with the comments I've read; this redesign has been a misguided, ill-judged and altogether bolloxeded up exercise in readership alienation.

  216. davemcwish

    -1 Version please

    Way too much whitespace at either side. Why ? Please don't telly me you'll be using that for ads that'll scroll. (Yes I know that you all need feeding but those type of ads are very annoying).

  217. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Flame

    Has anyone mentioned the exploding menu bar?

    Nah, I didn't think so; after all, it's such a subtle, gentle effect, hardly in your face at all.

    So probably no-one would complain if you JUST LOST THE BLOODY THING.

    NOW.

    Thank you.

    edit: p.s. what did you do to the link to the homepage at the *bottom* of every page? Bring it back, if you would be so kind.

  218. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Two questions:

    1. Didn't you already have a reasonable incremental update with the Channel Register's layout?

    2. Couldn't you have spent some of the redesign money on finally getting a frigging SSL certificate?

  219. GreggS

    My eyes hurt!

    Looks very PC Pro-ish now (and that's not necessarily a good thing). Also looks poor on a HD screen.

  220. Rob

    I see where you are going with this

    I appreciate what you are trying to achieve, the layout is fine but you probably could have soften the blow by not flipping to so much stark white, as this is part of a phased approach I would have maybe phased your colour change in as well.

    Look forward to what else you may do.

    Out of professional interest, any chance you could share things like wireframes etc to see your thinking behind the changes (understand if you can't due to commercial sensitivity).

  221. YetAnotherPasswordToRemeber

    I'm not sure if it's just because it's new, but I find the redesign hard to navigate and I'm not in favour of the change. There appears to be a main story and the the other top stories don't seem to have much prominence. It's also like a page full of text so the individual stories are harder to see in the wall of text that makes up the main site. Also what's with the fixed column width, I'm using a 1920 x 1200 monitor and the page seems to be squeezed into the middle of the page.

  222. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Urgh

    Just tried this out on a laptop with zoom at 100% for the first time (previously been viewing on a phone).

    It is comically bad. There is no need for them massive images and headlines at the top. In fact there is no need for headlines as it is always the same hackneyed BS every time

    "PEAK APPLE!!"

    "DEAD Steve JOBS bla bla bla SPEAKS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!!!!!11!!"

    "LANDFILL ANDROID"

    "Windows market share INCREASES. All HAIL our SUPREME LEADER Satya NADELLA"

  223. lorisarvendu

    If it ain't broke...

    Is it easier to navigate? Not for me. Do I personally like the look of it? No. I now don't know where I am.

    Was the old layout better? Well ok it was familiar, but yes it was better. It was simpler, with the newest items at the top and the oldest items working their way down the bottom to drop off onto the "older" pages. Nothing wrong with that.

    I particularly dislike the "Top Stories" column, since it is obviously a self-fulfilling prophecy. Readers will tend to click on those stories because they're prominent, not because they're important or relevant, ...which then keeps them in the Top Stories column.

    Ugly, Tabloidy, Just like every other web page-y. 3/10.

  224. ukgnome
    Mushroom

    I can't find the kill it with fire button.

  225. Hughb
    Stop

    Right! who's in charge?

    Whoever is responsible for this mess needs to own up, come on! Who did it?

    Messing with the reg like this feels like someone walked up to the cenotaph and painted it green.

    Bad form Vulture Central, go the the back of the class and re do the entire assignment.

  226. Bill Fresher

    Don't like

    And what's with the sidebar adverts that start on the right bar and carry across to the left bar (so left side of image is right bar, right side is left bar, with content inbetween) - what a mess.

  227. Lionel Baden

    Don mind th enw layout, but the popup on the main title is quite annoying.

    Thank you for asking us for feedback

  228. Hellcat

    On-hover doesn't translate to touch. That is all.

    Ok, just to be very clear. I can't touch and hover on the new navigation bar to then move to one of the sub-articles that appear. One of my most hated annoyances of using the tablet for any websites is having to switch to the trackpad because the desktop version has on-hover stuff.

  229. Adolph Clickbait

    I like it on the desktop at least

    Needs to be responsive though, huge amount of whitespace.

    Terrible on a mobile? Whats that you say ? Mobile websh1te, pah nice anecdote grandad but this is the 'teenies.

  230. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    FAIL

    Well there's your answer

    8 pages of overwhelmingly negative comments in less than 24 hours from people who mostly really know about this stuff.

    However, the question is "Will you listen?"... I'm not holding my breath.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well there's your answer

      Do they know their stuff, or are they just resistant to change?

  231. plrndl

    We read El Reg for the content, not the presentation. Don't let the marketing morons get anywhere near. PLEASE!

  232. Anonymous Custard
    Headmaster

    So now the big question

    Having panned Microsoft for not listening to their customers, will el Reg be any better?

    It looks to me like the general consensus of feedback on this new site design is that we all hate it. So will it stay anyway regardless of what we've all said, or could perhaps sense prevail and we go back to the old one? Or at least some sort of style option to switch or something to soften the impact.

    Must admit if this glaring white inflexible monstrosity does stay then I'm not sure that I will be...

  233. msknight

    Drop Down Delay

    Now that my eyes have somewhat adjusted to being snow-blind by the new page, can someone PLEASE put a response delay on the mouse over menu at the top ... or put it some place that doesn't sit between the page and the tools at the top of the bloody browser please?!

    This has now got to the stage where I'm actually having to divert the mouse to the side of the screen in order to navigate past the menu; otherwise the sodding menu pops-down directly over the links I want to click on, so I've got to move the mouse down, beyond the menu so that it pops back up again, and then I can move the mouse up to click on the link that was underneath it.

    Gah! ... Designer ... back ... out the ... shoot ... now! ... *rage*

  234. MrWibble

    The fecking pop up menu hover thing is really annoying when moving your mouse around the screen. Change it to show on click, please!

    Liberal use of adblock / gresemonkey has made things a bit better (Don't worry, I allow the ads, but use it to block the carousel, pictures, etc.)

  235. ChrisPW

    Wow. Thats .... bad.

    50% of my screen is still whitespace. Do you not have widescreen displays in your office??

    The header is not rendered in is native size and has become nastily aliased.

    25% of the content area is taken up pushing an old story (most of it an oversized image) that I read yesterday afternoon.

    Top Stories: - appears to be a worse replacement of the old carousel.

    Don't Miss: - I didn't, I read it yesterday, stop taking up space.

    Most Read: - why is this at the top? If everybody is reading them then chances are I already have.

    Why are there only about 4 colours? Much too much of a "wall of text".

    At least the new content is appearing in order, shame I can only see the newest 3 without scrolling due to that massively oversized (and still old) story at the top.

  236. gregthecanuck

    Abort, retry, fail?

    Using this on a 1920x1200 laptop...

    For goodness sakes! The first article starts 2/3 way down the screen. Did ANYONE test this site for regular HD screen size usage? Copious usage/waste of white space, etc...

    Thing is, this isn't a social media site. The same rules about large amounts of white space and "prettiness" don't apply here. We don't have users with grade 5 reading comprehension that need all the help they can get navigating the site.

    Who is your target audience? Why do they come to this site?

    It's great that the site layout is being tinkered with. Go for it. Maybe in future pilot as a beta site before giving us all heart attacks? ;-)

    Thanks for listening.

  237. Return To Sender
    Alien

    Consultant. Somebody mentioned a consultant?

    Why do I get the horrible feeling that Bong's behind this...?

  238. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    Yuck!

    1. Ugly

    2. Too narrow (I only have a 1280x1024 screen, and it doesn't use all of the width)

    3. Read links aren't clearly marked (go back to red instead of gray, and kill the change to red on hover)

    4. Too many big pictures on the front page.

    5. Looks way too much like TIFKAM

    6. Get RID of that god damned flashing menu bar!! It pisses me off to have the damned thing hovering over the text of the articles, and the flashing menu entries when the mouse crosses it are just too fucking much. Seriously. Nail the damned thing to the top of the page and FUCKING LEAVE IT THERE!

    You all seem to have made a list of all the things that should NOT be done on a web page, and then implemented all of them.

    Just to clarify: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ is NOT a how to for web design.

  239. jake Silver badge

    Dealing with rain here in Sonoma ...

    ... first look during a couple minutes of down-time?

    Fucking awful. That persistent navigation bar needs to go away, just for a start. (Yes, I know, I can nuke it, and will).

  240. Simon Biles
    Thumb Down

    Sorry, but no, just, no.

  241. Mr Hugh Bris

    Can't remember the last time I actually went to the Reg front page - I just pick articles out of the RSS feed that look interesting, read them, and then straight back to the feed. Having seen the new design, I'll continue to do just that. It is, as politely mentioned above, not so very good.

    Bit like the latest on-line Grauniad overhaul, really. Absolutely no attempt to think about readability. Pity.

  242. Valarian

    No

    Just ... no.

    The Reg has been a permanent fixture in my default tabset for YEARS. Why? Because once you train your advert-hider of choice to rip the junk off the sides, what's left is a concise list of titles and one-line leaders each of which links to a story, and highlights red once you've read it. They're in chronological order, so you know new stuff is at the top. They are dense, and take just a few seconds to scroll down, making it very easy to scan and select something of interest.

    As someone posted early on, when the page loaded this morning I thought the CSS was b0rked. Two instinctive 'F5's later, and it dawned on me that this was deliberate.

    I'll check back in a few days. If it still looks like it does today, I'll be looking elsewhere for my daily tech. news fix. Sorry, but the new layout is unfriendly, difficult to navigate, hard to read, and basically turns a routine 10-minute news catchup into a 30-minute UI fight. Sinofsky would be proud.

  243. Joseph Eoff

    Oh, by the way...

    Tell your web designers to be expecting a visit from the BOFH.

    When he shows up, they should avoid using the elevator...

    Hmmpf. No "elevator out of order" icon.

  244. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Aaargh, Fixed width text

    Kill it fire....

    Fixed width is the refuge of the unskilled.

    Some of us actually have multiple windows open and really hate been forced by ignorant, smug, web designers to use full screen.

  245. Ribblethrop

    I preferred being able to right-click a link, and open that link in another tab. This no longer works for me :sad:

    1. MrXavia

      Works for me still... but then again Might be browser dependant?

  246. Conrad Longmore

    Too much whitespace

    Things are all too far apart, there's too much whitespace.

    I think you had it right in 1998 - https://web.archive.org/web/19981206084318/http://www.theregister.co.uk/

  247. MrXavia

    MY EYES....

    Another site re-design that was not-needed by a site I visit daily....

    And this is painful on the eyes, too much white, does not fill my browser... Fixed width sites are a curse on the world wide web...... It does NOT resize to fit my browser window when I shrink it!!!

    No visual clues to the edge of the content or each article.., making it a big mess...

    And those menu drop down hover overs, oh how annoying those are...

    Revert please until you can fix the massive flaws

  248. Lee D Silver badge

    Sigh.

    Stop. Please.

    Take that money away from your web designers. Go back to the "old" way.

    Give the money to your server people instead.

    Have them buy an SSL certificate, and spend a day making the site IPv6-capable.

    You know, like a tech site.

  249. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks amazing

    At 67% zoom...

    1. Zog_but_not_the_first

      Re: Looks amazing

      Agree. Is there something wrong with the paragraph spacing?

  250. BoldMan

    If you are running Adblock plus (and if not WHY not?) just add this to the custom filters to eliminate the annoying nav bar

    theregister.co.uk###site_nav

    Sorry ElReg this redesign is a disaster. I'm sorry for the guys who worked on it for them to get so much negative feedback, but this is an awful design. You've completely lost the idea of who your audience is - this isn't a bunch of media-luvvie Twitterati who gush over "modern", this is a tech savvy, traditionalist audience who additionally KNOW HOW THIS SHIT WORKS and can see bad design when it slaps them in the face with soiled Y-fronts!!!

  251. Steven 2

    Following the crowd

    Rather than finding out how your readers use the site - you're forcing people into interacting in a completely different way, essentially re-learning how to use your site - and hoping they will rather than just leave.

    Wouldn't normally comment, but I'm hoping each voiced "no" vote will help kill it.

    What's wrong with small iterative changes that can be tested??? And are the 2015 lot bringing their own josticks and whalesong cd?

    Awful. Just awful.

  252. Grommet

    My list of news sites I visit on a daily basis is shrinking. I have lost 4 sites from my bookmarks in the last 6 months because they redesigned....

    Stop it with the tiled blocks.

    A straight forward list of articles top to bottom of page is what I want in date order. Check out what ArsTechnica did. They give the option to have this type of crappy layout or a more conventional top to bottom list by published time. Give us a choice on this please.

  253. MacGuru

    How to ruin everyones Friday...

    1st thought...MY EYES!!! Its like I'm stuck in some digital whiteout, with a sniff of the BBC ( which I could never understand / use )

    Thenextthingisthatallthetextseemstojustrunsintoeachotheranditmakesitshardtoreadmaybeitsjustme

    Please can we have the option of turning this off and going back to what was not broke and didn't need fixing..

    And next time.. please don't ask the PFY to come up with the Web 2.0 design..

  254. Mark 110

    Not an improvement

    Too much white space. Seems to make it harder to scan down for stories that interest me. Early days though.

    Top stories are harder to identify not easier.

    It still loads as a desktop site on my mobile. Why? Every other website knows I am using a mobile and presents me with a mobile version.

    I look forward to agency redesign :-)

  255. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    FAIL

    Those mouse-over pop-up menus are driving me nuts and the super-large photos are entirely pointless, add nothing to the stories. El Reg is unfortunately becoming just another dumbed-down user experience.

    I don't have any belief things will change so it's time to tweak my Greasemonkey scripts to shape things into how I want them.

  256. TallPaul
    Thumb Up

    You've got rid of that annoying scrolling "top five stories" widget at the top

    That alone gives the re-design an enormous thumbs up from me as it used to drive me mad. I hate pages which update in the corner of my eye.

  257. Sir Sham Cad

    Now I've seen the desktop site

    Feedback:

    Grey (mostly) axed from colour palette -

    Personally I like a cleaner website so I like it

    Top ad moved -

    This is an improvement

    Expanding section nav -

    This is OK but only because th eonly thing the expanding navigation covers is the way too large image for the top story on the homepage

    Fixed navbar -

    OK, not really noticed any difference to be honest

    Footer - more logical home for many links -

    Agreed. It's a bit apologetic as a footer, though, kind of blending into the site and thereby completely hiding the "Older Stories" link from the eye. An "El Reg Red" bar instead of the thin grey dividing line would help this, I think.

    Tidied up the right column - We think it is easier to navigate. -

    Yes but is it me or has it also got a lot bigger, more distracting?

    Pics at the top of nearly all stories - visual is good, right? -

    Yes but those pics are far, far too big. They do not have to take up the full width of the content area. Smaller, left adjusted would be just fine, thanks.

    Removed left column in the story page - declutter

    Yes, this is good, thanks. Definite improvement.

    Reduced number of “teaser” units at bottom of story page - declutter

    Again, this is an improvement. less is more.

    Social media buttons and tags moved - more logical places on the page

    Never really used them but I do notice them more now so I'd say that's worked.

    Front page headline carousel - rotating teasers, are they effective? Let's A/B test.

    This is my biggest gripe. I used this all the bloody time. Go to El Reg, first thing I see is the rotating story carousel at the top, something catches my eye and I click. I also used it to navigate so I didn't have to hunt down the page for the story. The ginormous top story picture is a piss poor substitute.

    Removed tabs and content buttons - tried to make content accessible.-

    No comment to make as I've never used them but accessible is good I suppose.

    Feature removed - most commented - will be unpopular with some - but ignored / unused by vast majority. We aim to rethink this feature - but at a later date.

    I'm one of the vast majority (yay individualism!) so don't care.

    Feature removed print article - not used - This is not cming back

    No loss from my perspective.

  258. Nya

    Why change RegRed?

    I knew the logo didn't look right and that red was burning my retinas. Someone changed RegRed from #fd0000 to bloody awful #ff0000 !!!! Bring back RegRed (and the entire old site frankly!).

  259. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Timestamps

    I can take the changes, will certainly take some getting used to, but one aspect which I really would *love* to see reverted is Article timestamps, as opposed to '19mins ago, 12 hours ago' etc....

    Am I the only one? You could display in the browser TZ as opposed to just BST unless you are already doing that...

  260. Al fazed
    FAIL

    FUCKING GOD SAVE US !

    Aaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhhh !!!!!

    Look.

    What is the fucking point in doing a redesign ?

    Are you trying to keep staff that should have been shed in the last round of cost cutting ?

    Oh no, I see now. You have to source and prepare less images before publishing a story ?

    But really !!

    You gleen more adverttising revenue from the twats with the massive banner images that cripple my dialupband connection here in dismal Dorset.

    Well my fucking day's just got a whole lot shitter since your fucking annoying mini adverts keep poppong up to block my view of what I was reading.

    I really have lost the plot with your devs.

    Who designed this really annoying User Interfarce, Microsoft certifiable engineers ?

    Stuff you fucking advertising in the shit house please and give me something I can read without blowing a sodding fuse everytime some innane seister muppet tries to flog me something I have no sodding use for and probably never will have.

    No brownie points for you today.

    Naughtie Register !

    Pretty please !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  261. Peter Martin

    Urrgh

    Despite what the 'experts' say surely a screen is for showing content, not white space? If I wanted white space I'd pick up a sheet of A4 printer paper.

  262. TheresaJayne

    Bring back the old layout, even as an option

    I read articles and keep going till the page is marked as read, now its a jumble with popouts and annoying adverts everywhere

    BRING BACK THE OLD LAYOUT!!!!

  263. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seriously?

    What happened to the dev site where you could have taken feedback before this was rolled out? I won't delete my bookmark just yet, I'll come back next week and see if you've bowed to public opinion and reverted to the old (preferred) layout.

  264. Mark Allen

    Flashy Menu

    Glad to see the pop-down menu has calmed down today. It is currently running at a much better reaction speed as now I can move my mouse over it without the manic strobes of yesterday.

    IMHO I still think the images at the top of the pages are too big. We don't all have 4K monitors yet as I am still on a lowly 1920x1200. I assume the page designed had a big whizzy monitor and doesn't realise how much extra scrolling he now has us all doing.

    Re: the all white glare. Any chance of having off white \ cream edges a bit like you see over on the BBC Sport pages? I end up having to zoom in to the El'Reg pages to try and get rid of the empty glaring border.

    This one is only me... I realise this... but I often look at the site through an old Opera web browser and you seem to have killed the ZOOM option on the page. + on the keypad or the zoom option on my Logitech mouse is borked on this site now. (Yeah yeah, I know, stop using out of date Browsers...)

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Flashy Menu

      "Glad to see the pop-down menu has calmed down today."

      +1, a great improvement. Shame the pictures are still so big though ;-(

      I wonder if they will use the Govt. mis-direction plan? You know, the one where a "leaked" report details massively unpopular "policies" which are immediately denied then they release the "proper" Bill which is is seriousldy bad and flawed but not as bad as the "leak" so the majority breath a sigh of relief and accept the "new" one :-(

  265. MJI Silver badge

    Very annoying

    Your mouse moves then something covers up what you are reading.

    Pretty frustrating.

    Lots of meaningless little pictures, why do we need them?

  266. Efros

    Visited links need to be red (or some other contrasty colour) rather than grey. Not keen on the layout, I really don't like that drop down menu at the top and I wish it would disappear when I scroll down the page. The fixed width thing is fine on my main desktop but acres of wasted space on my WS laptop.

    1. Jim 59

      Agree, visited links need to be more contrasty

      as above.

  267. Tom Chiverton 1

    Giant NSFW side boob not cool.

  268. Paul Smith

    I Really like it!

    Nah, just kidding

  269. Disko
    Mushroom

    The good, the bad and the ugly...

    The good - the site still looks relatively straightforward. I don't necessarily visit the Reg to see colours.

    The bad - CAPS M&#$@!#%$@NG LOCK also these menus are locked and that is just wrong.

    The ugly - Vultures are ugly. So is most tech I have no problem with that.

    Verdict: lose the fresh modern stuff, keep it as simple as humanly possible. And for the love of Clippy don't change the basic structure, logic or layout. Having to scavenge around on a website to find familiar sections is enraging at best.

  270. vmistery

    Did someone look at the design of the theinquirer.net and go "We can go one better than that!" because that is how it feels - all red and white and too much spaaaaaaaaace I could fall in it. I could at the very least do with the white being a bit less white as I can feel the retina in my eyes slowly burning away. As for getting a design helper in? Good luck. Go back to the old reg look, possibly tart up the edges and go home happy.

  271. DwarfPants

    Not as bad as wired.co.uk

    Its not as bad as Wired.co.uk where I feel the need to leave I hate it feedback every time I visit.

    Still not a fan

  272. The Other Steve
    Mushroom

    Too much pixels!

    Pro Tip for commentards : Butthurt because it it doesn't fill your 4K monitor ? Either narrow your browser window or use this new thing we've had since 90s called 'zoom in'.

    If you buy a proper computer, you'll find you can even do this using only two fingers on your trackpad.

    Fuckwits.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Too much pixels!

      Q: And just why in the fuck should I have to jack around with zoom on every page on the internet? A: Because web designers have no fucking clue.

      Why did you call yourself a name in plural form?

  273. Richy Freeway

    That fixed menu at the top is already starting to get on my nerves, definitely lose that.

    Moving my mouse vertically should not automatically pop anything up, if I want a menu, I'll click my left mouse button thanks.

  274. Tom 7

    Further proof that those that choose to go into design

    should be shot.

    It makes my eyes ache!

  275. Disko

    Yeah, if you could not have everything pop up whenever I'm trying to navigate to the menus

    That would be great.

    After browsing the site even for a little bit, the menu popups really get massively annoying.

    Also, this menu bar moving around, and sticking to the top of the screen business is a nuisance.

    Maybe it is better to limit the redesign to the things like social media buttons and ad placement

    Thanks for asking our opinion thuogh, even though we would have given that anyway, it's nice to see some acknowledgement of the fact that people who use your site don't necessarily subscribe to your (designer's) views on user experience.

  276. detritus

    Hi Reg - sorry, I'm sure someone's put a lot of effort into this, but it's a distinct step backwards for me.

    The site is now a generic and indistinct wall of words and even on desktop here, the new top layout feels like it's pushing content way below the visual fold. It feels visually like the top third of my browser space is being wasted.

    I get the logic underpinning the decision to put the primary banner before the masthead, but it draws away from your 'tabloid newspaper' riffing, leaves redundant space on either side, and totally borks the flow for me. Above all else, this change is the most visually-unsettling for me.

    I do like your new dropdowns, and the polished flat graphics are neater and a bit more pro - but readability-wise, I feel this is a retrograde step.

    Sorry!

    Signed,

    detritus, a pompous ex-graphic designer type :)

    xx

  277. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    One more thing

    Lose the damned ridiculous "social media" buttons. Who in the fuck uses them? No one with a lick of sense, that's who.

  278. ScrollDown

    I don't care .. I like it

    Fresh and up-to-date looking .. less like a nineties bulletin board. Good work, Kevin, Fenke, Murray and Marco. Thanks.

    The Reg is still hard to scan quickly because of the rather silly and vaguely-comical-but-mainly-just-obscure-headings competition between your writers. However, it's worth the effort to basically ignore the headings for the gold within. So anyway, no worries, and thanks again Registers

    1. Vic

      Re: I don't care .. I like it

      There seem to be a number of individuals who have registered simply to post on behalf of all of us...

      Vic.

  279. bazza101

    Goodbye

    As per title

  280. ThePascalLine

    Why did you feel the need to do that? Who told you the old design was no good? Who told you the new design looked OK? Why did you believe them?

  281. Toromoloscu
    Thumb Down

    Fucking Shite

    This looks fucking shite. Old site please. That is all.

  282. Małopolska

    For me the site still has a couple of shortcomings:

    1. It doesn't detect your browser type and use a mobile stylesheet when appropriate.

    2. Upvoting/downvoting comments should be implemented in AJAX so that you don't get a new page every time.

  283. TeamEvil

    Oh. Not nice El Reg, not nice at all.

  284. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ANyone else noticed...

    ...that as the complaints have increased we've stopped getting responses from Drew and co at El Reg.

    It's that kind of blinkered "We'll ask for your opinion and then ignore it and go ahead with what we want to do regardless" attitude that I expect from the likes of Facebook and Google - not from an IT rag.

    I think I'll read it solely through an RSS reader from now on.

    1. JudeKay (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: ANyone else noticed...

      Rest assured, we are reading through all of the comments

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ANyone else noticed...

        I'd have thought you'd read enough by now.

        Try flicking the switch to roll back the design instead of making us all make more comments.

      2. Jim 59

        Re: ANyone else noticed...

        LOL. Pity the poor wretches who have to sift this noisome pile of overreaction. Some 'Tards are almost phoning the police because the provider of a free service is trying to improve the free service for FREE. Actual LOL.

        But yeah that mouseover keeps covering up my comment edit window.

  285. StuartF

    Sucks Christmas Donkey Balls

    Wez hads a grate christmas paarrty and came up with this new duzign which woz inspirited by a pool of sick.

    Whattdaya fink peoples!

    Weez luvs it....

    Hic

    Merry Christmas

  286. Dwarf
    FAIL

    A really bad dream, exept it wasn't

    Yesterday, I had a really bad dream that someone who doesn't understand the user base of the web site did something stupid to the web site.

    Then I woke up this morning and took a look and realised it wasn't a dream.

    Roll back ... to previous template please.

    You risk loosing someone who's been coming to this watering hole for about a decade !

    Lots of meaningless pictures and pop-up menus. Less of the information we come here to see.

    AND IT SHOUTS WITH BIG FONTS, but hides the things you want - like previously visited pages in slightly off-grey from the grey text.

    If you are going to change, then at least do it properly.

  287. Gordo Rex

    Right Click

    This has probably been covered...I didn't bother to read all of nasty comments (almost all of which I agree with). In the past, I would scan the headlines, right-clicking the interesting ones to open in a new tab and then working my way through the tabs.

    Apparently, "newer, fresher, modern...." does not include this "older, staler, archaic, yet USEFUL" way of doing things.

    Interestingly, about two weeks ago I began thinking of all the sites that I had abandoned in the past 20 years following a "newer, fresher, more content" redesign. I got up to 30, although I know I missed a few.

  288. Richard Taylor 2

    Sorry lads and ladettes - superficially nice but not a good read or way to read. To much flash (obi not Adobe) leas to a reduction in functionality. NIce try though. I see the Grauniad is making the same mistakes - actually rather more.

  289. kmac499

    Payment by results

    Next time you commission a makeover, make the payment subject to the level of approval by the user base. I reckon the consultants owe you a small fortune.

    It's Horrible; low density, big text looks like it's designed for primary school kids.

    It also looks like it's come from an early version of the Jony Ives design playbook, and we all know how much Reg Readers love that...

    1. Alfred 2

      It's

      crap.

  290. G R Goslin
    Thumb Down

    Thumbs Down

    No, I didn't like it. When it first came up, I thought my screen settings had gone haywire. Try as I might, I couldn't get it to look nice. And still can't No, no, no, no, Vulture If you MUST change things, make them better, not worse. Now where have I said that before?

  291. myhandler

    You need to get an experienced traditional newspaper typographer involved. Someone who understands vertical rules.

    Front page is hideous, yet strikingly characterless.

    Body pages - meh - don't make the mostly pointless feature pic so damn big.

    Um, site is not even responsive?

  292. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    Even worse

    Just checked the site in IE8 instead of firefox.

    1. Kill the flashing and blinking in the "Cash and Carrion" advertisement.

    2. The banner ad above the Register header is just retarded.

    3. You must be getting really well paid by EMC - I count three ads for them on the front page.

    4. The "Older Stories" link looks so small and lost down there at the bottom of the page. It looks almost ashamed of itself down there.

  293. jaycee331

    Change for changes sake

    That's all.

  294. Chillijohn

    Currently broken

    I used to skim the front page for interesting stories then right-click on any I found and open them in separate tabs to read at my leisure. I'm unlikely to go back to the main page more than twice so if you get funding from how many people see the adverts you'll be getting far less page views from me.

    ...and that's if I do keep coming back.

    Also from a visual accessibility point of view, block capitals are harder to read (as I've already seen pointed out) because you can't see the shape of letters and a lot of people find too much white glaring (which is why some smartphone platforms let you invert the colour scheme).

  295. strawman

    I can probably get used to it

    The big picture on the front page, the pictures in the drop down menu, and the eye hurting black on white bold headlines on the stories are pretty annoying though.

    The rest of it looks pretty much change for the sake of change.

  296. Benjol

    Confession: I haven't read through all of the comments...

    I realise there's an element of "Who moved my cheese?!" in the reactions here, so I'm trying to be balanced, objective, and constructive.

    I can live with most of the changes, but on the home page:

    - I would like my red 'visited' colour back

    - I liked the 'hot topics' carousel - though not necessarily the animation - rather more than the single big image now present

    - I 'need' horizontal lines between the articles, they just feel too 'floaty' and destabilising

    - I don't really like auto-popout-on-rollover, but it should be way slower to react

    - On the article pages, the header image is WAY too big. If you really want to stick an image in there, leave it on the left in that big empty white column

  297. Jeff Deacon

    Change for the sake of change

    Of course if we are happy with the way things were, then there would be no campaign to keep them that way unless people do idiot things in the name of (faux) progress.

    Is this a news site? Or a showcase for a graphic arts developer?

    Let's just stick to the news. Let's just have reliable, factual, current information. Let's leave the artistic fads to others.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  298. Jim 59

    LOGOWATCH

    Lester Haines will be along in a minute to provide the josticks-and-whalesong hatchet job.

  299. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    Still works on w3m, so far so good

    Nothing different that I noticed when using w3m; good.

    I also tried on a graphical browser, and it looks a bit like a website designed for cell phones: the mousover images and the "featured" images are humongous, as is the text, resulting in only a tiny part of the page height being displayed at once. "zooming out" kinda fixes that but then the fixed width feels a bit awkward.

    And I like grey, very stylish. Good thing it's not entirely gone.

    Overall it's not too bad, if you really had to. We'll get used to it. Or we'll use text-mode browsers.

  300. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    I fear I'm only repeating what others have said...

    ...but it's a right sodding FUBAR.

    There's a lovely old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

  301. Swarthy

    The really large images are not beneficial.

    the ginormo-pics at the top of each article add nothing to the content, necessitate scrolling, and are a bit ugly. I would like to see them go.

    As for the lay out, would it be possible to to down the white? I can accept the throwing out of 2/3rds of the useful screen space, but must it be glaring white? Maybe try something along the lines of #FEF1F0 (fum)?

    I feel I should also chime in on the visited links coloration.. the grey is not quite enough of a change to figure out where I left off easily, especially with the "more piccies" policy. I did like the red visited links.

  302. Zem
    FAIL

    Changes

    I like the cleaner look, but the topics automatically dropping as the cursor passes over IS VERY ANNOYING! I also miss the easy to locate print button that was found in the leftmost frame.

  303. Leesantiques

    Not everyone hates a web design change on just first or even second sight. Sometimes the hate lives on for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. on to infinity sight.......

    I have a dream that one day a web sight will be redesigned - with the redesign being a true improvement. I'm still waiting....... :-(

    Here's a suggestion - please return the site to the old look and feel, and then put the nice web developers on vacation for a loooooooonnnnnnggggg time!!

    One good thing - the redesign wasn't as bad as some I've seen. NBC News and the U.S. Post Office both managed to make their sites unusable (although at least the Post Office has improved from that debacle....)

  304. Enki

    Hover

    The popup mouse hover has too short of a delay before the popup. I get lots of distracting popups when I am scrolling using my touchpad. If you add a couple seconds, you will retain the effect while allowing for easier reading and scrolling.

  305. chivo243 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    On closer observation

    this looks like some dodgy content management package.... I! Think! Yahoo! Uses! The! Same! Pacakage!

  306. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Next time, look up the term responsive web design.

  307. Anomalous Cowturd
    FAIL

    It's shite Roy.

    Just put it back how it was on Wednesday.

    Thanks.

  308. romanempire

    Shit

    Too much white space doing nothing. Too spread out.

    Too much work to see at which stories might be worth reading.

    P.

  309. TheWeddingPhotographer

    like it

    I like it. Really needs to be responsive, and loose the advert above the red header

  310. MJI Silver badge

    Pictures too big

    Thought it was a new article but was an older one

    Just had a huge picture of Turdoch.

    NOT VERY PLEASANT!

  311. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm late to the party. Or gang bang, looks like. I'm old, and therefore required to hate any change, and I do. Also get off my bastard lawn. I don't hate it as much as some previous posters seem to; partly because I do design work myself and may have been drinking the cool aid too long; and also because the way I use the Reg and possession of a mouse with a scroller wheel means that I'm not too stressed by scrolling...I can see that those who have to swipe their way around would be annoyed. Some comments then:

    ● Holy shit that is white. El Reg is normally the first site I visit while I get outside of a coffee and wait for some neurons to warm up. The overall impression on the retinas could be fairly described as 'violent', I feel. Could do with some colour or something to take the edge off. Or El Reg could issue everyone with tanning goggles.

    ● Harder to read. Probably as a result of everything being adrift in a snowscape; but maybe also partly that I'm not used to it yet.

    ● Big picture at the top is a pointless waste of space - I preferred the old, 5-story bit. It looked better; packed more info in, and didn't make me feel like I'm looking at a children's book.

    ● Grey vlink. That'll have to go...you actually have to concentrate and pay attention to see what's been read. The old red or maybe a darker red if you feel like being a bit more subtle (#730000 is a darker shade of the banner colour; with the added bonus that you could claim it was Marsala (Pantone's new colour of the year) and you'd get a whole year of free hipster-trolling thrown in).

    ● Most commented - I used that, periodically, as a way of finding stories that I wouldn't otherwise have bothered with going by the title alone.

    ● Huge picture at the top of stories - pointless and I wouldn't have thought it would endear you to people with data limits.

    ● People need to be able to open stories in a new tab. The issue isn't affecting me, but you need to fix it for people who it is. That would be a deal-breaker for me.

    S'pect I'll get used to it; but overall it's a step in the wrong direction IMO.

  312. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    I think it is time to give up

    The "visited link" coloring doesn't seem to work right.

    When the link is given in two places on the page, and I click on one of them, then usually both change to the "visited link" color.

    That doesn't work here now.

    Example:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/12/tor_takes_off_the_gloves_after_sustained_harassment_of_staffer/

    Has a normal story link, and also a "Don't Miss" link. Both point to the same address, so both should show as visited. Only the normal story link shows the "visited link" color, though.

    It seems the href for "Don't Miss" contains some kind of half assed relative link (/2014/12/12/tor_takes_off_the_gloves_after_sustained_harassment_of_staffer/) whereas the regular story link has the full address (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/12/tor_takes_off_the_gloves_after_sustained_harassment_of_staffer/)

    Odd that the Firefox "show source" didn't work. I had to take Firebug after the damned thing to see what was going on.

    I think we need a "more FAIL" icon.

  313. 8Ace

    Not great guys

    I mean who though that sticking a ginormous image at the top of each story, leaving a couple of paragraphs of text visible was a good idea?

    What's with all the empty space?

    What's with the grey "visited" links. OK it's different but other than that what's the point, it makes it harder to see where I've been.

    The category heading above each story on the front page... what's that , some sort of eye test? A bit bigger please.

    Overall I'd have to rate the changes as pretty poor.

  314. David Pollard

    Adblock Plus seems to do the trick

    Although there may be a few articles which aren't so good without the pictures, in general the site seems much improved when they are blocked. Thanks to ABP it's possible to read the home page without too much effort. I'd imagine most people visit the Reg to read and hopefully learn something useful rather than to gawp.

    1. Swarthy
      Stop

      Re: Adblock Plus seems to do the trick

      I actually turned on my ad blocker, just to nix the BuzzFeed-esq pictures it does tremendously improve readability, although I still have a large 'broken image' box where the illustration was designed to be. I would rather have that "feature" removed, and then I could disable my ad blocker for El Reg again.

  315. Terrence Bayrock
    Thumb Down

    My eyeballs still hurt...Where's my sunglasses

    Get RID OF IT!

    If you are not paying any attention to your reader's views as so eloquently stated herein, then your adverts will find empty eyesockets and will go away to find a new home. I don't mind a reasonable set of adverts as I understand the economics of some of these websites. Pissing off your reader base accomplishes the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you want to achieve (at least, what I assume you want to achieve). Maybe Dr Evil is messing around with your UA developers.........

    The better is the enemy of the good !

    Take whichever style artist put the scheme together , tie him(or her or them) down to a seat in front of a monitor and staple their eyes open looking into the monitor tuned to the home page. Then 2 minutes later call the local insane asylum and register those artists as new occupants. Or is that cruel and inhuman punishment?

    In a word AAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    Please please PLEASE , change it back.

  316. Jimbo in Thailand

    Compared to the previous layout it sucks...

    Your previous layout was easy on the eyes, very efficiently organized so a pleasure to peruse. This new sophomoric layout is TOO WHITE and hurts my eyes. The new layout is also extremely inefficient and appears disorganized. Did I mention it's really inefficient? Then there are the incredibly annoying mouseover popup images on the top nav bar. It would help if you would add a mouseover event delay so we can actually choose to see what images you have for us, or not. Finally, bring back the top 5 headline news, etc. carousel, but this time make it larger hence easier to navigate... and make it work for Android devices as it never worked on my SG Note 2.

    Based on all these negative comments I've just read you've got some fast fixin' to do... and pronto!

    Good luck!

  317. KroSha

    1) Please fix the Nav bar to the Reg banner, not the top of the screen. It's feckin' annoying. If I want it, I know where it is and one keypress takes me back there.

    2) Carousel please!

  318. Terrence Bayrock
    Devil

    Last Comment for now

    My

    eyeballs . . . . . have . . . . . settled . . . . . Down a bit.

    - - - -

    .

    Maybe . . . . . they . . . . . thought . . . . they . . . . have . . . . a . . . . good . . . . .design?

    .

    .

    Maybe . . . . . it . . . . . .is . . . . . .a . . . . . .caffeine . . . . . .substitute?

    .

    .

    Maybe . . . . .they . . . . .can't . . . . .trust . . . . .their . . . . .readership . . . . .to . . . . .tell . . . . .a . . . . .good . . . . .design . . . . .from . . . . .a . . . . .bad . . . . .one.

    .

    .

    maybe . . . . . the . . . . .editors . . . . . / . . . . .publishers . . . . .will . . . . .come . . . . .to . . . . .their . . . . .senses . . . . .

    .

    .

    .

    There's my morning vent/rant/thoughtful comments

    (Note; I had to use periods as spaces since the editor did the {sensible} thing and got rid of my previous attempt to sue extra spaces.

  319. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Crap.

  320. gloucester
    Unhappy

    Better without Javascript, but still worse than before

    Well I've moved the main site from allowed to forbidden in NoScript and that helps (no stupid menu pop-ups in articles, and actual article post times on the front page rather than '1 day ago'), but still way way too much white everywhere, plus the massive pic at the top of every article.

    Tried AdBlocking the social crap buttons to prevent accidental clickage, which removed the twit, FB and G+ icons but left the coloured circles they sit upon; the ex-twit and ex-G+ circles still seem to be active links unfortunately, though not the FB one.

    Please roll this back.

  321. Joseph Eoff
    Meh

    Better

    Noscript and ABE fix the worst of the irritating problems, leaving just the ugly.

    Sad when you have to strip all of the advanced features out of a site to make it usable.

    PS:

    Even the comment editor is better without js.

  322. Only me!
    Unhappy

    Why, why

    It was not perfect before, but just required tweaks to fix things.

    As the hoards before me have said......Pics too large, text to errr...wrong somehow, headline stories, large areas of purest white m'lord.

    I have bee back a few times now and each time I immediately find myself zooming in and out, which just feels like I have stumbled across a stupid childish game of spot the story! Opps I read that one already, but forgot minus 10 points!

    It's ok the mobile app will save the day.....of wait a sec..................

  323. mrmond
    WTF?

    It's not a practical joke?

    At first I thought my browser was broken.

    Or that you'd been hacked.

    Then I realised this is for real.

    Oh dear.

  324. Little Mouse
    Unhappy

    Shark Sandwich?

    Shit Sandwich.

  325. TRT Silver badge

    Well actually...

    I rather like it. Some of the metaphysical imagery is particularly effective. And there are interesting rhythmic devices which seem to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the humanity or vogonity of the editor's compassionate soul which strives through the medium of the page structure to sublimate this, transcend that and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other. And one is left with a profound and vivid insight into... into.. whatever it is the website is about!

    No, I'm only fooling. It's shit. Take it down to number 2 airlock and throw it out. Shoot it first if you want.

  326. BoldMan

    Adblock filters to make the site work better

    Try adding these filters to your Adblock - gets rid of the floating nav bar, the "Don't miss" block and the idiotically large top image on the front page

    theregister.co.uk###site_nav

    www.theregister.co.uk##.dont_miss.dcl

    www.theregister.co.uk###top_tease

    1. MrWibble

      Re: Adblock filters to make the site work better

      Add in

      theregister.co.uk##.article_img

      to get rid of the stupidly big image at the top of each article.

  327. rcorrect

    I don't like the centered logo at the top and that huge preview is a waste of space

  328. bill 36

    I've tried all day to like this

    Really i have.....

    On the Sammy S5 it looks much better but.....

    In the (Chromium) browser on the desktop, awful.

    Everything about it just looks wrong, from font size to style. I actually find it difficult to read.

    If improving the mobile experience was the goal, then you achieved it but ..........

    Hope that helps

  329. TonyBanjo
    FAIL

    Oh Dear©

    I hope you didn't pay for this fail.

  330. Nameless Dread
    Stop

    El Reg re-HASH

    Minus(s)es -

    Lead image - TOO BIG! - waste of space / bandwidth - shrink it, please

    Text size - TOO BIG! - waste of screen area - re-do as it was, please

    Drop-down menus near top - annoying - kill them, please

    Loss of half-dozen recent stories + images near top - bring back, please

    Neutrals -

    Grey text for links used recently - fine

    Wish list -

    Author by-line - always good to locate O'ski ;-| (He wasn't guilty of the latest layout, I hope ?)

    Plus(s)es -

    Social media buttons and tags moved - Hallelujah!

    ... er ...

  331. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You should make it look a bit more like iOS.

    That'd be sweet.

  332. hairydog

    This is truly horrible. It was a nice, neat concise layout. Now it's like a playschool chart.Massive fail. How about reverting to the old design?

  333. Morrie Wyatt
    Thumb Down

    I'll admit to wondering

    Where in hell the PFY has got to with that roll of carpet and bag of quicklime?

  334. Valeyard

    640*480 resolution

    looks fine on my windows 95 640*480 PC

    I don't know what everyone's moaning about

    Also i LOVE font size 70 anyway

  335. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    About the only thing left out ..

    .. is the <blink> tag :).

    I'm going to use this for a bit - from experience I know that first impressions may be deceptive, other than when they involve Microsoft products. So far, I prefer the previous format other than that I can read this site without any need for reading glasses. Which means an annoying lot of scrolling..

  336. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    100%

    Everything you changed you got 100% wrong.

    At least Adblock reduces the pain.

  337. RG10122

    WTF Indeed. This redesign, is not an improvement.

    A very poor and annoying redesign. I tend to agree with most of the people here.

    That said, I have no faith that the site team will do the right thing, and revert back to the old site. They're probably hiding their heads in SHAME.. and hoping the noise will quieten down.

    I've published a style on userstyles.org. If you're using the 'stylish' plugin on firefox this can fix what I think are the worst offenders in the new layout.

    http://is.gd/9lKj8E

    XW

  338. Tomosaurus
    FAIL

    You got this so wrong

    I am a long time Reg lurker. I have never commented once in the three years I've been religiously visiting your site. I've gone out of my way to sign up so that I can let you know that your new design is fucking goddamn awful.

    I hate it with the force of a thousand suns and I can't begin to describe how hard it is for my eyes to jump to content I want. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Please restore the old design and fire whoever designed this abomination. Fail.

  339. skizzerz

    All-caps are a bane to all existence

    I do not understand the fixation on making navigation headers all-caps. It's been recommended time and again that making things in all-caps decreases usability due to removing shape cues from the words (since each letter is now the same size) -- there is a decent writeup on this on UX Movement[1]. While other studies show that this is simply due to practice/learned behavior[2], it still results in increased time spent reading and comprehending the title bar to determine areas of possible interest.

    Also, I'm not sure if you're being cute and changing the bar text based on IP geolocation, but the title reads "DATA CENTER" for me (I'm in the US). Since I'm visiting a co.uk site, I'd rather see the British spelling of "Data Centre" in the navigation bar.

    As for positives, I do like the reduced clutter, and article images when done right can help provide a glimpse at what the article is covering as well as setting the overall tone of how the text is read. Giving an option for logged-in users to disable it may be for the best, however, as by looking at the comment thread not everyone feels that way. I have no opinion on the visited link color; I'm rather young so I find the grey just as easy to pick out as the former red (whereas the grey actually de-emphasizes the article whereas the red makes it stand out more, I'm guessing this was the basis of the change).

    [1] http://uxmovement.com/content/all-caps-hard-for-users-to-read/

    [2] http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/wordrecognition.aspx - This article cites papers by three authors Woodward, Smith, and Fisher. I was able to find the Smith and Fisher papers freely available online via a quick search as well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All-caps are a bane to all existence

      I have forwarded your comment to our chief sub-editor.

  340. FraserGJ

    The changes aren't too bad - I've seen worse.

    All I'll say:

    1) Far too much white - hurts my eyes when viewing for long periods

    2) Bars of solid white down the side also too big - I assume they are going to be filled with full height, multi-colour flash advertising in due course though (please don't)

    3) Picture at the top of the article is too big - the one in the "UK flights CRIPPLED" article is 429px high and I can only see 2 lines of the actual article (3 once notice about cookies is closed)

    4) Why is the section the article is in shown in big letters on the top of the right hand bar. Couldn't you make the image smaller and put it there instead. The section isn't needed as it's highlighted on top bar instead

    5) Related topics should be at bottom of article really as you'll be looking for related topics AFTER you've finished reading the article

    6) The search box isn't very big, you could swap entire nav bar for search bar and include other options for searching too

    7) The images in the nav bar hover are too big too - couldn't you put the text alongside smaller version of each image? I know you could probably only fit 3 articles in but you could have 2 rows and fit 6 articles in the same space!

    8) I know The Reg gets money from advertising but the advert at the top of each page is taller than the red header bar on each page. Surely it should be the other way around?

    I'm sure I'll spot other stuff and post about that when I can

    1. albaleo

      "Far too much white - hurts my eyes when viewing for long periods"

      This, this, this!

      I can't make comments about other changes as I'm blinded to them.

  341. TheDillinquent

    Its all gone a bit Steve ¡Bong!

    Hasn't it.

  342. drsolly

    Designered

    You got a graphics designer in, didn't you. You've been designered, I can tell. By someone who thinks that all computers are exactly the same as his, with the same screen pixel counts, by someone who doesn't care whether an already-read article looks almost the same as one they haven't read, and who is so sure of their skills, that they didn't suggest allowing "Register-classic" as an alternative.

    The only cure for being designered, is to fire the designer.

  343. Spirited Sam

    Again?

    Geez, just getting used to the old site design after six years and you go and change it again. I'm outa here and...omg, LASER CANNON WARSHIP !!! Uh, never mind, see ya later, good job, whatever.

  344. Wild Bill

    Seriously...

    ...everyone needs to calm down. You sound like petulant children. The site redesign is fine. A bit bland maybe, but I suspect that is actually an attempt by El Reg to placate it's stick in the mud audience. I found it a bit of a shock this morning when I first looked at it. This afternoon I'm finding I've adjusted a little to it. Next week I suspect that I, and most other users, will have forgotten what the old site looked like and will wonder what all the fuss was about. Like every website redesign ever.

    One thing I miss - the most commented articles block. I do hope that comes back.

    Word.

  345. Rusty 1
    Unhappy

    Egyptian Hieroglyphic tablets

    They got it right.

    Nice high density content.

    No nasty white borders.

    No dynamic mouse-over events (they probably had too many cats to know about mice)

    3-5 millennia later we, sorry, you, are behaving like potential members of the B Ark.

    Why? Just why?

  346. mustbme

    Acid

    I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks.

  347. attackcat

    New design, annoyingly "WEEKEND EDITION" appears to the left on top of the text of each article. Safari on a macbook pro retina, latest versions, java etc disabled.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Possible bug? Can't replicate immediately

      We'll have a look on Monday but in the meantime, if you can spare the time, please send us screenshot to webmaster@theregister.co.uk

  348. Naughtyhorse

    Recent changes....

    Site design... whatever

    Changing LP's mind on global warming???

    OUTSTANDING JOB.

    (lets see if this post sneaks past the 'mustn't take the piss out of the painful awakening to reality of our glorious leader' filter)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Recent changes....

      No need to sneak anything past me, Naughtyhorse.

  349. Mike VandeVelde
    Meh

    NEEDS MOAR WHITE

    what about just making the no man's land left & right a pale pale grey? make my screen a little bit less of a search light? give me a little bit less of a tan whilst reading?

    the image at the top of each article could be presented at about 20% of its current size. one of those rare situations where css actually considered the use case during design of the specifications, something float was actually designed for instead of all the contortions is actually used for in practice, i think the coder will probably jump at the chance. let there be some text down the side of it, let some of the article show below it.

    im not too bent out of shape about it over all. the content is still there and its really not much if any more difficult to get to.

  350. This post has been deleted by its author

  351. Lee D Silver badge

    "This is going well … just letting you know that we are listening to your feedback on the redesign."

    Er... unless you have some kind of profanity filter that changes all the comments I've seen into positive things about bunnies... no, you're not.

    "And also reminding you that this design is the first major change to the site in six years."

    Six years is NOT a long time. Not at all. And you can lose half your readership in minutes. The reason you don't do major redesigns is that, online, it's like a brand makeover. You only do it if you have something you wish to hide, and people will never like it.

    "However, 90 per cent of the work in this redesign comprises changes under the hood that allow us to test and roll out iterations very quickly."

    Then why not start with the new system that allows changes, but with a replica of the old design? Then roll out changes one at a time. Like, you know, upgrades, testing, smooth transitions, etc.

    "We have introduced a half-second delay before the mouseover triggers the drop down navbar."

    You fixed a bug.

    "Readers have reported two bugs"

    You fixed more bugs.

    What you haven't fixed is the DESIGN. And given that it's the design people are moaning about, maybe fix that too? Or is this a "we spent money on a new design, so sod you if you don't like it" kind of deal? Like Slashdot's overhaul? That went down well.

    "On the loss of the print icon - rarely used, not coming back - and bemoaned by a couple of readers. We still support this feature and you are welcome to get hacking."

    I read: We don't care that you used to use it, we don't care that it would be the work of moments to get it going again, you can do it your damn self if you want it.

    Nice way to treat readers.

    Honestly? I will have more respect for The Reg is they backtracked and then brought things in piecemeal than did this "Here, shove that down your throat and tell us how good we are".

    And, guys? SSL or IPv6, I'd have applauded. And it would have required ZERO DESIGN SKILLS.

    1. Oninoshiko

      "And it would have required ZERO DESIGN SKILLS."

      Which, coincidentally, is exactly what they have demonstrated here.

    2. Mellifluous
      FAIL

      Bring back the print icon

      I for one, like the print icon on news articles, one can often print stuff without all the annoying ads.

      This new design is indeed horrible, why don't you just start a poll

  352. Ted's Toy

    Ego boosting failure

    Total waste of effort. It is a childs design obvously done by someone who has to fix unbroken things so that his/her ego is displayed for all to see what a twit he/she is. Looks like a way to get oneself fied.

  353. kmac499

    Change of Headline

    "Cisco to release flying Pig"

    should be changed to

    "El Reg actually released flying load of pig exhaust.."

    BTW anyone looked at the advertise with us page, that's not half bad.

  354. Kepler
    FAIL

    PROPER Time Stamps!!!

    Please, at the very least bring back actual date and time stamps!

    It's really handy and helpful to be able to see precisely when a story was posted (or modified). Not just in the article itself, once one has opened it, but on El Reg's main page, where all of the most recent articles are listed. A rounded number of hours ago — let alone days — is not nearly so helpful or useful as an actual timestamp (like "11 Dec 03:04").

    1. Kepler
      Boffin

      Re: PROPER Time Stamps!!!

      The biggest problem with the new temporal labels is that they are only approximate, due to their being rounded. That alone makes them inherently inaccurate, and therefore less useful.

      However, because they also are relative (all being followed by an implicit but omitted "ago"), they quickly become obsolete and even more inaccurate with the passage of time!

      One can update them by refreshing the page, of course, but then some or all of the stories will disappear from the page (having been bumped off the bottom by newer articles that have been posted above)! If, as I do, one keeps deliberately unrefreshed older versions of the main page open in separate tabs, all of the newfangled* relative times will soon be out of date and seriously inaccurate (saying "3 hrs" when it has now been 12; "20 hrs" when it has now been well over a day; "1 day" when it has actually been 3 days, or 5; and so on).

      In contrast, a proper date and time stamp will be as accurate 5 months from now as it was the day the article was posted.

      .

      * Yes, I know the "Older stories"/"MORE STORIES" view** (http://www.theregister.co.uk/earlier/1/, http://www.theregister.co.uk/earlier/2/, and so on) has been using these relative, approximate date and time indicators for ages, so they're not actually new at all. But that's the main reason why I keep old versions of the main page open, instead of using the "Older stories"/"MORE STORIES" view, despite its several advantages over the main page's view!*** You should start using proper date and time stamps there as well!

      .

      ** The link you click on to get to it says "Older stories", but the heading of the page once you get there reads "MORE STORIES".

      .

      *** Every article listed in the "Older stories"/"MORE STORIES" view is accompanied by a tailored, article-specific picture and a longer and much more helpful descriptive blurb. But these advantages are offset by the main page's easier-to-use 3-column view, its use (until now) of proper date and time stamps, and the fact that every once in a blue moon a story will appear on the main page but never make it to the "Older stories"/"MORE STORIES" section. Which means you see it on the main page or you never see it at all.

      1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        Re: PROPER Time Stamps!!!

        I want proper time stamps so that I can reply specifically to one comment in a comment trail, and have everybody know exactly to what I was referring. It's not enough to use the posters name or the title, because we get into conversations with each other on the threads, keeping the comment the same.

        Relative timestamps are no bloody use at all!

  355. codejunky Silver badge

    Very sorry reg

    I like reading your articles, I like the comments sections attached to the articles, but this looks like the style sheet forgot to load.

    I know you want something looking better, and I can understand the looks you have chosen even if I dont agree. However the previous layout made it very easy on the home page to see what I have and havnt read. I have square monitors because I dont like widescreen and from what I have read above I have the screen that you are targeting. But the fact that I cant see what I have and havnt read easily without the topics being grouped means that I have no idea what I have and havnt seen.

    If you could make a page (not asking that you change your homepage) that made the functionality of the old view available then I would find that very useful (or point me to it if you have one already).

  356. Mage Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Listening to feedback?

    with fingers in ears and going La La La?

    The main image is INSANELY large

    The others are too big.

    The design is like a content lacking coffee table book for 2 year olds. Please put it the way it was, or at least a text rich design for grown ups?

    This is still rubbish. Tinkering with it is pointless. SCRAP IT.

    Someone tell me when the site is usable again.

  357. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Print button?

    Never fucking used one. That's what print stylesheets are for which you seem to have overlooked. :-(

    Re. the general redesign: contrast is too stark. I've no problem with whitespace but the proportions aren't right.

    HTML is better but still not making use of nice HTML5 sematics such as the nav tag. Embrace it, it will make things a lot easier.

    Don't mind the fixed navigation, makes sense on long pages, but it's one of the first things to get lost in this black and white mix.

  358. DrGoon

    Eh

    I assume this site design came free with some discount web site authoring tool that you got at PC World.

  359. coderguy

    What the f*

    Seriously. I'm trying to view the site @1920x1024 This is hideous. You guys need to back away from the tablet & phones and remember that most people visit from work. You know, where we're forced to used a proper screen an keyboard FFS.

  360. keithpeter Silver badge
    Pint

    Boxes floating on a grid

    The wide monitor thing.

    Just about ok on a small laptop. Daft on a large (27") monitor.

    Can't you do the responsive thing with extra columns of content appearing on wider monitors?

    PS: icon for the team that did the work even though people don't like it much.

  361. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Links still not being marked as read

    Why was this not counted as a bug?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Links still not being marked as read

      Links had had read state since launch.

      Two possibilities spring to mind:

      The difference in shade between read not read is not distinct enough - for you? for others?

      A browser-specific issue.

      Please check. If not former, tell us what browser you are using?

      1. Kepler
        Thumb Down

        Re: Links still not being marked as read

        In Chrome under Windows 8.1, Drew, the difference between not read and read is the difference between black and dark charcoal grey. And this despite your having said somewhere (I forget where, and couldn't find it just now) that the site's being too monochromatic was one of the problems you were trying to address!

        The site's previous use of bright red and bright blue was certainly helpful in the visual cue department.

  362. BongoJoe

    Metrosexual crap

    Stop trying to be so bloody hip and trendy. This is something like the Grauniad would have come up with in the 90s if it had the internet.

    Too much space lost on a pointless picture at the top. I want information not wasted bandwidth. If I wanted something presenting low information to bandwidth then I'd go to a marketing consultant site.

    You could only make it worse if you changed your tagline to "Providing a Solution to biting the hand that feeds IT"

  363. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I like it

    But then again I'm fucking mental.

  364. BadgerSam

    Yet another of my favourite websites has downgraded

    What is it with so many websites recently changing to this stye of 'design'?

    I have a decent sized monitor - I'd like to be able to have sites display across the width of the browser and not have to scroll so much. The really large images and fonts are a bit much too... you seem to be too focussed on tablet use by people who don't want to actually read much!?

    I HATE these new design 'guidelines' that several of my favourite sites seem to have opted for, e.g. whathifi.com, pgatour.com, various Trinity Mirror-owned local news websites and now El Reg. Also The Guardian seems to be toying with a similarly annoying layout, which they are inconsistently trialling across their site. In all of the other cases, I don't visit those sites anywhere near as much as I used to as I want to be able to access information and read articles, not be bombarded with large images and text, and having to scroll for ages to see what's actually on each page! Oh, and I also miss the thumbnails for each story... El Reg, you're getting way too boring and corporate for my liking!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yet another of my favourite websites has downgraded

      "...you're getting way too boring and corporate for my liking!"

      That's the only thing I disagree with.

      The re-design has come close to breaking this site. I even registered today, just so I could post to these comments. For nearly a decade I've been content to simply read the stories and lurk down here in the entertaining depths, normally two or three times a day. *sigh*

      And it's not just a case of change-o-phobia.

      The new site hurts my eyes, and it's hard to read. Yesterday I would have cursed; today I want to cry. Others have said it better than I so I will content my self with up-votes for the moment.

  365. Sl1ck

    Goodbye!For!Now!

    I've already posted once, and thought I'd visit back after 24 hours to see if I had acted the same impulsive way my 2 year old does when something happens she did not instigate..

    I did not.

    For now, it's goodbye Reg :-( The experience of visiting the site is visceral in nature. Sense and structure has been usurped by style - and poor style at that. We collectively come to the Reg for information, humour and a reality check on the industries that pay our way in life. It's a friend we can rely on. Or could.

    I'll pop back in a week - hoping that things have changed for the better. It doesn't necessitate a reversal back to the old style - change it not a bad thing, we certainly rely on it in our professional lives in the IT sector, but it does need an approach to design that is inline with our needs.

    TTFN

  366. Runner3001

    Looks a lot like all those cheeseball "news" sites clickbaiting all over Facebook, bad...very bad.

  367. trialanderr0r
    Facepalm

    Cock-up > conspiracy

    I'd been hoping throughout the day that we'd get the news that this was yet another El Reg wind-up/social experiment/general troll... certainly seeing the overwhelming sentiment of the comments...

    Alas, the Update confirms the banal statistic: "cock-up" is always as more likely than "conspiracy" (or "satire", as I had sincerely hoped....")

  368. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too much whitespace (both within and without the main content structure) and your images are both enormous and at best tangentially related to the article. Fix that and you're probably golden. Couple of light grey lines, a more intuitive layout of the stories and cut the image size in half. Easy.

  369. Picky

    Abuse/inappropriate reason

    +No way to give a reason why a post is abusive ...

  370. Vizesnyolcas

    Why mimic mobe screen on desktop?

    Please reduce picture sizes - adults and chapter book readers do not need this dumb down screen space waster.

    Please restore print article, it was one of the most useful feature.

  371. Dcope

    EWWWW

    I know sites needs ads etc to function, and im not paranoid about being tracked but as soon as this site loaded (wonder if i can grab and permanent the chrome thumbnail), and ive got these huge ads either side of my screen im about 3 seconds away from installing AdBlock

  372. Shadow Systems

    Bring back the Print button!

    I am Totally Blind. I use Jaws from Freedom Scientific, a Screen Reader Environment (SRE) that allows me to interact with what would normally be viewed if I had Sight.

    The spread across multiple pages, constant reloading of repetitious elements (Navigation bars, menus, graphics, etc) wastes time, bandwidth, and resources that could be better geared towards handling the content.

    Thus I use the Print Button Every. Single. Visit.

    It removes the cruft & crap that slows down the SRE, it turns it all into a single, easily parsed/read unit, and only loads all the time-sucking elements Once.

    Sure you Sighted Folks may be able to visually skim past the parts that are redundant, but with a SRE that's not a workable solution: since we can't see the bits to skip past them, we're forced to listen to the SRE announce Every. Single. One. Every. Single. Time.

    Think about that a second. What might LOOK like a pretty line of icons & buttons and menu items to you, SOUNDS like absolute nonsense to anyone reliant on a SRE to read it to us.

    Drag N' Drop elements we can't use at all (can't use a mouse because can't see to aim it), Drop Down Menu's that we can't use (no mouse means no OnMouseOver either), the pictures with names that mean fuck all ("IMG_123456789-192px-by-213px_Brbble.jpg" is not proper Alt Text & does nothing to let the SRE user know what it might be a link to), and all the other crap that makes it a PITA (PIT Ear?) for SRE users to navigate.

    Obviously the color scheme means nothing to me, as do the font sizes, white spaces, and all the other Visual Only cruft that you've evidently inflicted upon your Sighted Visitors. But if I could, I'd probably be very busy right now cobbling up a personal CSS to override the crap you've foisted upon us.

    So please bring back the Print Button & it's functionality. Those of us using a SRE to Access the site use it constantly, thus belying your claims that it's "never used & won't be missed".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bring back the Print button!

      An unexpected use case of print icon. We'll have a think about this.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Bring back the Print button!

        "An unexpected use case of print icon. We'll have a think about this."

        Isn't there some legal requirement that a website must be "accessible"?

        This is what I was alluding to in a previous comment about empty alt tags on the image files. And I do mean empty alt tags. Not missing. Empty.

        One fix is to rearrange the order of the page elements in the raw file. Currently it seems as though everything at the top and/or right of the screen is rendered before the meat of the article although I do sympathise if you sre stuck with a CMS that forces you do things the way the CMS authors want it done rather than the way you, the users would like to do it.

        (Sorry, that reads as more sarcastic than it was meant to. I wasn't intending to draw parallels between "you", "us" and the site redesign:-))

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Bring back the Print button!

          One fix is to rearrange the order of the page elements in the raw file. Currently it seems as though everything at the top and/or right of the screen is rendered before the meat of the article although I do sympathise if you sre stuck with a CMS that forces you do things the way the CMS authors want it done rather than the way you, the users would like to do it.

          This would be one workaround. I just had a look at the page source, and indeed, a screenreader would have fun trying to find the content of the page.

          http://www.qsl.net/vk4ba/ is the last site I had any real task designing ground-up, where I employ this exact technique.

          You'll note the navigation is at the bottom of the page (DOM-wise) with links in the header. Aside from the logo, which has a blank ALT tag (so hopefully it isn't read out, since its function is more decorative), there's very little that isn't page content related at the start.

          I don't have a screenreader to test that site with, but visually impaired users was one potential audience I was thinking of. It looked okay in Lynx. I haven't done anything with that site for some time now, as other members of the club maintain it.

          1. keithpeter Silver badge
            Windows

            Re: Bring back the Print button!

            "This would be one workaround. I just had a look at the page source, and indeed, a screenreader would have fun trying to find the content of the page."

            Does your screen reader software not pick up the 'skip to content' link near the top of every page? I might get Orca running and see if it does pick up the link.

            The style for the 'skip to content' link has been set to display:none so that it is not visible to people using ordinary Web browsers but I recollect is picked up by screen readers. This is a common convention for making a site more useful to non-visual users.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Bring back the Print button!

              "This would be one workaround. I just had a look at the page source, and indeed, a screenreader would have fun trying to find the content of the page."

              Does your screen reader software not pick up the 'skip to content' link near the top of every page? I might get Orca running and see if it does pick up the link.

              My screen-reader doesn't need to as I use the one I was born with, built into my skull. Not quite 20:20 vision, but good enough.

              That said, I can understand the need for them and feel for those who have to put up the crap artsy web-designers foist onto them.

          2. Shadow Systems

            Visit FreedomScientific.com

            The Jaws program is a free download & functions indefinitely in "40 minute Demo Mode" until/unless you pay to register/unlock it. Otherwise it runs normally for 40 minutes then shuts up until after you reboot. Thus, theoreticly, you could use it forever as long as you reboot every 40 minutes of it's use.

            It's an expensive program, and has an annoying learning curve, but it's a hell of a lot nicer than not being able to use the computer at all.

            There are other SRE's out there such as NonVisualDesktopApplication (NVDA), but Jaws is the leader of the pack.

            No I'm not an employee of FreedomScientific, I'm just a thankful customer whom appreciates when Sighted Folks express an interest in finding out just how much <Sarcasm>Fun</Sarcasm> life can be when you have to use a SRE to get anything done.

            The best way to experience it is to install the SRE, launch it, then turn off the monitor. No peeking, no non-audio hints, "If it doesn't get read, it doesn't exist." Now go back & listen to $Site/$Program & *think* about how hellish it would be to have to do that Every. Single. Time., Every. Single. Day.

            Thank you. =-)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Bring back the Print button!

        I'm a little surprised you didn't consider screen readers in the primary interface - sites that are SRE-friendly tend to be easier to navigate/use regardless, having minimal interfaces and natural hierarchies.

      3. keithpeter Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: Bring back the Print button!

        "An unexpected use case of print icon. We'll have a think about this."

        A single copy of JAWS standard isn't expensive. Gnome has Orca built in. Could you add a screen reader walk through to your testing routine?

        Idea: Provide the print page in the same div as the skip to content link, so it has display:none style and visual users won't see it. Call the new link 'text only version of this page' or something and then explain the setting on your accessibility page.

        http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/resources

        Aimed at Colleges and Universities in the UK but the handouts might be useful.

    2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Re: Bring back the Print button!

      we're forced to listen to the SRE announce Every. Single. One. Every. Single. Time.

      Oh wow. And I thought the gazillion cruft lines above useful content it creates on w3m was annoying...

  373. goldfish
    Facepalm

    AAAAARGH!!! What has happened to El Reg ???

    I almost logged out, as I thought I'd come to the wrong site.

    Then I almost logged out as I thought someone had hacked into your site and gone berzerk.

    I realise that El Reg is a bleeding edge journalistic site, but that doesn't mean you have to go art nouveau with your site

  374. Eponymous Cowherd
    Flame

    Arrrgh.....

    It burns us, precious.

    well, my eyes, at least.

    Truly hideous.

  375. Haku
    Unhappy

    Yuk.

    I don't hate it - I don't like it. But I suppose I'll have to live with it.

    Can I just ask, why is the prominant news article link taking up so much fucking space on the front page and in the article itself?!

    REALLY?

    I don't come here for pictures, I come here for NEWS!!

    1. Haku

      Re: Yuk.

      It seems the forums are taking a beating too, post edits don't show up immediately like they used to.

      I bloody hate it when companies pull this web upgrade shit on its users on a Friday because by the time most people have started using the new interface, the people behind the upgrade have pissed off home for the weekend :(

  376. Florida1920
    FAIL

    I hate that big graphic at top of home page

    A kid eating a watermelon? Really? I may have to start blocking all images on El Reg.

  377. Haku
    Facepalm

    How's this for irony:

    - El Reg change their layout.

    - Nobody likes it.

    - They have an article on their front page titled "Do you even know who your customers ARE?"

    1. Kevin 6
      Thumb Up

      Re: How's this for irony:

      Yea thought that was pretty ironic

    2. chivo243 Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: How's this for irony:

      @Haku

      And that damned article hovers in the same position for days as well, even after the failed upgrade, right column just below the annoying space with some featured story.

      Big pictures are bad n'kay.

      I read some drivel by some guy DrewC about 50 mouths to feed at Vulture Central. If El Reg does not stop this nonsense forthwith, there will be either 50 hungry mouths, or only about 10 mouths as I see many commentard handles I recognize signing off on El Reg for another colored pasture. Your viewers will vote with their feet, you will not have the traffic that generates enough income for your 50 mouths. Can anyone behind the redesign do math(s)?

      I don't belong to any social networks, El Reg is as close as I get. I always thought there could be some enhancements or additions on this site, but I could live with it. Now I am doubting whether my time is worth sifting through this ill conceived design.

      Time will tell...

    3. BongoJoe
      Headmaster

      Re: How's this for irony:

      Shirely: r/are/were

  378. Martin-73 Silver badge

    LISTEN TO YOUR USERS

    This redesign is HIDEOUS, too much whitespace as mentioned, it looks like parts of the page have failed to load properly

  379. mtp
    Meh

    Whats the problem?

    Looks fine to me. Every time a site has a cosmetic tweak it takes a bit of getting used to (slashdot) but generally the changes turn out to be broadly neutral. It keeps the expensive look and feel consultants in work. In this case I quite like the new look although it must be said that there was nothing wrong with the old one.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Whats the problem?

      @mtp

      Change for the sake of change is never good. There are thousands of examples to back up this simple rule. Change for enhancement and functionality is another story. I don't find the design ticks either of those boxes. There, I said it nicely!

      I've not been back to Slashdot regularly in a loooong time. Maybe once in the past year when link in a story took me there.

      1. Haku

        Re: Whats the problem?

        If you're referring to the beta layout of Slashdot, that really is fucking hideous, it has almost none of the long standing graphic idioms of the original layout.

        Thankfully you can (for now) avoid the beta version and go back to the original, but if/when they ever force everyone to use the beta layout then I'm done with that site.

        There's a worrying trend that the owners/maintainers of tech based websites just don't understand their userbase, that they like the stability and familiarity of the UI staying the same for years and that's one of the major factors of them keeping on coming back time and time again.

        Completely changing the layout of a website 'to keep up with the UI trends on the web' is MONUMENTALLY DUMB, if they're doing it because they want to attract a new range of visitors then that just shows disdain for their original visitors that got them to their popularity in the first place.

        If El Reg decided to go back to their previous layout then it would show they're willing to listen, and I don't doubt that commentators would be the first to congratulate El Reg for doing the right thing.

        P.S. How many of you are old enough to remember New Coke?

        1. Shadow Systems

          The Slashdot comparison is an apt one.

          They tried to force the UI change down everyone's throats & got their users pissed off enough to start the #FuckBeta campaign as a result. Every article, every comment section, flooded with that HashTag just to show the Slashdot Overlords *exactly* how much their heavy handed action had been received.

          How long did it take for them to realize that pissing off your user base is exactly the *WRONG* way to increase ad revenue? I mean, it doesn't take Rocket Surgery to figure out that one, does it?

          So for ElReg to do essentially the same thing & not even allow us to manually return to the classic format, is even MORE heavy handed than Slashdot's stupidity.

          I wonder how long before the $FuckTheNewElReg style protest tag appears? And more importantly, how long before they listen to us & accept that, after Thirteen Pages of comments, they're looking at a nearly 99% hostile reception.

          And the few replies we have gotten amount to "We'll think about it" which is a "Fuck off" if I've ever heard one. =-(

        2. chivo243 Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Whats the problem?

          New Coke was one of the products I had in mind with my change for the sake of change rant... Ford Mustang would be another of my choices.

          I, for one would graciously thank El Reg for returning the old layout, no hard feelings.

  380. Trooper_ID
    Thumb Down

    Crikey

    It's a bit loud. I know I prefer the previous design. I shall visit less often as the new layout hurts my brain.

  381. Steveir

    El Reg in possession horror by Office 2013

    Whoa, you guys have been completely office 2013'd with not even a dark grey theme to help!

    I first saw the refreshed site on my iPad and ive got to admit it looks not too bad. Got to viewing it in my laptop earlier today running at 1366x whatever the other number is and...well....lets just say it looks....bad.

    First off I like the new header on both forms. I do like the idea someone suggested on one of the earlier pages of this thread suggesting moving the logo to the left and moving the new menu and search bar into the red area.

    The menu itself? Doesn't really annoy me being there and the caps doesn't look too bad but agree with the accessibility issues listed.

    The lead story picture: okay, this looks fine on my iPad but on laptop it means the actual articles start just before the edge of the browser window which breaks one of the rules I learnt from a computing lecturer at uni, don't make the user scroll. On the old site there was a lot of articles showing before you had to scroll for more...now it's just making the user exert more effort, and a lot of the time they simply won't be arsed. Also the size of the picture makes the site just look plain ugly...and is a bit caps lock shouty to me!

    The articles: this is where the site really does go very wrong for me..on both iPad and laptop. I think the different colour headline to the additional smaller text was great for browsing the home page for articles and it definitely needs to come back because at the moment I look at the page and things all blur into one. The contrasting colours made each story stand out. I really think that you at risk of people missing good articles because of this. Take today for example, normally I'd go along each row looking for a good headline, today I actually SKIM READ yhe home page and read maybe one article. Also it's really hard to distinguish read articles with the new grey colour, blue was much better.

    The actual story pages aren't too much different, head picture isn't too oversized but would looks better a tad smaller. The text is fine, black works when reading an article, not in a three columed,row based headline format.

    That's about all I can offer but I will say that this talk about the print button is really reminding me of microsoft and the start button/menu fiasco

  382. Leo Edwardsson

    I don't wanna look at you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper

    This was my favorite website for ten years. Until yesterday. Now it's not. Now it hurts my eyes. Go and boil your bottoms, English pig-dogs.

    1. storax
      Unhappy

      Re: I don't wanna look at you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper

      Like he said.

  383. GavC

    Sigh... Couldn't you have released the redesign on a beta page and asked for feedback on that?

    Or better still, just have left it how it was!

  384. Number6

    Icons?

    You put all that work into a new look for the site and didn't add more icons for us commentards to use? Shame!

  385. smot

    Where's the "Most Commented"?

    Shirley this would top the list?

    Me, I like a good scrap, so I always take a peek at the "Most Commented" section. But it's gone!

    Along with that handy carousel of top news tips.

    Shame on you.

  386. chuckufarley Silver badge

    Yeah. About that...

    ..."Top ad moved - to get more space-for and attention for editorial content." I have not seen an ad on El Reg (or most other web sites) in years. Firefox, NoScript, and Adblock Plus take of them for me. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to stand even the most casual web use. So If you really want to impress us, just get rid of ads all together. Then you could move away from the stupid, space wasting fixed width format too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yeah. About that...

      Fair go, they need to pay their bills somehow.

  387. Scroticus Canis
    FAIL

    ¿Meep? ¿¿Meep?? @*&%$£"§! MEEP!

    Pass the chlorpromazine the Galactalites hate it! Me to :(

  388. CrosscutSaw

    Ugh that background!

    So white! Why?????

    A darker background would cause less eye fatigue, IMHO....

    Not a fan.

  389. Admiral Grace Hopper

    And another one gone.

    First the positives: I can see what you tried to do and you didn't fuck things around as much and as badly as the a Guardian has.

    Unfortunately, this seems to be another iPad centred redesign that takes no account of the desktop user. Why so much wasted space? We're IT pros, we've got the biggest and best screens we can screw out if the budget. Throw us s bone, or at least a dynamic layout.

    What is the current obsession with Fisher-Price design? If you'd ever run an article telling us how much the whole world loves TIFKAM then I could understand it, but you haven't, you never will so why the kids interface?

    A well intentioned effort, but not quite there.

    I hope to see a change that I can get behind in the near future.

  390. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    This works for me

    FreeBSD

    Simple, tidy, easy to navigate and targets the right audience.

    Apart from being a fixed width :-(

  391. Gordon 10

    My boss called

    He now knows I am reading El Reg just by looking out of his office window.

    Gee thanks Reg.

    1. chuckufarley Silver badge

      Re: My boss called

      Upped just for the laugh. Thanks.

  392. npcole

    I'm sorry. This is just horrible. The white space on the front page doesn't work at all -- stories just blend in to each other. Having some stories with pictures and some without just makes for a confusing, noisy layout. I want to be able to skim-read the headlines and decide what to read. The new design makes that impossible. Put it back to something more traditional, or lose a reader.

  393. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    El Reg Redesign

    Sorry, have given it 24hrs and am still hating the redesign.

    Feels clunky and slow to find / read articles. Giant pictures are taking up screen estate and annoying me.

    Print icon was ONLY practical way to read long articles - I don't have time to read fragmented articles by paging through a zillion short little pages.

    ...come down off the high horse, remember the customer is right and back some of this out.

    1. Kevin 6

      Re: El Reg Redesign

      Even if the giant pictures actually were for the article, but no they usually are some crap picture they just flung on for the fun of it that has nothing at all to do with the article.

      Perfect Example the Bong Ventures LLC: We've been cyberhacked on the side why in the fuck do we need a gigantic picture of a pikachu from pokemon? Its not funny, it has absolutely nothing to do with the article.

      Or even the one on printing from a chrome book do the writers here think we have no fuckin idea what a printer looks like?

  394. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When first seen....

    Ouch! That hurts! It felt like I just fell down the stairs! I guess gone are the days of a well balanced website and the beauty of simplicity.

    I give it a couple of weeks. If I don't like I just move on. Everyone has different taste. I'll just find something else to put as my homepage.

  395. Haku
    FAIL

    hackaday.com pulled this stunt recently

    It was like someone at that place redesigned the website to look good just for them on their favourite web browsing device, so so many people had issues with the completely absurd changes to the layout which made no sense at all, but they changed very little in response to the (quite often vitriol levels of) feedback given.

    I loved that site.

    I really did.

    I visited it multiple times daily.

    Yet since they made it a complete pain in the arse to navigate and read I visit perhaps once a week. I'm dead serious about that, despite loving the content it contains.

    El Reg has been one of a few other favourite websites I've been regularly visiting (often multiple times a day) for almost a decade, I registered on these forums over 7.5 years ago, look at my user number, it's only 2016 and now there are over 73 thousand registered forum users.

    IMHO this is a smack in the face to the regular, devoted visitors who never requested these sort of changes to the layout, the previous one worked fine.

    Almost everyone was comfortable with how things were, but now almost everyone is spitting blood at the monumentally absurd redesign of the layout.

    Can we please have the previous design layout back.

    Please?

  396. Aebleskiver

    Not enjoying the new layout :-( Much harder on the eyes for navigation and trying to identify what I want to look at. Seems to all blend into one mass now.

  397. Brian 39
    FAIL

    ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

    Oh no....

    This is TERRIBLE. Much less information per page, poor color palette and for gods sake, it's so cluttered now. Lower in value as a result. Bad reg, Bad.

    Go back to how it was before - don't employ 12 year olds to do your web site design, as Microsoft have for Office 2013.

  398. thomas k.

    Shock of the New?

    Hardly.

    It's more a case of Shock of the Poorly Thought-out, Badly Designed and Just Plain Butt Ugly.

  399. speedbird007
    Unhappy

    Accessible websites

    In reply to the question about the legal reqirements for a website to be accessible to those using assitive devices, well it is a legal requirement to attempt to do this. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) Part III of the DDA refers to the provision of goods, facilities and services. The Code of Practice which specifically mentions websites, can be downloaded in its entirety from the Equality and Human Rights Commission website.

    Section III of the DDA, which refers to accessible websites, came into force on 1st October 1999 and the Code of Practice for this section of the DDA was published on 27th May 2002. This means that the majority of websites have been in breach of the law for over five years.

    http://www.webcredible.com/blog-reports/web-accessibility/uk-website-legal-requirements.shtml

    There is more to website design than trying to copy the iPad look.

  400. Mikel

    Seems OK to me

    The new style seems an upgrade to me. Not sure about the mouse over business as I am all mobile now and don't have a mouse to hover. Have not noticed any missing critical functionality yet.

  401. mourner
    Facepalm

    Too many images, SNR is poor

    I don't comment often, but I feel I have to on this.

    El Reg has made a mistake with this redesign.

    Main page - enhance the style contrast between read and unread (visited) stories please.

    Article pages - the inclusion of some stock image at the top of every article is appalling. They add nothing to the article, just frustration to scroll past to get to the content. Unless you are intending to serve ads there I can't think of any reason to use space like that in a wide screen centric world. It's just annoying and results in just two or three lines of the article being readable before scrollfest occurs.

    Fixed width columns... just no.

  402. Jim Hague

    I now realise where the design works

    I really, really don't like it on my desktop - far, far too much wasted space, and bright white light. A serious backward step.

    But it's not too bad on my aged iPad 1, where I can see loads more stories on the front page than the 3 I can see on the desktop.

    Umm. Guys. Did you test this on a desktop? Or have the Bong/turtlenecks really taken over?

    Please, El Reg, make sure the devs have at least a 1920x1080 monitor, and insist they make the information density on that match an iPad.

  403. 080

    Too many clicks required to get back from a multi page article of especially the comments pages to the home screen, yes I know I'm lazy but I like it.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Too many clicks required to get back from a multi page article"

      Just click the Reg banner, same as always.

  404. tokyo-octopus
    Mushroom

    So on balance, everyone's liking the redesign?

    No, I thought not. What was the phrase again? Oh yes, "if it ain't broke, dont fix it".

  405. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thank you...

    ...for breaking my addiction to El Reg. For the last few years I've looked at the site every hour or so. Sometimes I think I'll go and do something else - but then a refresh shows a new article to read.

    Since the format changes I have only read one article - this comment thread. Even if the format goes back to the old style - which in Yahoo! suicidal tradition it won't - I doubt if I'll be that loyal again.

    Thanks for all the fish!

  406. Len Goddard

    On reflection

    OK, I gave it a couple of days and, to be honest, I now like it even less than when I first encountered it. Or rather, I hate it even more. It really doesn't work on a decent sized monitor - vast quantities of glaring white and completely blank sidebars flanking a sparsely populated fixed width central column scattered with irrelevant and space-consuming graphics. It is now almost impossible to run your eyes over the site and find the things which interest you.

    How about an alternative main page just consisting of a list of the item headings. No text, fancy layouts or anything. Run them both for a while and see which gets the most hits.

    There was a post which said we've been listening to your comments and we've ... fixed a couple of minor bugs. I can't be asked to page through all the comments but I have yet to see one which is positive. If you were genuinely listening you would have rolled back the changes and sacked the responsible designers with extreme prejudice.

    I was not enthusiastic about the last redesign but this is definitely several steps too far. Looks like a bad Daily Mail rip-off. I'll drop in occasionally to see if you have had a change of heart but I doubt I will remain a regular reader.

    Hmmm. I just tried it with image loading turned off. Definitely an improvement. Now I need to find a way to turn off images on a per-site basis.

  407. bill 36

    Monumental Cockup

    We asked El Reg "who would be walking the plank for this?"

    They had not got back to us at the time of writing.

  408. BongoJoe

    Since You're LIstening To Your Users...

    What I would like is to go into My Posted Message page and click on a link that you are about to develop that will take me direct to my message so that I can find out if the cockWomble who downvoted my message left a reason why.

    If we're going to have a hopeless graphical design at least counter it some way by having an improvement in functionality.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Since You're LIstening To Your Users...

      @BongoJoe - it does do that already...click on the "8hrs" (or whatever) link and it takes you straight to your post. Took me ages to spot that.

  409. Scroticus Canis
    Holmes

    The Weekend Edition front page is more like it

    Have just revisited to see if anything change and clicked the Weekend edition tag on the nav bar.

    Now that front page is more like a reasonable redesign. Liked the fact that you actually have the date and time stamp of the article instead of the 1 day, 2 day crap, also like the fact the author is named so you can choose who you read (big plus that one).

    It is also not overly clutter-fucked with pictures on the story title.

    So just use that style for the main landing page and much will be forgiven (in time of course).

  410. David Roberts

    Time for a poll?

    I recognise that a change in anything can be uncomfortable for long time users.

    However there seems to be a common thread to most of the complaints.

    At the moment I read El Reg using a 10 inch tablet in portrait mode so most of the site is ignored. I just resize the screen so only the text is visible and both old and new sites work much the same.

    So my two main complaints are large pointless picures (as others have said, Daily Mail??) and the lack of cleat distinction between read and unread articles. I like to be able to skim through the main page and easily see where I got to last time I looked. This is now much harder.

    I haven't used a high res monitor on the new site yet so I haven't seen the reported vast waste of space but surely the main aim of the front page is to allow the reader to see as much information as possible as easily as possible?

    So, how about a poll to get up/down votes on the top 5 or 10 complaints to gauge the level of feeling.

    One thing which would make the site truly flexible and also assist in validating a new design would be a "preferences" option linked to a commentard profile where things such as fixed vs. variable width format and colour settings could be individually selected. Then people could switch between views until they found the best fit for them and you could aggregate the settings to see which were most used. In fact, kind of like a poll.

  411. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    I think ..

    .. it needs more cowbell :)

    For the rest, I know from experience that "new" means "getting used to" before I can judge it to be better or worse so I'm going to give it a week.

  412. This post has been deleted by its author

  413. Calton R

    Bye, bye print article icon . . . long live Print Article

    I am delight that you have left the 'print view' in place as I use this regularly as it gives me a nice clean uncluttered view of the entire story . . . although, I never used the print article icon to show this view. I’m not sure how you may have come to the conclusion that the print view is rarely used, unless you are only monitoring access via this ‘print article icon' button.

    Please continue to provide this view.

  414. Calton R

    Return of the 'I have read this article' Indication

    I would very much like to see the 'I have read this article' indication reappearing. In other words, when an article has been read then the text on the main page changes colour (or whatever) to indicated that it’s been opened . . . as was shown prior to redesign.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Return of the 'I have read this article' Indication

      We do have "Read state" - it used to be pale grey. It is now a slightly darker grey. We can experiment with shades - but just in case it is a browser thing - what browser / OS are you using?

      1. Haku

        Re: Return of the 'I have read this article' Indication

        Using varying shades of grey as an indication of something is IMHO a poor UI practice, namely because you can't be sure wether the end user has their screen's brightness/contrast set up properly, and when you factor in LCD viewing angles and daylight etc. it just makes it worse.

        I hate the fact that the WIFI icons on Android devices I've used use two differing shades of grey on the icon to indicate signal strength, when two different colours are much much easier for your eyes/brain to spot than two differing shdes of grey.

      2. Calton R

        Re: Return of the 'I have read this article' Indication

        Drewc,

        Many thanks for this, I've checked today and as you stated the "Read state" does appear to be pale grey. Just one observation if I may, is that the differentiation might be a tad too much on the subtle side, and depending upon screen/monitor type may not be sufficient.

        Browsers:

        Primary: Firefox 34.0

        Secondary: IE 11

  415. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There goes my reference site

    I used to point all the !bong!-influenced wanna-be app developers who run the sites I write for to El Reg as an example of what a bloody good, simple, clear website looks like and how it actually just works. No need to have customer support staff calling subscribers to talk them through the site, FFS.

    No longer the splendid simplicity that was El Reg. Such a shame.

  416. src

    It gives me eye strain.

    Unless they fix the design or I can find some sort of browser plugin to process it I will visit less often :-(

  417. BongoJoe
    WTF?

    Screen Width

    I would like to know what is the advantage of me only using 40% of my screen width for information?

    What advantage that I am clearly unaware of is the 60% of snow-white blankness giving me?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Screen Width

      What advantage that I am clearly unaware of is the 60% of snow-white blankness giving me?

      Free LED light for your office / house? Sometimes when it is getting late and I don't want to switch the light on yet, I just pull up a page of white so people can still see my face when I Skype. Now I can just leave El Reg open :)

  418. -tim
    FAIL

    It is April fools day?

    If you have to modify the java script to support browsers you are doing it wrong. If it doesn't work in IE 2.x, your designer should be sent off to work for the BOFH so we never need to see their bad work ever again.

  419. Mike Wilson

    "We have introduced a half-second delay before the mouseover triggers the drop down navbar."

    5% less horrible than it was. Still horrible. And why are some pictures so effing huge? The page doesn't fit on my laptop screen. (As with most sites, a little zoom is essential as I don't wish to read with a microscope).

  420. BongoJoe

    This gets even better*

    (*sarcasm alert ahoy!)

    Not only do you fill the soddng screen up with a picture at the top of the story but, no doublt for those who weren't able to view the photo filling the screen you display the same sodding image again after two lines of text...

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/16/eu_battle_with_facebook_linkedin_google_etal_moves_to_new_premises/

  421. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't know what you are all complaining about... i needed a new light for my bike!

    Seriously, it's truly awful. Sorry, but I hate it more with every visit, and my visits are getting more infrequent each time I see it.

  422. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Speculation

    I find it a little sad reading comments to the effect of 'I'll wait to see if you'll listen, but don't expect that you will'. One might expect the reaction to that to be 'sod you then' (as Bobby Chariot would have said). But, of course, we're absolutely used to not being listened to. Microsoft. Mozilla. KDE. Who all probably got the idea from HMGov's online petition initiative. Though one might argue that anyone who would do this in the first place is by implication not the type to listen; though that is probably a circular argument.

    Anyway, I too don't expect you'll listen. This redesign is too cavalier to encourage confidence in the community spirit of those responsible; as with the aforementioned examples (with the exception of the HMG petitions - but otoh just remember Gordon Brown delivering a speech and you'll be back in the aesthetics ball park).

    Or not so much cavalier, as Morris Traveller?

  423. LeeH
    Go

    Every redesign steps back before it moves forward

    I am glad to see a new design for the site. The Reg needs one. This design isn't 'it' but you'll get there over the coming weeks. Getting it right takes time.

    I like the red, black, charcoal and grey with a dash of turquoise. Red and black say El Reg to me. I know I'm where I need to be when I see them.

    The colour tone is a little bright for my eyes. Needs to be toned down a little.

    I'd go full-width and fluid for the structure.

    For one of my own sites, I took a leaf out of El Reg's (old) style guide re images. I used images in the homepage post grid and removed them from display within articles unless an article topic calls for images. In other words, no in-article image just for the sake of displaying an image. That style guide is effective for sites like The Reg where readers come for news not visual media.

    I've worked professionally in web development for about a decade (less time than many reg readers). In that time I can say I rank only two of the theme designers I've worked with as being top of their game. One constructs simple & effective designs. The other creates out of this world imaginative designs. I'll happily put your design team in touch with those two designers.

    Looking forward to seeing where the El Reg design goes next. Keep moving forward.

  424. Mark Allen
    Stop

    HUGE headlines but less information

    Visiting the site today I noticed that these huge font headlines for the blind now give us a lot less information. At this moment there is a headline of "Real Ale TWATS: In SPAAAACE, no one can churn your cream". In the past there was plenty of warning that this wasn't "news" but one of those "Something for the weekend" posts.

    Please put the sections back with the headlines in some way. (And not just the tooltip)

    Sub-headlines still have the section. So do the main news stories. It is just the selected GIGANTA-FONTED-HUGE-IMAGE-SEE-IT-FROM-SPACE headline item that is missing this handy information.

    Personally I always avoid BONG\SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND as these are the wrong humour for me. Would be nice to be able to keep doing so.

  425. nipsy

    chrome windows 8 mode on surface

    Generally I quite like the new layout, however I can't see the sub sections on my 8.1 surface with chrome in 8 mode as I don't have a mouse (only a finger) to hover over the section title!

  426. Spoonsinger

    Right I have had the time to look at this on a tablet.

    Yes!, you have made it all big chubby finger friendly, but at what cost? The chubby fingered couldn't give a fig about IT. I suspect most of your viewers are in work, (i.e. not retired - the most chubby fingered of them lot), and view it at their desktop. (i.e. a proper screen with keyboard/mouse combination and don't want to scroll down through white space for a quick IT infomation fix).

  427. heyrick Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Expensive!

    I prefer to use full sites on my Android phone (ancient firmware, stock browser) as mobile sites often have reduced functionality (long-tap to open in a new window doesn't work, fixed scale can't zoom, gross weird looks-like-WAP colour scheme, etc etc).

    Your site? It is "expensive" in terms of data allocation and in terms of fetch speed. The main index document (today) is 200KiB. The associated images amount to just under 2MiB for yours alone. So many pictures.

    I think I'd probably cry if I itemised the advertising as well.

    So, sorry, I will give the mobile version a view and I hope it works well, but I don't think I'll be interacting with your site while "out" through the front door any more.

    .

    Otherwise:

    Too damn much white. It's like bloody YouTube. It also hurts to read at night in low light.

    My VGA monitor is 1440x900. There are enormous white margins down each side. Why? Too hard to resize the new layout to fit the screen? The comments are even worse. Seriously, I think you're using maybe a little under half of the screen width. A high school girl could create a website like looks like this...

    What's with continually bumping the "Do you know who your customers actually ARE?" story? Shouldn't the stories listed be shown by time/date, and the insert bar for ones you want to 'bump'?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Return To Sender

        Re: Expensive!

        @Betacam

        Think you've missed the point of many of the comments - fix (or set a maximum for ) the width of individual articles by all means - once you're reading them. That's fine, for the reason you state.

        However, on the front page, each article link is already constrained within its own container (essentially an 'n' column table (or grid if you prefer), whatever the markup used to achieve it). Allowing the value of 'n' to vary with the screen width is not that complex, frankly, and would allow more article links to be displayed. Which is highly desirable, given the larger text and wider spacing around the article links now which has reduced the number of articles visible at a glance.

        And just to add another voice to the 'too much white' theme running through the comments, El Reg - it bloody hurts with all the clear space on the page. Way too bright. If you must keep this new theme (please don't), at least knock the background colour down a notch or two, even #fafafa would help.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Expensive!

          #fafafa

          That would be an improvement over what we have now.

          What they have used is:

          #ffuckup

          Okay, not a valid hex value, but you get the idea.

          If it were a valid colour it would be a liquid bastard mix of new El Reg Red and Homebase Brilliant white.

          Add some mayo to make the filling in a shit sandwich.

  428. Martin-73 Silver badge

    For anyone who cares....

    the bloody huge image at the top is class="article_img". A little futzing with greasemonkey makes it go byebye, you could possibly do this with a messing with usercontent files in firefox too

    It shouldn't be necessary on a well designed site.

    I am beginning to think the users are right: this was NEVER tested on an actual computer, just on mobile devices. A compromise that wouldn't force el reg to lose too much face, but would satisfy most commentards: Make the original layout available as a user-selectable CSS, set by a cookie. Much like wackypedia did with the redesign.

    "Do you want: Sensible, mobile, or fisher-price"...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: For anyone who cares....

      And a couple of Adblock Edge custom filters:

      theregister.co.uk###top_tease will get shot of that hideously large image and link on the front page.

      theregister.co.uk##.article_img will remove the image you mentioned at the top of each article.

      This makes for a huge improvement in my humble opinion, still a shame about all the white!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: For anyone who cares....

      Me again. Thanks for reminding me about userContent.css - a quick fiddle removes the whitespace either side of the main div.

      @-moz-document domain(theregister.co.uk) {

      body {

      background-color:#aaa;

      }

      }

      It's a bit rough I know, but at least my eyes have stopped bleeding! As you say though - this really shouldn't be necessary.

    3. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: For anyone who cares....

      the bloody huge image at the top is class="article_img". A little futzing with greasemonkey makes it go byebye

      I'm a bit rusty with Greasemonkey but just killing the picture and the navigation bar made articles acceptable again. The front page is a bit trickier, still working on that.

      It shouldn't be necessary on a well designed site.

      Indeed, and, once forced to start killing things off, the temptation is to go the extra mile; remove the banner, the social media buttons, the sidebars, the 'read more' and 'whitepapers' for a completely uncluttered feel which suits the size of screen I have.

      That may be good for how a reader wants things, but I am not sure how good it is for El Reg. But, at least I am still here, still a reader, and whilst inconvenienced and a little aggrieved with the change being at odds with what I like, I can now live with it.

  429. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    With all due respect to Douglas Adams...

    The Hitchhiker's Internet Guide describes the Website Design Department of the El Reg Corporation as:

    "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

  430. Bloodbeastterror

    FFS JUST PUT IT BACK!!!

    Really, El Reg, you f***ed up. Admit it, revert, and try again.

    Or not. As I and others have already said, what was wrong with the old site? Were you having a dull afternoon? Bored and needed to fill in the time? Anxious to stir up some controversy?

    Job done. We've all laughed and grimaced. Now get rid of this abortion and give us back a site we can actually read.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FFS JUST PUT IT BACK!!!

      At least they didn't take their inspiration from Windows 8… now that is a site that's been made utterly useless by a makeover.

  431. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Monitors are not extendable

    I don't want 650x480 images filling up the top of the screen. I just don't. Screen space is not yet so cheap that I can afford to simply waste it for no return. I know this is "hot" design at the moment but only among designers; users hate it, including me. The new site generally looks pretty amateurish and poorly laid out with far too many BIG FONTS and IMAGES, and resulting gobs of whitespace.

    The pullout is stupid too, breaking the layout for no obvious reason and adding to the generally chaotic feel of the main page. This is not a magazine page, so don't treat it as one.

    Also, the fixed menu is annoying, but then I have never understood the idea of dividing the site into these categories and have never clicked on any of them other than "forums". Maybe just ditch the whole idea?

  432. storax
    FAIL

    *SIGH*

    Goodbye.

    Until you get a front page I can quickly scan again, I'm gone.

    It's simply not worth the effort.

  433. Fibbles

    WTF have you done?

    Did you guys get the work experience kid to design the new layout? This is just awful.

  434. FrankAlphaXII
    Devil

    Might make some people angry here but...

    Im gonna get downvoted to hell and back for this, but I actually like it.

    At least in Firefox 35 on a Windows 7 desktop, ill let you know my verdict about the way it looks on Firefox's FreeBSD port later as well as on Android next time I saddle up the "Porcelain Pony". As I've stopped using Linux since the systemd pissing match has made everyone involved look like infants or children, and also since support on my preferred distro for the proprietary driver's kmod for an entire major manufacturer's video cards was dropped because the maintainer for the kmod threw a fit over some perceived slight (I'd rather use an OS not beholden to the whims of petulant children in relation to its future, thats why I switched) someone else from that camp will have to weigh in on what it looks like to them and why it sucks or doesnt.

    Okay let me qualify that statement, I like most of the site redesign anyway, its easier to navigate using the top bar and with the dropdowns it gives you an idea of what the top stories are without having to sit on the main page for 15 seconds or whatever to potentially suffer through previews of five (or was it six?) articles that have no interest to you whatsoever.

    However, I don't like the lead image being so huge, and its hard to tell where it ends and the Top Stories portion of the page begins. You could make it a bit clearer by either increasing spacing/padding between it and the Top Stories section, reducing the size of the top stories font by a couple of points, or by putting some sort of a divider between the sections. I also don't like the Vulture logo and "The Register" wordmark being aligned to the center of the red band, s/he and it has always been aligned to the Left, at least since 2004 when I started reading this website, and it should stay that way. That's not so much a design decision as an identity and branding thing if you ask me.

    Everyone else complaining just isn't holding it right.

  435. Snake Silver badge

    Dear Reg, the new look is fine but it needs some tweaks

    Reduce the both the image and font size of the leading headline article - it takes up too much screen real estate, especially I'm sure on small mobile screens.

    Increase the width of the column gutters slightly to create additional white space between columns, as the text is just a touch hard to differentiate between. Reduce font size on sub-article headlines / tag lines 1 point to compensate if needed.

    Actually, reduce ALL font sizes a bit (say 2 points) as there is not quite enough white space; the content-per-space quotient is a bit low upon initial viewing of the website's landing page.

    That is all. Keep up the good work!

  436. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks good and a note on printing articles

    In contrary to quite a few commenters here, I like the new design. A lot cleaner and the loss of the long/large grey gutters on the site are most welcome.

    This will probably get my account revoked or rescinded, but it is still possible to print articles. Just add the string, 'print.html' (without the quotes), to the end of the URL or put the word, 'Print/' (again, without quotes), between the hostname and the date portion of the URL.

    Ex.:

    Using the 'print.html' -

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/yyyy/mm/dd/article_title/print.html

    Using the 'Print' insert -

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/yyyy/mm/dd/article_title/

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Re: Looks good and a note on printing articles

      It makes no sense to leave the icon out if all the back-end functionality is actually there. What exactly are we waiting for, the next make-over in five years time which brings it back?

      If you design UIs by metrics you always end up with clusterfucks. Of course the print option will be used relatively little, because people don't often print online news sites articles by their very nature, except in that use case where people who do want to print where it will be used 100% of the time and people will be very thankful for it. E.g. the article about greening up your house, the article about setting up wifi antenna on the roof, or the article about setting up a HTPC where three of four A4 sheets next to you is probably infinitely more easy than lugging the laptop up into the attic, on top of the roof, or behind the telly.

      For the love of god, ignore designers justifying things by metrics, they are almost always wrong. Bring back the print option.

    2. tomDREAD

      Re: Looks good and a note on printing articles

      Nice!

  437. John Hopkin

    Horrible, horrible. Far too much wasted real estate: giant text, large images, acres of empty space. This awful signal-to-noise ratio is ludicrous, especially for a tech website. My scroll-wheel finger gets sore just thinking about trying to find interesting content in that oh-so-fashionable desert.

  438. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    REALLY?

    "just letting you know that we are listening to your feedback on the redesign."

    Well you;re clearly fucking NOT Drew, or you'd have put the site back to how it was. Readable.

  439. Mage Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Came back, gone again.

    Still rubbish.

  440. keithpeter Silver badge
    Pint

    large screens

    How many of us use windows maximised on large screens? Just wondering.

    (I personally use a left-right tile on screens of 1920 upwards).

    +1 for redshift (mentioned many many pages up).

    Pint icon for all as it is nearly the holiday up here in the dark North.

  441. Gomez Adams

    Marking read links: Very slightly better

    I now see that read links are coloured a very slightly different shade of grey. But only noticeable if I look at my laptop screen full on in good light. Need more contrast guys,

  442. penguin42

    Switched to the mobile site

    This is horrible; I've switched to the mobile site - on my desktop - http://m.theregister.co.uk/ - it still only uses 1/3 the width of my screen but at least I can see a sequence of headlines clearly.

  443. wingZero

    Seriously go back to the old design whats going on here..

    wingZero

  444. Only me!
    Trollface

    Gangnam Style

    This thread is getting that many comments Le Reg might have to change the counter to 64bit......Gangnam Style :-)

    Before you bother doing that Le Reg, put some effort in to putting the old Le Reg site back together!

    Fix the cause not the problem. I think is the order of the day!

  445. stefan 5

    How many people have to tell you its utter sh!t before you will listen. im not using this site anymore untill its changed. by not changing it your showing just how much of an arrogant prat you are. People are visit the site everyday should be listened to not some stupid little hipster pratting with the site and messing it around.

  446. Aebleskiver

    Rare of me to complement Google but they do actually have it right and far better than El Reg with site design on YouTube and others, so perhaps you might want to take a leaf out of their book.

    It's nice how YouTube's style sheet adapts depending on screen size and resolution and takes full advantage of whatever you're using, tablet, hi-res desktop or otherwise...

  447. Streaker

    Dreadful Dreadful Dreadful

    I don't post regularly, but do read frequently, several times a day on PC and tablet and this has to be the worst design I have ever seen in a long time.

    As others have said, too much white... That actually drains batteries faster, or didn't you know that?

    Graphic at front of article.... WAY too big

    Font seems to be thinner and less readable

    Please, please, please revert back

  448. jake Silver badge

    Update.

    That fucking irritating persistent navigation bar is getting more and more fucking irritating. I mean, honestly, who was the genius who decided that it was a good idea on the "Week in Summary" page? Surely anyone who uses that particular page already knows how to browse ElReg and doesn't need even more of their screen real estate removed for no good reason?

    I won't go into useless graphics & other meaningless whitespace, other than "ugly".

  449. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes

    First time I've been back at the front page in a day. With Adblock Latitude and UserContent.css doing their respective thing it grates much less (inflation is slowing?). Not that this then thus therefore is okay any more than using extensions to make Australis bearable - I ditched FF ESR as back-up recently. I had so much respect for Mozilla, for so long! It leaves such a bad taste.

    Any which howdy-doody, Most Read is a stat for market research. Most Commented was the useful one.

    And for those that know joinery etc, a router is what Mozilla can fuck themselves with.

  450. Scaase

    any better?

    http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=nv40va&s=8

    using tampermonkey in chrome, its still pretty fugly (open to suggestions! I'm no designer) but at least the content fits better (i tend to run windowed) and my eyes don't 'kin burn!

  451. malleeMan

    I barely use El Reg now

    Your old interface allowed me to see dozens of logically ordered stories at once. And you know what; I read nearly all of them. It was easy to see interesting new content.

    Your current design has a more complex layout and it is hard to see the new content at a glance. You have to look in a variety of places, look at the category and date and it is just too much effort.

    Instead of opening up a dozen or so stories each time I browse, I now barely open one of your stories.

    Do you guys care about that? Are you so infatuated with this 'new' and rather ordinary interface design that you are prepared to lose readership?

    I'll give it another few days and if I am not actually reading your stories any more, I'll have to find another source of IT news and views.

  452. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Top banner

    Make the empty red space clickable too, so that takes you back to the front page, as well as 'The Register' in the middle.

    I'm pretty sure that's how it was in the previous version. Or if it wasn't, at least I never found myself clicking on an area which didn't work.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Top banner

      I'm pretty sure that's how it was too.

      Fucking moronic update has borked it.

      I clicked the upvote button for you, but it took me to a page to post a comment.

      I might be wrong but I think I used to be able to upvote without being taken to a POST COMMENT page.

      I'm happy to be told otherwise, but come on El Reg, abort this abomination and stop being so arrogant.

      Fucking fuckwit redesign, I hate it. It seems I'm not alone and you seem to be deliberately procrastinating in the hope we'll all give up complaining. The more likely outcome is you will suffer a significant reduction in page hits and by extension advertising revenue.

      A final comment:

      Listening is NOT the same as reacting.

  453. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Actually...

    ...the site design seem to visually work well on my Nook HD+ tablet in portrait mode.

    On the negative side, it's takem till now to try that out because I don't often use the Nook to read El Reg. Worse, I much prefer to read webpages in landscape mode because then I don't have to keep zooming in to be able to read the text. In portrait mode, I zoom in enough to read the front page easily, ie I lose the righ column completely, but every time I open a story I have to zoom in again. In landscape mode I see the whole width of the page at a reasonbale size to read comfortabley but those frikkin huge images at the start of every story means I have to scroll down every frikken page to get to the article. And most of the time, the article image has an even less tenuous link ti the story than the Bootnotes stories have to IT.

    I still don't like the idea of showing the stories age rather than the posting date. And we still need more contast for the visited/non-bisted links.

    If you insist on retaining a fixed width site with images all over the place you could do worse than taking your inspiration from the BBC News website rather than Windows 8 and it's flat and fugly "Modern" look.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Actually...

      "If you insist on retaining a fixed width site with images all over the place you could do worse than taking your inspiration from the BBC News website rather than Windows 8 and it's flat and fugly "Modern" look."

      I suppose I should expand a little on that since it got downvoted. I thought it would go without saying that the big photo at the start of every story is something I and most others posting here are against. Smaller images when relevant, or no picture at all.

  454. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder if?

    El Reg are after some sort of Streisand effect?

    I'm struggling with why they would want to piss of all their long time visitors,

    Maybe an internet outrage over the crap redesign will go viral and all us old farts won't be needed any more.

    FFS El Reg, put it back how it was.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I wonder if?

      "Maybe an internet outrage over the crap redesign will go viral and all us old farts won't be needed any more."

      IIRC - several years ago an alcoholic drink manufacturer decided to "update" their advertising to attract a younger customer. They didn't increase their new customers - and they lost a lot of their previously loyal customers who were alienated by the new advertising.

  455. mi1400

    Javascript disabled reading now adds 14-pages of crap in headers instead of 1 earlier

    Dear ElReg I use super customized opera with approx. 2000-tabs opened always and session file auto backedup every 15-min ... The mem usage remain around 1.2-GB because I have disabled JavaScript, Plugins. Now earlier I used to hit page-down once to get to opening line of article or news. Now I have to hit page-down 14 times to reach opening line. currently I have pasted a piece of red tape to my laptops LCD frame as marker instead of counting pagedowns 14 times... I just keep the pagedown sunk till the page scrollbar is about to reach this red tape marker.

    Plz also add the "Pages 1,2,3" link at top near "Print" icon so instead of knowing at bottom the this article has 2/3 more pages I would know In beginning that I will be reading this much pages and I hit Print version in advance to get on leaner paged article.

    Also for reading "Forums" pz also add a "Print" for that too so I could also a one large linear page to read through. Plz also remove extra lines when JavaScript disabled viewing done here too. i.e. Forums posts appear too scattered when reading through JavaScript disabled.

    Plz also refine "TheRegister/Week" in JavaScript disabled version. the icon images should appear left and lines condensed on right of it so could have visibility more at single glance instead of getting psychological burden of god knows how many pages I have to scroll down to reach last read article in this page.

    Yes I am same guy who few months back was asking for job at Alreg to write articles for.

  456. Atomic Duetto
    FAIL

    I give the reg 12 weeks b4 you're forgotten

    Still fucked, still to hard to quickly scan and read or choose an article based on comments. On that, what makes a "top article" top?

    Honestly, I've not read more than four or five stories since the redesign. I used to be in here multiple times during the day.

    What a cluster fuck

  457. Old but bold

    Bring back different colours for heading and comment

  458. Joseph Eoff
    Unhappy

    Still sucks

    Still have to use no script and ABE to kill all the crap. The delay on the menu makes it only slightly less annoying.

    Layout still sucks, too.

    Much prefer the comments editor without javascript.

    Just revert it already, Okay?

  459. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    More fail

    The "tips and corrections" link doesn't look like a link. It looks like a bit of text got lost at the end of the article. I just accidentally hovered over the "tips and corrections" text and only then realized that it is a link.

  460. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it getting worse?

    The Story about the hacked 007 script literally doesn't show a single line of the story when I go to it, because of the HUGE picture of Daniel Craig at the top.

    What sort of moron thinks this is a good idea? (Answer: the sort of moron who reads design magazines instead of developing their own talent and critical abilities).

    1. Rimpel

      Re: Is it getting worse?

      The picture on the Sony story is completely pointless as the relevance to the story is tenuous - its a picture of a mummy (because the headline uses the word 'rags' as far as I can work out).

      This got me thinking do I actually ever look at any pictures on the site? and I have decided that I don't so now adblock plus blocks all images apart from the comment icons.

      Although I think that I'll just find a different site to read tbh.

      1. Kevin 6

        Re: Is it getting worse?

        Rimpel in the same boat.

        Been reading the news here for many years, and think maybe its time to find a new news site as this place seems to have lost touch with the people who read it.

  461. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    Well, damn ...

    Even more useless. Just noticed that the login link from the main page disappears when I block javascript.

  462. This post has been deleted by its author

  463. hamiltoneuk

    Did You Expect Anything Else?

    Well done. Keep experimenting. live adventurously. Tech is so BLOODY BORING now something has to be done!!!!

  464. Bloodbeastterror

    "We're listening to your feedback"

    In what way exactly? It's still the same crap that was here last week. I drop in occasionally but I don't stay - it's a literally-blinding experience with so much harsh white. I *could* turn down the brightness, but I'm not doing that just for one badly-designed site.

    Pity. I'm going to have to take you off my bookmarks. A long relationship ruined.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: "We're listening to your feedback"

      "It's still the same crap that was here last week."

      Give us time to work it out, or everyone'll be screaming we fucked up all over again.

      C.

  465. Ketlan
    FAIL

    Three days later...

    ...and it's still here. Hideous crap.

  466. kmac499

    LOHAN will be missed

    By that I mean no matter what level of success LOHAN finally achieves, no one will ever know.

    WHY? Because there will be no one left reading The Register. Change it back

  467. CarltonR

    Know your Readership

    This redesign is exceedingly irritating and completely detracts from the primary reason for your existence, namely its [uniquely quirky] informative editorial content.

    It used to be straightforward to use at a glance, with stories of interest easy identified, and those that were read clearly indicated, but this design fails miserably on all aspects of common sense or for that matter design best practice.

    Believe it, or not, I really don’t have the time to spend avoiding completely superfluous and unnecessary content. This design is totally ill-conceived and may well alienate your core readership.

    You really need a rethink on this one.

  468. fangster

    Loose the big pictures!

    The first thing I have to do on every article is scroll down a full page to get past the non-value-adding picture to the text. This is getting very boring now and I'm going to sop reading for the day and get back to work...

    Also I can't pretend that I may be reading something work-releated and technical if those big pictures flash up everytime!

  469. rcp27
    Thumb Up

    When I first arrived at el reg after the redesign, my immediate reaction was "oh, another unnecessary website redesign, I bet it'll be awful". After a few minutes looking around, my feeling was, "actually, seems alright". While changes always take a bit of getting used to, I can't honestly say there is anything here to actively piss me off, and I seem to have no more trouble than usual actually finding and reading stuff.

  470. Lee D Silver badge

    700 Posts later

    700 Posts later... where are we Reg?

    Are you going to fix it, revert it, or blindly stomp onwards with it?

    It kinda matters to me - I need to know whether to remove it from my "start page" of bookmarks....

  471. billat29

    Do You Know Who Your Customers Are?

    CIO piece. 6 days old now, Still right in the middle of the page.

    Scroll, scroll scroll.

    Stock picture, stock picture, stock picture.

    Get me outa here!

  472. Mage Silver badge
    FAIL

    Still hideous

    Ditch giant pictures and make all images smaller, if you are determined to stick with this rubbish design.

    Given up reading articles.

  473. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That date ordering system

    Just in time for Christmas? Well, why not, it is about as relevant as The Great Escape, and the Are You Being Served Christmas episode.

    Well I'm sure some have figured out, over the years, that I've been here close to a decade. Tell you what, if come New Year idiocy like the stuff I've currently blocked, and this date ordering fiasco, are still here, I won't be.

    Can't say fairer than that!

  474. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  475. Joseph Eoff

    Another bug?

    Looks like clicking refresh (or hitting F5) doesn't refresh the comments page after you post a comment. Seems to just keep reloading the same "your comment will be posted shortly" message along with the posts that were current at the time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Another bug?

      Thanks - we'll check it out.

      1. Lee D Silver badge

        Re: Another bug?

        What about the glaring design bugs?

        Hell, there could be an article from you somewhere about this and I wouldn't even know... so hideous to try to parse the frontpage.

        Guys, tell us something, or are you just hoping the furore will disappear if you do nothing for long enough?

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: Re: Another bug?

          "Guys, tell us something, or are you just hoping the furore will disappear if you do nothing for long enough?"

          We've kinda been inundated to reply to every reader comment. I'm personally a bit surprised to see the number of people who've registered just to say they hate it.

          FWIW we are listening and planning what to do next.

          Again, personally speaking and not wishing to pour fuel on the fire, but I'm wondering what the problem is with reading the headlines on the front page? The font may be a little big for your liking, but ... it's still the same 3 column design broken up a little.

          Don't go nuts, we're all human here. Some people seem to be treating the redesign as tantamount to physical assault.

          Is it mainly the front page you hate? The article pages look so much cleaner IMHO.

          C.

          1. Joseph Eoff
            FAIL

            Re: Another bug?

            It isn't just the front page.

            You probably think the article pages look so much cleaner because there's fuck all on them. Nice and clean, no information at all.

            The articles have a huge, space wasting picture that has fuck all to do with the content.

            There's the headline, a humongous picture, a bunch of useless "social media" buttons, then a few lines of text from the article. I have to scan down the crap, find the text, hope that the itty bitty little bit of text includes enough info to decide whether to read further, then scroll down for ever to actually read the article - and then discover that, oops, not really interesting after all.

            BTW:

            I've got AdBlock Edge and NoScript activated. With out that, the site is pretty much just too irritating to use.

            1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

              Re: Re: Another bug?

              "The articles have a huge, space wasting picture that has fuck all to do with the content."

              The aim is to have a strong image per story. Yes, we mostly deal with words, but a lot of what we write about – particle colliders, robots, pictures from space, server p0rn, screenshots, spaceplanes, amazing machines, etc – have great photos that speak volumes.

              Maybe the pic should be optional, but it's not supposed to be a "space wasting picture that has fuck all to do" with the article.

              "a bunch of useless 'social media' buttons"

              Social can be a massive driver of traffic, which in the end funds the journalism. Just because you don't share stuff on Twitter or Facebook doesn't mean we should ignore it.

              C.

              1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Martin-73 Silver badge

            Re: Another bug?

            The biggest annoyance to me (I use the RSS feed of headlines not the front page) is that dirty great huge pic on each page. The banner redesign is a bit weird too but it could be gotten used to.

            I also miss the 'most commented' . Personally I didn't use the 'print' button, but it seems a lot of others did, so why not restore it?

            Aside from that thanks for reiterating that you're actually listening

          3. Lee D Silver badge

            Re: Another bug?

            At least we have replies now, and seemingly by the designers?

            The problem is one of natural scanning.

            I could zip down the old webpage, and my eyes would pick out anything there in seconds. I'd often open 5-10 articles within a quick scan and then read those at my leisure.

            Now, it just doesn't do that any more. It's not just "the change", my eyes don't work on this site like they used to and still do on other sites.

            The fact that the colours are all the same blends it into one mass. There's nothing to highlight headlines but slightly larger text. And the first page of text used to be nothing more than the most read (or most interesting, or whatever) headlines with a thumbnail. Now it's a huge damn image. I get literally three article headlines on the first page without scrolling now. It used to be 12, plus the featured. I'm running on 1920 x 1080, by the way. It's hard to imagine that it's a huge percentile running higher res displays than that. But 2/3rds of my screen are plain white while I do that, and I can't see a thing.

            I don't use the top-bar at all. It's worthless. I click to read an article, direct to the content. I have literally JUST seen what people mean by the dropdown, because I would never use it. Inside the articles, yeah, fairly similar, but it's now wall-of-text-like because of the colouration (? I'm not sure).

            The top-bar was always there. Now it's moved and changed. For what purpose?

            The featured articles were always there. Now they're four times as large and as wide as the screen. For what purpose?

            The logo was always there. Now it's jumped down under an advert (presumably the driver for this design).

            There's gaps between all these layers, that weren't there before, so it's shoving content further off the page for no reason.

            The surrounding was grey before, now it's white, which is a complaint many have.

            There's nothing stopping the black headlines being blue like before, the background being grey like before, the gaps disappearing, the featured articles going back how they were etc. But then you are basically on the old design again.

            Hence I don't see quite what you've gained except vitriol.

          4. Vic

            Re: Another bug?

            FWIW we are listening and planning what to do next.

            Revert. That should be nice and easy[1], and fix pretty much all the complaints you're getting here.

            HTH, HAND, etc.

            Vic.

            [1] I'm assuming you're using some sort of version control system. This might, of course, be an assumption too far...

  476. This post has been deleted by its author

  477. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Nope, still don't like it

    Even Slashdot still let you choose the old design and they've kept it there because they know they need the page views.

    Can we not have www.theregister.co.uk and beta.register.co.uk or www.theregister.co.uk and old.theregister.co.uk and let people choose and give feedback if they want to?

    The whole design is putting me off coming back so often, other posts explain why.

  478. bluefin333
    FAIL

    Banner

    What's with the Reg logo/name centred in the red header/banner? It's a mess, put it back on the left where it should be - like on ChannelReg which you've left alone (for now?).

    Also why only hyperlink the logo not the whole banner? I keep going back to the left to reload the homepage and have to keep moving my mouse again to hit the link.

    I'm happy with progress, I work in IT so it's expected but ElReg wasn't broken... I was upset when you did away with RegHardware now this is going too far.

    Stop it, now!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hyperlinking entire masthead

      At one point, we ran sponsor links within masthead in home page "takeovers". We don't do that any more so we will update for entire masthead.

  479. Spasticus Autisticus
    Devil

    I'll send Gina round...

    ...she'll sort you out pronto!

    Never mind BOFH, you've upset us BCFH. I think you can see from the comments here (I have not read all 15 pages of them) that this revamp has not pleased the Reg readership. Please back pedal a bit and fix things like the large image, and lets have the rolling news thingy back. I don't mind the floating menu too much but it does lose us a few more pixels on our wide screens which isn't super helpful. And as others have said, why isn't the whole Reg banner clickable to get to the front page, is there a good reason? I can't think of one.

    I know people think things need to be redesigned every so often but do they really? Will you gain more readers with this revamp, or might you lose more than you gained? Not easy to know.

    Looking forward to less Toys 'R' Us and back to business like and professional looking.

  480. a_mu

    return goes to wrong place

    read a story on the 'older stories' section

    click the go back button, and one goes back to the current stories,

    google chrome / windows 7 64 bit.

  481. Doctor Evil

    Please revert

    Most of us come here to read, not to see the pretty pictures. The old design was

    - compact

    - information-dense

    - eminently readable

    A site redesign should build on these virtues. You haven't.

    Also, please restore the print icon. If the functionality still underlies the site, hiding it makes as little sense as the rest of the redesign.

    1. Aoyagi Aichou

      Re: Please revert

      Information density is what I loved about it. But that's not very "in". Wasting space is, though!

  482. Vira
    FAIL

    Change Control

    Implementation Plan: Successfully Applied

    Test Plan: Failed (massively)

    Rollback Plan: Initiate. Do it now.

    This site is hideous now. Please revert it back to the previous design. Theres far too much black and white stuff going on and waaaay too much scrolling due to its massive size. Other posters have covered most of the badness.

    Obligatory 'Jeez' and eye rolling thrown in here too.

  483. Mage Silver badge
    Pint

    Crows orcs

    Crowd source our own properly done site.

    When we run out of actual content, just add humorous comments.

    None of this stuff of an office premises either. Work from home (or the office of day job during breaks).

    This site is now a bad copy of the last BBC website remake.

    Useless.

  484. Tikimon
    FAIL

    SINGLE PAGE VIEW please!

    Jeebus, I hate having to load the same article five different times, then click back page by page looking for a particular bit.

    PLEASE give me back some way of viewing as a single page! Otherwise, knowing I'll need to click for each paragraph (exaggeration yes) I won't bother with an article at all.

    WHAT was wrong with the OLD site? It worked fine for me!

  485. Grade%
    Windows

    The universe is full of fail.

    There there. You'll be fine. Take that nice tissue over there and blow your nose. See? Feeling better already aren't you. Well, there's another teensy problemero with that menu bar that follows me around. See, I actually tried to use it and well, I like to right click and open the story in a new tab like. And well, once the mouse pointer traverses over to the right click menu, the drop down whatchamacallit disappears and I'm disconcerted like about what I'm opening in a new tab. It would be nice if the menu stayed until I was actually done with it. What would be nicer still would be that you got rid of it entirely -- at least stop it from following me around!

  486. keithpeter Silver badge
    Windows

    http://m.theregister.co.uk/

    As mentioned way up the screen the mobile site works rather well. I can tile Firefox with a terminal window side by side and browse while I wait for stuff to complete.

    Any chance of forums/comments being available in same template?

    1. keithpeter Silver badge

      Re: http://m.theregister.co.uk/

      What I should have said was "any chance of getting the mobile version of pages linked to from the mobile page"

      At present, links in m.theregister.co.uk lead to full fat targets even when m.theregister.co.uk targets exist. Seems like a bug to me...

  487. Terrence Bayrock
    Unhappy

    Rolling {sunburnt}eyes and sighing.........

    It would seem the El Reg is DETERMINED to try to FORCE it's readers to change habits.

    Pity

    Perhaps an appeal to the advertisers might work?

    ....nope; bloody-minded designers in the way

    Perhaps an appeal to the editors would work?

    ...nope, too emotionally attached and afraid to admit mistakes

    I use to enjoy the articles & yes, even pickup a bit of kit from the adverts.

    Now I am scoring the Internet for a sane site, to only chance upon these shores from time to time {when I need my vitamin D replenishment}...

  488. Jamie Jones Silver badge

    A design suggestion

    Maybe you could copy the design these guys use....

    </sarc>

    Just make the right hand bar a bit smaller though...

    https://web.archive.org/web/20090228193120/http://www.theregister.co.uk/

    Incidentally, I'm probably not the only one to have gone from about 15 articles a day to 2 since this change was made.

    It's not some stubborn boycott or protest - I've simply not had the interest

    1. Ralph the Wonder Llama
      Unhappy

      Re: A design suggestion

      "Incidentally, I'm probably not the only one to have gone from about 15 articles a day to 2 since this change was made."

      You're not. That's about the scale of my reduction in use. After ten years. After a few days, I still don't like most of the most-cited (things that we perceive as) problems - especially the pointlessly large main image, the banner menu images, the followed link style, the timestamp (yes, really). The main problem for me, however, and it seems for many others, and the thing that prevents me from staying long (long enough to get used to the new design?) is the sheer bright whiteness. It hurts my eyeses.

    2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Re: A design suggestion

      Fuck that's impressive. The old design was really WAY better and less agressive.

  489. Ketlan
    Devil

    Hmmm...

    'Maybe you could copy the design these guys use....'

    What a great and efficient looking page. I wish the Register looked like that.

  490. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    Dead Vulture

    I'll resurrect the icon just in case...

    Here's hoping the death of The Register has been greatly exaggerated ---------->

  491. The Quiet One

    What the actual fuck...

    Why have you done this to us??? What did we do to deserve this abomination?!

    I honestly have stopped visiting the site during my lunch breaks etc because I want to spend my precious 30 minutes digesting useful and informative journalism, not having my eyes raped by this awful re-design....seriously, was your design consultant a member of the KKK or did he previously work for Daz? SO MUCH WHITE!!

    Finally, why in the name of all that's holy is the headline story so large? It takes up so much of my window i can barely see anything else.....

    I thought The Reg was a haven of common sense in an world where "like totally, ya'know" media types designed websites.......it seems you were just slow on the uptake.

    For Shame.....

  492. Joseph Eoff

    And another thing...

    Just how long do you intend to let the front page get?

    Right now, it takes 12 page downs to get from the top to the bottom.

    The articles from 11 December are still there, so we've got five days worth of articles on one page.

    It seems you used to keep only a few days worth of articles on the front page. Are you going for the "infinite scroll" effect from "The Daily WTF" comments page?

  493. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So long...

    Since it's obvious that they don't give a sh*t - neither do I anymore.

    I used to visit at least 6x times a day, now I'm down to once at most, mainly so far just to see if they've changed it back, and they haven't.

    It was BOFH that first brought me to the site, the articles that made me stay, but now I can feel my eyes being strained even just writing this I can't stay any longer.

    So long and thanks for all the fish.

  494. Dwarf

    So long, and thanks for all the fish

    Well, all good things come to an end. Its just unfortunate that you've decided to do a hari kari on your previously good site.

    I tried to read the register on the train on the way home this evening on a regular ipad and its just not workable. It takes ages to load images I don't want - as they are pointless and they are eating my bandwidth allowance, which is costing me money. Once the articles page has loaded, virtually all of the page is taken up with crap I don't want to see and am not interested in. I get 8 lines of the text that I do want to read that are restricted to about two thirds of the width of the page. What a complete fail.

    So, in summary it doesn't work on a tablet device and it doesn't work on a typical desktop screen due to the inflexible template and objects that are just FAR TOO BIG. So, exactly what type of device were you aiming to make it work on ??

    The new template is just a complete fail in every way you look at it. I suggest you put it back to what works if you want to keep your users.

    For me, its been fun over the last 10 years, but I'm checking out. I'll get my news somewhere else.

    So long and thanks for all the fish.

    <click>

    No Carrier

    >_

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

      "I'll get my news somewhere else."

      Where are you getting your IT news now? Regretfully I haven't read a new El Reg article since the change last week. All I am following is this comment thread just to see "what happens next".

  495. The Quiet One

    Designed by the monster behind this site.....

    His fingerprints are all over this re-design.

    http://www.rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk/

    1. Joseph Eoff
      FAIL

      Re: Designed by the monster behind this site.....

      That was interesting.

      I've got Flashblock, Ad Block, and noscript all active.

      That page was just a big black box with a blue outline. Way to win customers.

      1. The Quiet One

        Re: Designed by the monster behind this site.....

        You should try it without the blockers active. It's a real treat for the eyes.

    2. Ralph the Wonder Llama
      FAIL

      Re: Designed by the monster behind this site.....

      lol - what's a COUNRTY?

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: Designed by the monster behind this site.....

        I visited the above site using this mobile, and just got a blank site.

        Lovely

    3. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: Designed by the monster behind this site.....

      I love that website! It's vibrant and cheerful. You have to click on Mr Punch to get to the next page. And I haven't seen so much purple and yellow capital letters on a page, since the 1990s.

      It's awesome!

      Oh sorry, that's a typo. I meant awful. I wish I'd put my shades on first. But it was a nice bit of nostalgia. I'm still waiting for El Reg to let us use the <blink> tag...

      1. Martin-73 Silver badge

        Re: Designed by the monster behind this site.....

        I was especially fond of the email links that led to an @aol email address, nostalgia indeed.

        *goes to use optrex

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: Designed by the monster behind this site.....

          Martin-73,

          Erk! AOL. I had to log into an AOL email account yesterday. Fixing a friend's pooter, and he's still got the old AOL account, and I didn't know where a password reminder was going to end up.

          Truly their homepage is a horrific mess. Not quite as eye-watering as the other site, but close. The only thing on there that's subtle is the link to the webmail interface, which is exceedingly small, and well-hidden. Ugh!

  496. Efros

    Not angry just not reading

    I'm not going to go into hyperbole, the redesign has seriously impeded the usability and readability of the site. When visiting it is a struggle to see which stories I've read and finding stories of potential interest is not as easy as it was. Consequently my visits and number of articles read have been severely curtailed, to the point where I doubt if I've read in the last week what would have been my daily average consumption. I'm not suggesting a retrograde step but please do something about the major complaints, huge images, image relevance, acres of white space, visited links greyness, and huge pop down menus.

  497. kmac499

    I wonder what STOB would make of this

    Title says it all really...

  498. myhandler

    No, it hasn't got less hideous over the last two days- it still sucks big time.

    Get some grown up graphic designers.

  499. Mage Silver badge
    Coat

    Terminal

    I'm sorry there is no change, at least for the better, perhaps the extremities are starting to rot.

    I better put on the hazard suit.

  500. Ascompltd

    hOLY cRAP

    Are we all Blind.... Why the Hugh Font I am sure most people read the Reg at there desk not form an armchair across the room.

    what happened to color coding for read and unread storys.....

    1. Doctor Evil

      Re: hOLY cRAP

      Hugh paid good money so they'd use his font. Vanity thing. You could do the same if there's such a beast as an Ascompltd font.

  501. Ketlan

    Come on, Reg, wake up.

    So is El Reg going to update us or what?

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Come on, Reg, wake up.

      Come on, Ketlan poster, keep up.

      Anyway, my previous posts attempting to engage with readers have been downvoted so I guess everyone here doesn't want to hear what Reg staff have to say.

      C.

      1. strawman

        Re: Come on, Reg, wake up.

        @diodesign I down voted your comments because people have been describing why they don't like the layout over 15 pages and you say "I'm wondering what the problem is"

        Yes maybe people are going overboard but telling people "Don't go nuts, we're all human here" doesn't really address any of the complaints and it makes you sound condescending.

        As for your justification of the pictures, that's fine, but people seem to be complaining more about the size than the actual pictures.

        So come on Diodesign, keep up.

        ps - As one who registered just to complain all I can say is the kid that didn't speak for years said, "Well everything has been fin up to now"

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: Re: Come on, Reg, wake up.

          "it makes you sound condescending"

          I feel anything I say now is going to irritate people, so I give up.

          C.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Re: Re: Come on, Reg, wake up.

            Thank you!

          2. strawman

            Re: Come on, Reg, wake up.

            @diodesign Hell, don't give up. Just give out a few explanations like you did with the pictures and the social media stuff.

  502. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So it's been almost a week. The subjective feedback is pretty clear cut. I'd love to see some figures on your performance metrics. Particularly the re-visit rate and number of stories read per visit/day. If my experience is anything to go by they've gone through the floor.

  503. Little Mouse

    Deep breath - Count to 10

    My first reaction – and comment – was not positive, so I’ve spent the last few days seeing if I can be a bit more objective. There is actually one change that I like: Using the sticky-header-menu thing to browse the categories.

    But the real issue for me is that my eyes simply have trouble scanning the homepage without experiencing real discomfort – it feels like I’m trying to read whilst suffering from a major headache but without the pain. Is it the font? The whitespace? The spacing?

    I don’t know if it’s possible to temporarily induce dyslexia, but it certainly feels like it.

  504. Sl1ck
    FAIL

    You guys are reminding me of children...

    ....The team @ The Reg that is.

    If you pretend it's not there, it doesn't go away. 767 posts concerning the redesign within a forum that has 3567 posts over 208 topics (quite a weighting for one subject that's barely a week old...) - and the vast majority of them saying you've got it wrong on so many levels.

    DrewC - you are the "face" for this, but so far have done little to address the concerns of your customers. Please give us an update, and preferably of the kind that restores our faith (i.e. revert back or correct the design, not just "update 2" or "thanks for reporting a new bug").

    By this point in time it must be clear that this was not a good move. I'm trying to use the site with adblocking the large pictures, but it's crazy we should be doing this - especially when so much of the underlying design in also flawed. By not reacting or showing you are listening to the core concerns, you are going to lose the advertising revenue you so desperately need - either by decrease in visits, or through people using adblockers to attempt to use the site. And as for us, we lose a much valued and treasured resource.

    As I've said to Executive Teams in the past when providing less than favourable feedback or news;

    "Just because you don't like it, it doesn't make it wrong".

    And for the record, I'm referring to the overwhelming feedback (bad news). The site IS bad, and it IS wrong.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: You guys are reminding me of children...

      OK, it would be nice if everyone calmed down. The feedback from people posting here is clear. As I've said before, you're treating the redesign as tantamount to physical assault, which isn't right.

      All I can say is: we're working on it. If we rush out a change, everyone posting here will go apeshit again.

      C.

      1. trialanderr0r

        Like Prince Charley put it....

        "you're treating the redesign as tantamount to physical assault, which isn't right."

        No, the response is more that of commentards proverbially seeing "a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend"...

        The comments should be taken as "tough love" - now please respond accordingly and do the $*&% roll-back!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: You guys are reminding me of children...

        You were right -- that is irritating!

      3. MrXavia

        Re: You guys are reminding me of children...

        "OK, it would be nice if everyone calmed down. The feedback from people posting here is clear. As I've said before, you're treating the redesign as tantamount to physical assault, which isn't right."

        It was an assault for many people, sure not physical, but mentally, an assault on the senses, surely a 'beta' site would have been the way to go, get feedback before giving the new site to the masses..

        "All I can say is: we're working on it. If we rush out a change, everyone posting here will go apeshit again."

        Just roll it back to a previous version while you work on it...

      4. Mellifluous
        Unhappy

        Re: You guys are reminding me of children...

        It is the imposition of change, one that is widely disliked, that is the problem. You do not need to "rush out a change", because, as stated many times elsewhere, it should be rolled back to the old design.

        Why break something that was not broken?? Please, please go back to the previous design.

  505. Sl1ck

    16 Page Limit On Forum Comments

    Has anyone else noticed that you can only view 16 pages of comments - everything prior to that has gone "missing".....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 16 Page Limit On Forum Comments

      "everything prior to that has gone "missing"..."

      The highly upvoted J. R. Hartley post still starts Page 1. Are you sure there were any readers' posts prior to that?

      1. Sl1ck

        Re: 16 Page Limit On Forum Comments

        Anonymous Coward:

        Guessing not then - I think I was thrown off by DrewC's comment being the first in the list.

        It looks like I got it wrong.. (See ElReg - it's not that difficult ;-)

        As for that comment from J. R. - I think another upvote it in order :-)

  506. Tufty Squirrel

    Oh, for fuck's sake roll it back.

    It's fucking awful.

  507. fearnothing

    Seconding that the most positive thing is the new category menu. Nthing that in general it's not very good. My dislike is less marked than most but annoyance rather than anger is still not a thumbs up from me.

  508. Jamie Jones Silver badge

    We've kinda been inundated to reply to every reader comment. I'm personally a bit surprised to see the number of people who've registered just to say they hate it.

    [ ... ]

    Don't go nuts, we're all human here. Some people seem to be treating the redesign as tantamount to physical assault."

    I agree that some posts have been a bit extreme, and that in my opinion, your followup posts have attracted unnecessary down-votes, but generally, please see this as a good thing.

    It shows the 'brand loyalty' and passion this site has built up in people - Far better than if everyone just shrugged and went elsewhere.

    "Again, personally speaking and not wishing to pour fuel on the fire, but I'm wondering what the problem is with reading the headlines on the front page? The font may be a little big for your liking, but ... it's still the same 3 column design broken up a little."

    OK, here are my thoughts:

    Main page

    The banner logo looks less professional - maybe due to removal of the shadowing? But, meh...

    The category links stood out much clearer, and looked more like links with the white on grey font.

    I see no point in this bar now being statically placed at the top of the screen, but meh #2

    HUGE PICTURE: Also often not even specific to the article, but some general stock photo. Tolerable before with the thumbnail size, but now ridiculously large. If pictures are specific to an article, their use at this size should be on the article page only. Thumbnails on the front page can help break up the text, but don't have too many useless stock images for the sake of it.

    Before, I'd load the front page, and a number of articles would grab me at once, and I'd end up reading more than I planned as I sift through the many tabs I've opened. Now, you need to scroll through 3 article links at a time, making it easier to leave the site when originally intended. I'm sure many bosses will thank you for that!

    Main links.. Yes, still the 3 column design, which is good, but there's something there that makes them not appear as separate as before. I can't put my finger on it - it's as if each box previously gad a border, but now doesn't -- I know this isn't the case, but something is making the entries seem less individual than before.. Is it maybe the white-space change, or the lesser colour distinction between the headlines and the bylines? *shrug*

    Time-format..... Is this being done to make it easier for people in different time-zones?

    Add back the article author please!

    'number of comments' under each link. This should either link to the comments (rather than the article) or not be a link at all.

    Too much white-space around that 'feature box' that appears after the first 2 rows

    "Is it mainly the front page you hate? The article pages look so much cleaner IMHO."

    Article page

    Huge detracting photo with no specific relevance.

    Same image often repeated (obviously a bug not a design decision, so I'll ignore that)

    Otherwise, yeah, that page is ok.

    comments page

    not a new change, but the date of the comments is awfully imprecise.. At least change it so that the non-javascript fallback shows the time as well as the date!

    TL; DR

    To me, apart from the huuuuge image on thr article page, it is mainly the front page.

    You ask for details about what we consider wrong with the new design: I'd turn it around, and by no means trolling, would ask what you think is now *better* when compared ti this: https://web.archive.org/web/20090228193120/http://www.theregister.co.uk/

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Jamie Jones

      "HUGE PICTURE: Also often not even specific to the article, but some general stock photo."

      I'll admit I was among those who suggested we make a better play of pictures. Perhaps they shouldn't appear on every article until we've either got a dedicated picture desk or they should be made smaller, or both. I don't make these decisions.

      It's sad because it wasn't our intention to use pics that, as one soul said above, have "fuck all" to do with the stories.

      "Time-format..... Is this being done to make it easier for people in different time-zones?"

      I guess so. More than half our readers are in the US, and we have a healthy number in APAC.

      So I think the main thing is that the in-your-face design we hoped would guide readers to the obvious big news – NATS cockups, Sony being hacked/sued, etc – and allow people to scroll down to peruse other stuff isn't working. There were worries that the previous design was looking like Ceefax.

      Sometimes a big story or a really decent analysis can get lost in all the other coverage. Social stuff needed to be more accessible rather than tucked to the side.

      What I'm trying to say is that there is method in the madness. It's the UK office's Xmas party tomorrow (Wednesday) and people are off and about for Christmas, so please don't get too frustrated if changes aren't made immediately.

      C.

      1. Joseph Eoff

        "Social Stuff"

        No, the "Social Stuff" doesn't need to be more accessible. It needs to be LESS accessible, as in "completely fucking GONE."

        Seriously, do you expect us to share articles on the state of the IT business on facebook alongside the pictures of somebody's lunch and someone else's grandkids? Seriously? This is where you want the Reg? Dumped in alongside the drivel posted on twitter? Do you have any statistics that say that the Reg users are even using the social media links at all?

        BTW:

        Congratulations. The front page pictures are starting to be related to the stories. There's actually a picture of an amazon Fire in the headline of an article on the Fire. Now if the blasted picture weren't so damned enormous...

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: "Social Stuff"

          "Seriously, do you expect us to share articles on the state of the IT business on facebook"

          Sharing links about new all-NAND storage arrays to your grandparents is obviously a really dull idea. But a mid-range smartphone review, a laptop comparison, a story about scams targeting small biz, a piece about malware holding people's files to ransom, abuses by the government and cops, etc may fit within your social circle. Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever you want, or none at all. No pressure.

          But millions are sharing news via social.

          "The front page pictures are starting to be related to the stories."

          Fantastic. We're getting there. Not every story can carry a giant 650px pic, but some can, so a compromise must be found.

          C.

          1. Joseph Eoff

            Re: "Social Stuff"

            Sorry, missed your reply in the flood.

            Yeah, no.

            I don't have a "social circle" in the sense of belonging to facebook/twitter/whatever. On occasion, I will forward a link to an interesting article to someone via email - along with a short description of why I think the receiver might be interested as well as a "Hi, howyadoin" while I'm at it.

            I don't have any interest in the shallow "everybody is a friend" world of facebook and similar sites. Who actually reads all the self absorbed BS on those sites? NOBODY - they are all busy posting their own latest crap.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Jamie Jones

        I'll admit I was among those who suggested we make a better play of pictures. Perhaps they shouldn't appear on every article until we've either got a dedicated picture desk or they should be made smaller, or both. I don't make these decisions.

        Thanks for the frankness. Hopefully those who do make those decisions are seeing the almost overwhelming dislike for the overly large and often irrelevant images. (although I note that has improved somewhat interms of relevance. I'm still seeing the odd story with the image repeated again a few line into the story but alt tags are being filled in more often now)

        "Time-format..... Is this being done to make it easier for people in different time-zones?"

        I guess so. More than half our readers are in the US, and we have a healthy number in APAC.

        Can the time stamp not be calculated based on the users local time? An absolute time/date would work for everyone in that case.

        There were worries that the previous design was looking like Ceefax.

        That doesn't necessarily implay "bad". Just changing the typeface and colours could have produced a sharper, cleaner and more modern design. The big problem for me is the larger fonts so I see less information on the home page. As a technically oriented site with technically oriented readers, higher information density is expected and welcomed by most. Also, while discussing the front page, can we change the mouse hover colour on the story links? For years, red has been for visited links and I've missed a few stories when scolling down because it turns red as it passes under the mouse pointer and my brain ignores it.

        Sometimes a big story or a really decent analysis can get lost in all the other coverage. Social stuff needed to be more accessible rather than tucked to the side.

        I don't have a problem with either of those, but the way to emphasise a big story needs to be looked at again. The main headline and image is just too big on a laptopor desktop screen.

        What I'm trying to say is that there is method in the madness. It's the UK office's Xmas party tomorrow (Wednesday) and people are off and about for Christmas, so please don't get too frustrated if changes aren't made immediately.

        Have fun :-)

        (But next time you want to have a major site make-over, don't do it just before the weekend and/or just before a long drunken holiday. I suspect that "someone", who may not have voiced it out loud, planned it this way so as to have an excuse to retain their vision of the future as long as possible, with plausible excuses, in the hope that people will eventually accempt it (Cynical? Moi? :-))

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Jamie Jones

      "It shows the 'brand loyalty' and passion this site has built up in people"

      BTW I appreciate and get that, and it's kinda a relief to see.

      C.

  509. BenjaminHare

    Rollback or User Option

    Are there any plans for a rollback? If not, are there any plans to allow users to customize the layout? Of particular interest to me; shrinking the pictures back to their former size, or simply disabling them completely. I appreciate all of the work your design team has put in, but the new layout is actually making it more difficult for me to consume the wonderful content on the site.

  510. Ketlan

    'Come on, Ketlan poster, keep up.'

    I don't see your point - unless it's just to be bloody patronising. Ketlan is actually my name, by the way.

    'Anyway, my previous posts attempting to engage with readers have been downvoted so I guess everyone here doesn't want to hear what Reg staff have to say.'

    Everyone here DOES want to hear what you have to say - the problem is WHAT you're saying. Try saying 'we're rolling back to the old look next week' and see how many upvotes that gets you.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      My guess...

      is that they have switched to a new CMS and CAN'T rollback without losing all the articles added since the switch over.

      I know at a previous company they were so confident the switchover would be a success that they only wrote scripts to export from the old CMS and import into the new CMS, and not scripts the other way round.

      It's either that, or they are just being stubborn little children.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  511. Roger B
    Thumb Down

    This has probably been mentioned already

    But, the site looks way to much like those wonderful Taboola adverts which is very very off putting. I think its the photo with the bold headline underneath that makes it look bad.

  512. MrWibble

    one other annoyance - the pop up on the author's name on articles, which the hides the article! can you put a delay on this as well please?

    Some of us still use mice, and when navigating the page, this type of pop up is extremely annoying.

  513. Joseph Eoff

    Ahhh...

    Much better. Doesn't fix the fixed width or the white, but at least it isn't as annoying - it is only ugly.

    Now if someone would comeup with a greasemonky script to fix all the white and fix the width.

    AdBlock Edge rules:

    [Subscription]

    url=~user~413605

    title=Fix the Reg

    [Subscription filters]

    theregister.co.uk##.gplus

    theregister.co.uk##.fbook

    theregister.co.uk##.tweet_link

    theregister.co.uk##script#bug.surrogate.1

    theregister.co.uk##script#bug.surrogate.38

    theregister.co.uk##div#ad-oop-spot

    theregister.co.uk##div#nav_pop

    theregister.co.uk##div#top_tease

    theregister.co.uk##.large_story

    theregister.co.uk##.article_head

    ||go.theregister.com/k/*

    Usercontent.css:

    @-moz-document domain(theregister.co.uk) {

    a { color: #101070!important; }

    a:visited { color: #A01010!important; }

    a:hover{ color: #FFFFFF!important; background: #3F455A!important; }

    }

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ahhh...

      Have adblock installed but have no idea as to how to implement your suggestion. The site used to be good but now I only visit it the odd time. The idea of having to do all that scrolling is just driving me away and as for the new layout, my 14 year old son could design something better in minecraft, that would look nice and encourage users to stay. Back to the original question, can you post somewhere instructions on how us non-tech people can get rid of the pictures, change the colour and generally make the site more useful and (more importantly), more readable / useable? It would be really appreciated as I would like to continue reading the Register but I just cannot face it in its current condition.

      As an aside, the first time the site loaded, I totally shut down the windows machine as I thought the site had been hi-jacked, it looked so ugly and non-IT and followed none of their standards. Refused to visit until I got my hands on a Linux box and then discovered the disaster of the redesign that they had done. Pity somebody can't do a scraper to get us back to the old way (or something similar). I would much more prefer to use that then the current pile of sh1te that they have. It is just so ugly, it makes the ugly duckling look beautiful. H3ll, then monster out of any film / story is better looking and more sensitive than this sites current layout. What an unmitigated disaster - it is just so yuck (I believe the IT term would be "clusterfuck". Is this correct?

      As another aside, can anybody suggest a site to replace El Reg? If so, let me know as anything else would be better than this crap. Many thanks to the commentators who know what we need and not to the re-designers who are driving the readers aware in their droves. (pity we cannot compare W8 take up numbers with the drop-off in this sites usage - that would make interesting reading). Guess 18 pages of commentards complaining means nothing, just the same attitude as MS have. Oh well, time to move on.

      1. Mostly Human

        Re: Ahhh...

        Try http://www.theinquirer.net, started by Reg co-founder Mike Magee. At least the headline tabs are NOT ALL IN SHOUTY UPPERCASE.

    2. Extra spicey vindaloo
      Thumb Up

      Re: Ahhh...

      Thankyou for the adblock filters. have an upvote sir.

  514. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Is the story photo selection automated?

    Is there an automated keywords based system being used in some case to select stock photos for some stories?

    See the "More from the Register" section in this story...

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/17/legality_of_coppers_facial_recognition_database_called_into_question/

    Three related stories with "Police" in the title and all with the same stock image.

    If this is the case, that would explain the almost total irrelevance of many of the story title images and whoever sold you that sofware made out like a bandit.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

      No, the images are uploaded and selected by busy humans.

      C.

      1. The Mole

        Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

        In that case they need better training to pick ones that are an appropriate size and quality not stretched and distorted like the eu flag.

        Better still make their lives slightly less busy and don't force pictures in for the sake of it. Its an old journalism adage that the picture should add to the story, just because you are digital doesn't make it any less true.

        All a massive picture of the EU flag (or other stock photo) does at the top of an article is waste space and forces immediate scrolling to read more than a line of the story - meaning you now only have 1 line to get my interest not the whole paragraph. It also pushes adverts off the screen reducing views and potential clicks.

        Currently I've not installed any ad-blocking and even occasionally click the adverts to support el reg. These images are annoying me so much that I'm seriously tempted to block out all images to make the site usable again.

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

          "In that case they need better training to pick ones that are an appropriate size and quality"

          Problem is that the site used to be 535px wide and most of the teaser art was about 200px wide. So a lot of our internal pic library is <650px. Then the width was increased to 650px in the redesign. It'll take time to flush the smaller stuff away and populate the library with hi-res images.

          C.

          1. Joseph Eoff

            Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

            Easy fix - make the picture size SMALLER so it doesn't cover half the damned page, then you won't need hi-res images.

          2. Mage Silver badge

            Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

            Stupidty!

            No image bigger than 200 pixel

            Most 64 x 64.

            You need Hires images like you need a hole in the head.

            This isn't the BBC!

      2. Mage Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

        I'm amazed that:

        1) You can admit it

        2) You have not yet shrunk the images, yes I know I'm not on 19.2K dialup since November 2005, but postage stamp main images and icon sized subsidiary images are better.

        I can recommend a range of free or cheap image editing tools and point you to a tutorial. Because the site is still absolute rubbish.

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

          Yes, all right, David Bailey ;-)

          We've got images up to and beyond 650px, some 2000px, some 185px, some 200, some 450, and so on. It's not all sub-650px. This comes from optimizing images for a site serving 20+ million page views a month. We're gearing up for bigger and better image use, just give it time.

          Edit: I swear every downvote makes me not want to spend my time here.

          C.

          1. Joseph Eoff

            Noooooo!

            "We're gearing up for bigger and better image use, just give it time."

            NNNoooooooooo!!!!!!

            I've just killed all the damned oversize, useless images with adblock, and now you tell me you want to add more of the damned things?

            We keep telling you "get rid of the pictures," you keep saying you are listening to us, then you go and say you are going to add more (and bigger) pictures.

            Are you just fucking with us then?

            "We're listening...... NOT. Hahahaha!"

          2. Joseph Eoff

            Re: I swear every downvote makes me not want to spend my time here."

            Quote diodesign: "Edit: I swear every downvote makes me not want to spend my time here."

            Then fix the fucking problems.

            I guarantee you, everytime you fix a problem and post a notification of it, you will get so many upvotes it will more than make up for all the down votes.

          3. jake Silver badge

            @ diodesign (was: Re: Is the story photo selection automated?)

            "I swear every downvote makes me not want to spend my time here."

            Might want to ask yourself "How can we fix this interface so I don't see negative comments about the current piss-poor version?", instead of ignoring the user-base opinion.

            That persistent menu bar & "must see" pop-ups should be the first to go ...

            1. Anonymous Custard

              Re: @ diodesign (was: Is the story photo selection automated?)

              I swear every downvote makes me not want to spend my time here.

              We feel the same way about oversized and obscuring stock pictures that don't add anything to the site or stories...

          4. Vic

            Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

            We've got images up to and beyond 650px, some 2000px, some 185px, some 200, some 450, and so on. It's not all sub-650px

            A copy of mogrify - which will cost you the pricely sum of £0.00 - will give you all that art in whatever format/size you want. The big upscales might look a bit shit, but that's the last of your problems.

            A script to do the whole damn lot to all the sizes you've planned will take less than an hour to write. I'll even volunteer to do it for you, for free.

            But - as has been said so many times - you're trying to fix a problem that is entirely of your own causing. Reverting to the old format makes the whole problem go away...

            Vic.

      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Is the story photo selection automated?

        "No, the images are uploaded and selected by busy humans."

        Thanks.

  515. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    Not again...

    All aboard the fail boat...

    The length of the fron page seems to be controlled by javascript. If you deactivate javascript, then the fron page is 12 screens long (has articles back to 12 December, thats 5 days.)

    With javascript, it is only 4 screens long and only has articles up to 1 day old.

  516. Joseph Eoff

    Better ABE Rules

    [Subscription]

    url=~user~413605

    title=Fix the Reg

    [Subscription filters]

    theregister.co.uk##.gplus

    theregister.co.uk##.fbook

    theregister.co.uk##.tweet_link

    theregister.co.uk##script#bug.surrogate.1

    theregister.co.uk##script#bug.surrogate.38

    theregister.co.uk##div#ad-oop-spot

    theregister.co.uk##div#nav_pop

    theregister.co.uk##div#top_tease

    theregister.co.uk##.large_story

    theregister.co.uk##.article_img

    theregister.co.uk##div#social_btns

    ||go.theregister.com/k/*

  517. Lizard

    I've read through a lot of the feedback on the redesign, I haven't yet noticed any positive comments..

    Are El Reg planning to do what your legions of loyal followers desire are roll back to the old site design?

    TBH, I can't believe there was no beta test of the new site design prior to roll-out to gauge users reaction.

    At least when Google maps had their update there is the option to revert to classic maps.

    The Register used to be my home page for all browsers - not anymore!

    BRING BACK CLASSIC REGISTER!

  518. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well done on the re-design!

    No, seriously.

    I have never before seen such a show of unanimity amongst the commentards of this (previously) fine organ.

    Bravo!

  519. Joseph Eoff
    Thumb Up

    Thumbs up

    You should have done this earlier. With the new design to motivate me, I've got a set of adblock rules and usercontent.css that actually makes the site easier to use as compared to the old one.

    There's things I could do to make me like it even more, but now that the pain is (much) reduced, I'll probably stick with what I've got.

  520. Mage Silver badge
    Meh

    Almost a solution

    This version of El Reg

    Perhaps with icons.

  521. Mage Silver badge
    Headmaster

    A hyper link compromise

    200 pix header images and smaller.

    Make them clickable to THEN load a full size / larger one. You are NOT running the BBC or a Porn site.

  522. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1998 called...

    They want their story line back:

    What The Register did:

    http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19980905

    How most of us feel:

    http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19981017

  523. The Quiet One

    I wonder how much of the site traffic is just people;

    1. Coming to see if they have rolled back yet

    2. Coming to this thread to have a laugh at the vitriolic comments

    That's the only reason I come here now. It's laughable no roll back has been done yet, I am starting to think someone forgot to take a backup before they launched the new site.

    1. Mage Silver badge
      IT Angle

      At worst ...

      They can fix most of the stupid BBC style on bbc.com by using SMALLER Images. Not bigger.

    2. chivo243 Silver badge
      Pint

      Are you over my shoulder

      @The Quiet One

      These are the only reasons I have returned since Saturday.

      Upvote for the back up comment, I'll be sharing this tomorrow in the office.

      So for constructive criticism:

      I saw El Reg front page on an iSlab the other day, it looked "normalish". I did not navigate the site.

      Please bring back the "Most Commented" tab. I used it almost daily. It usually contained the most lively discussions.

      Please add a few more icons to the mix on the comments page. The Tin foil hat would be a place to start. Possibly a PHB(like the guy in Dilbert) would be nice, as well as the BOFH and PFY, I'm sure those icons would get lots of use.

      And maybe the possibility of adding two icons to a post, you know for effect like big fat pictures at the top of each story.

      And would it kill you to let us have a sig? Limit 40 keystrokes? Less? More?

      I would like to know what post was last up/downvoted as well. Not just a running total of all votes. Maybe a notification you have a reply to a post would be nice, doesn't have to be email or anything, just a little balloon next to your name at the top of the page?

      In the end, I'm having trouble seeing where El Reg is going with this new approach. Do they get more mobile traffic than desk/laptops? Do they really want to be a discussion forum? Or just a content delivery vehicle? I'm just not seeing a clear cut reasoning for the change.

      Here's a smile :-} and have a pint as well, I think we all need it!

  524. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No change

    Despite hundreds of comments and thousands of up votes supporting them, El Reg have done the square root of fuck all to back this out.

    This is a massive 'up yours' to the very loyal fan base of this delightful tome, but I for one will no longer put up with this pile of shit.

    1. FartingHippo
      Thumb Down

      Re: No change

      It looks a bit different and so you're flouncing off into the sunset? Get a grip.

      1. John Mangan

        Re: No change

        @FartingHippo

        - The site owners can change the site any way they please. It is their site.

        - Visitors to the site can decide that the site does not meet their needs, is too irritating to look at, makes their eyes bleed, whatever and not come back.

        That is not 'flouncing off into the sunset' it is exercising choice.

        However I think the general tenor here is that:

        - we presume that the site owners want to maintain (or even grow) the number of visitors to the site.

        - most posters find the site content DOES meet their needs but the site is making access too difficult/irritating/whatever.

        Said posters have tried to convey this to the site owners (with varying grades of bile/sarcasm/pleading/threats of violence) so that all parties can come to some accommodation that meets everyone's need.

        However I, and others judging from the posts, are detecting a subtext of, 'we think it is fine and we don't know what you are moaning about' from the site owners.

        They keep referring to the 'shock of the new' as though IT people are the most hidebound in the world and seem to be unable to grasp the 'shock of the crap'.

        As others have pointed out; in terms of comments alone this is the single most important story on this site and has been for over a week! More commentards are united on this subject than has ever happened before.

        The site owners can choose to let the site wither in terms of page views/ad revenue/etc. and visitors can choose to visit no more.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No change

        "It looks a bit different and so you're flouncing off into the sunset? Get a grip."

        Not into the sunset, no.

  525. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. storax
      Mushroom

      Re: el Reg has lost control of the story

      You're right about DrewC.

      But diodesign deserves all the crap he's getting. The original posts on this thread were *full* of insightful comments, pointers from IT professionals who normally get *paid* for their analysis. What was diodesign's response?

      "I'm right, all of you are wrong, and now you've hurt my feelings. If you don't like what I have to say, then I think I'll have to ignore you all. Boo hoo hoo."

      <switching focus to El Reg staff>

      The colorful and downright insulting comments are meant to *GET YOUR ATTENTION*, and they don't seem to be working. Hence the increase in vitriol.

      We're royally pissed off because your truly wonderful site has become neigh-all unusable.

      I'll post a considered comment later, but for the moment I'll down vote everything diodesign says short of an abject apology. Who the hell do you think your readers are, anyway? A bunch of neophytes?

      1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

        Re: Re: el Reg has lost control of the story

        "I'll down vote everything diodesign says short of an abject apology"

        I'm sorry.

        C.

        1. storax

          Re: el Reg has lost control of the story

          And I apologize to you. Unreservedly.

      2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        @storax

        You know, sir...nobody's perfect. But I promise you that @diodesign doesn't "deserve" any crap from anyone. He's a wonderful person, and he's my friend. In case you don't know me, I don't make friends easily. I'm a cynical, anti-social git who is far too introverted for his own good. But @diodesign is good people, and I'd stake my life on that claim.

        So I ask you - and everyone else here - cut him some slack. He honestly does want to do what's best for everyone, and I promise you he's really not a dick at all. If you want to yell at someone, yell at me. I'm the resident asshat at The Register.

        So let's start this over. We all have off days, and he really is a good guy.

        1. storax

          Re: @storax

          You're absolutely right.

          My bad.

    2. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: el Reg has lost control of the story

      @Betacam

      "DrewC was the one who pulled the trigger on Eadon - that's got to count for something."

      You mean to tell me that Eadon was a real person?? Not just a fictional character assumed by someone at the reg to keep the discussions lively?

      Wow, I'll be putting my head back in the sand now.

  526. Busby

    Sure it will have been mentioned previously but I do miss the most commented option alongside most read. Overall though relatively happy with the redesign but I would prefer something with less glare than white for the background.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Unhappy

      A nice parchment colour would be nice.

      I've resisted commenting until I gave the design a chance to 'work on me' as it were, and I still dislike it.

      Apart from the El Reg attitude and comments section, it now looks like any other site out there, covered in graphics and white space and hard to see what I want to read at a short glance.

      However, it's hard to get to the El Reg attitude and comments sections if I don't actually read the stories in the first place.

      I normally read around 50% of the stories on any given day, that's dropped to around 20% now as the site just feels less welcoming and familiar (being familiar shouldn't be considered bad btw).

      Is this the 'new and improved' El Reg, the one where they change some of the key ingredients so it no longer tastes quite the same and your brand loyalty dwindles, letting in the supermarket chains with their cut-price equivalent that doesn't taste that much worse than the 'new and improved' old favourite?

      I'll give it another month or so I expect, because I've gotten a lot out of the site over the years.

      @Drew & Chris - I know you guys are doing your best, but I think you may have just pointed out to everyone in big bold (flashing) letters that you are media first, and the local rag second. Don't let the down-votes get you down, it's just the commentards way of saying they love you, but hate what you stand for :P

  527. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Agree on the size. Please decrease the size on the pictures and the head lines. Also, if possible, could you eliminate the "floating" menu bar at the top? I never manually use these links to navigate the site, and it takes away pixels from reading space.

    Besides that, not much to say, and I'd give the new design a clear 3/5. Consider me neutral.

  528. TheRealRoland

    Commenting when browsing mobile?

    Is it possible to give back commenting when browsing on mobile? Not sure how to get there from here.

    I'm on Android, KK 4.4.2, using Firefox, but am not seeing a comment button.

  529. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Quick wins

    If rolling back to the old design is too much hassle, may I humbly suggest:

    - All images on the front page reduced in size by 1/3 each direction.

    - All images on the top of stories reduced in size by 1/2 in each direction, or removed entirely. I favour the latter.

    Those changes would make me happier. In particular, the top-of-story images are absurdly over dominating and make your site like one of those nasty click-bait 'best of the web, people are snapping up iPads for £1 with this "crazy" old trick' sites that infest every other site out there.

    Oh, and if you can put a sponsored link to something to do with security on every page mentioning Sony, that'd be great.

  530. msknight

    No death threats?

    Whadda ya want? A visit from Achmed the suicide bomber? I think his "strap" line, is, "I will kill you!!!" or something. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZUVDjBCT3o

  531. WaveyDavey

    I really miss the 5 hot stories mini chooser with rollover that used to appear top left of page. Dunno what you call it but missed.

  532. Spoon Monkey
    Unhappy

    Marathon Bar

    Too bright, too white, have to scroll much more, The main picture is too big, I find it harder to scan the headlines. I liked having the top section with the most important stories and then below just having them by age (although I struggle to understand why the exchange 2010 rollup 8 story was not there. That borked my mailserver and I am still picking up the pieces!)

    It just seems a bit marathon bar and/or ain't broke don't fix it to me. Same content but why do it?

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: Marathon Bar

      Although our 'Marathon' was actually called 'Snickers' everywhere else but the UK if I recall - we were the odd one's out there. Not a like for like comparison :)

  533. Stephen Booth
    Thumb Up

    I like it

    One big improvement is it works much better with scripting turned off.

    Mind you the way the previous design would match up stories with the wrong picture unless scripts were on was hilarious to say the least.

  534. msknight

    My feedback on your feedback to our feedback to... oh you know what I mean

    Ok - look - yes, you're too white. The article segments on the BBC news pages have pictures which are large enough to break things up. However, they are not covering the same number of articles that you guys are. And you can't introduce more pictures to break up that whiteness without knackering the number of articles you're showing or increasing the scroll rate.

    Look - Just because the BBC do it, doesn't mean that they're right. I really HATE it when people in-charge go to the web development team and ask for the corporate web site to look like the BBC's. I mean ... can't be done. It's different information, being presented to a specialist audience, who require different things from it. Get the BBC web site out of your head ... PLEASE.

    AND we need more detail. I mean, some of the headlines and strap lines are so obscure (and deliberately and funnily so) that it wastes time clicking on/opening articles that aren't actually of any interest to me. Also, I WANT TO KNOW who the author is please before I waste my time on some things.

    No one liking change is NOT TRUE ... I like change ... I LOVE CHANGE ... if it actually serves a positive purpose. THIS DOESN'T. It makes the site harder on the eyes and wastes my time on articles that aren't actually of any interest to me.

    I did notice that you put a time delay on the top banner ... many thanks for that. It made my life a lot easier.

    But this is not good enough. This feels like change for change's sake and not enough testing put in. I mean, you're engaging, which is a damn sight better than we get from some in the industry ... *coug...youtube* ... but this is painful.

  535. Anonymous Custard

    On putting it back the way it was before...

    On putting it back the way it was before. We know that no-one likes change...

    No, we just don't like unnecessary change. Or change that breaks things that weren't broken before.

    Oh, and whilst I'm ranting:

    We don’t think we are any brighter than, say, Amazon or the BBC

    Whoever came up with the design certainly wasn't very bright.

  536. russell 6

    New site is less readable

    I find I have to scroll more, the main pic at the top is way too big. The old site for me was more user friendly and easier to navigate. Now the site has the feel of a Red Top tabloid newspaper. Don't like it, sorry.

  537. TheRealRoland

    I'm OK

    At least the newest stories are at the top, or close to the top. And stuff is being worked on. And I don't know how big El Reg's development team is, but in general, site-wide changes should not happen overnight / be rushed into production anyways.

    Dunno if you have insight in the financials of The Register, but i think it's fair to say there's not a team of 10 developers working feverishly on things to meet deadlines.

    When comparing the site (for instance, looking on Ars Technica), sometimes new articles are displayed either as a narrow banner at the top of the page, or sometimes as a one-column item in one of the columns. Very confusing when having just read that article on their mobile site (simply the newest article at the top). The Register does not have that problem.

    What really surprises me in these comments is the amount of implied violence when 'stuff' is not done the way the commentors like it. I'm sure my ratio of up/down votes will suffer, but are you trying to be a bit like the nork-hackers saying 'i dont like this movie, so the world will burn if you release it to the public?' Come on people, you should be a bit smarter than that...

    May be a little bit extreme comparison, but some of these comments... oh boy. Don't know what you are like in person, but you may want to work on some communication skills when on the net (other than 'hulk angry! hulk smash!').

    1. storax
      Meh

      Re: I'm OK

      Glad you like it; it seems that most of us don't.

      The anger, I believe, is directed primarily at the lack of response to complaints voiced by the *loyal* readership. As another poster commented maybe 10 pages back: "If we didn't care..."

      Most of us are habitually polite and well-spoken. We perceive -- perhaps it's not true -- that El Reg's not listening, so we make noise to get their attention. When the perception is reinforced by the passage of time, we throw smelly stuff. Again, it's a plea that our concerns be taken seriously.

      "Give us time, we have to do this right," we're told. But how can we believe? One of the most consistently expressed complaints is that the background is too white, that the site is now uncomfortable to read. Yet the background is *still* #fff;

      How hard would it be to tweak that? ·#f6f6f6;? #dfdfdf;? At least they could give it a try and ask "How's that?"

      Seriously, nobody here expects them to get everything right the first time. We *all* know that redesigns are difficult. But we do expect them to listen, and we expect a better response.

      Hence the many attempts to get El Reg's attention, any way that we can.

  538. blj

    I only signed up to complain!

    I agree:

    Too white

    Stories not densely packed enough

    Too big a font used

    Pictures too big

    Way too much spacing between articles

    Looks cheap and nasty

    The site isn't much use to me anymore, that annoyance generated more that outweighs interest in the article content

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I only signed up to complain!

      Noted. There is actually no more spacing than before between headlines - although the white background clearly makes it more obvious.

  539. It'sa Mea... Mario

    re: redesign update 2

    'We don’t think we are any brighter than, say, Amazon or the BBC'

    Except that Amazon is a 'full width' website rather than this column in middle of page that El Reg insists upon keeping. Arguably the BBC is a full width website too, at least they make good use of the white side columns.

    Having said that *Please* do not go back to those f*sking whole of page sponsorship ads you run, they suck balls and not in a good way. I've no doubt you will though :(

    'Pictures and headlines in stories and the “hero pic’ at the top of the front page are too big, making for unnecessary scrolling.'

    <sarcasm> Just a tad </sarcasm>

  540. Chad H.

    *Shrugs* I needed a reason to visit less anyway. Seems I have it now.

  541. MrWibble
    Pint

    Top trolling!

    Love the huge pointless reg vulture pictures at the top of "update 2" page. Almost as if you've done it on purpose...

  542. web_bod
    Thumb Up

    I never knew about http://www.theregister.co.uk/Week as a way to bypass the homepage - #BookmarkUpdated - cheers!

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Go

      Correction

      the link is actually http://www.theregister.co.uk/Weekend And yes, it is probably what the comnetards have been looking for!

      I will be checking how frequently that page is updated just to see how current it stays.

      1. chivo243 Silver badge

        Re: Correction

        DOES NOT UPDATE regularly, that is all.

  543. msknight

    Look...

    Look. Reg. You've caused discussion around this friggin' office which ... well, the last time it got this heated was people screaming, "How can you put six rounds through a door at close range and NOT expect the person on the other side to die!"

    You've just driven off a fair chunk of the IT team who will visit again in January and if you haven't sorted out this mess, then they won't return. A chunk of the viewers in this office will never look at your site again.

    The mass comment about your comment on people's comments surmises to, "yeh, well people are telling us X but we think Y so screw the audience."

    I think it will take a snapshot of the new and old screens to be certain, but I think you used different fonts for the head, sub-head, etc. which differentiated things easily; and clearly "expired" colours. That's gone with the uniform font and the slightly grey.

    Face facts, Reg. Listen to your audience who, as AC said 23 hours ago, "I have never before seen such a show of unanimity amongst the commentards of this (previously) fine organ." ... it's just a crying shame that the reason for them coming together has been this disaster of a re-design.

    You've got 50 mouths to feed ... think of the advertising clicks you're losing here; and you're not going to be able to blame that on the intervention of a dimensionally challenged geezer in a red suit who could do with a razor for christmas. Oh ... is that why you removed the extra detail so that we click on articles which otherwise wouldn't interest us ... hmmmmm.... (and apologies for my spelling. My browser seems to have decided that it is American for a change. If only I could change nationality that fast...)

  544. Paul Sims 1

    don't want that one

    Want the other one

    In a Lou-and_Andy stylie

  545. Where not exists

    Redesign?

    What redesign? I'm not seeing anything different on my BlackBerry.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Redesign?

      That's because looking at a website on a BlackBerry is like looking at the website on a real phone after having rubbed onions, pepper and sand into your eyes first.

  546. TheRealRoland

    Made me giggle, all this (pretend?) outrage

    Meta question: what is it that you're looking for when visiting this site?

    News, or nicely-laid-out news items in a soothing, aesthetically-pleasing way, while using a colour-palette that surely won't offend any of the readers.

    This is all stuff that can change, and can be changed again over time.

    Focus on the message, not how the message looks from a visual point of view?

    You want the snark? Stay here. You want the glitzy super duper agile-developed responsive-designed website? Go to Ars Technica or somewhere else.

    >what about a beta site

    "Do, or do not. There is no try"

    1. Chad H.

      Re: Made me giggle, all this (pretend?) outrage

      >>>>>You want the snark? Stay here. You want the glitzy super duper agile-developed responsive-designed website? Go to Ars Technica or somewhere else.

      I want the snark, but I dont want the super duper designed website. Where do I go? not here it seems

  547. Robert Ramsay

    Please could you make the active link cover the whole top bar and not just the bit in the middle with the text on it? Ta!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Click on whole masthead - This is on our to do list.

      lack of this ability is overhang from long ago when we sold ads on the masthead.

  548. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Please make MORE changes

    And much more drastic. Maybe a bright red, pulsing background? Do the whole site in 32-point comic-sans font?

    I love seeing all the reg-tards crapping their pants over a font or the size of a jpg. This re-design is pretty much the best Vulture troll ever.

  549. bill 36

    i have an idea

    why don't you publish a page with a few different styles and then take the votes?

    Today you published a page for example, that had advertising down both sides of the main body and for me, it was much easier to read. Much less glare.

    Its the simple things in life,,,,,

    Oh and i meant to say, i don't think it was so much the "change" that was the issue, it was the smack in the face that caused the trouble. But i am pleased that i knew you'd be listening.

  550. WalterAlter
    Boffin

    Bland Bland Bland

    1. Bland Bland, etc.

    2. Animate the vulture logo

    3. Get a techie nerd comic strip

    4. Add quirky sounds to your headline roll-overs

    5. Feature columnists

    6. Hold a charity skateboard, BMX, rollerblade festival

    7. Launch rockets at Burning Man

    8. Wet T-shirt contest!

    1. TheOtherHobbes

      Re: Bland Bland Bland

      Excellent!

      Quality of the design matches the quality of the op-eds.

      Win.

    2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Re: Bland Bland Bland

      8. Wet T-shirt contest!

      Hey, I do own one of these. Can I enter it in your contest?

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Bland Bland Bland

      "8. Wet T-shirt contest!"

      Oh $deity, someone pass the midbleach. I just pictured Haines, Orlowsky and Page in my head!!!

  551. phil dude
    WTF?

    Crayon...

    makes me want to scrawl on site with crayon, a bit "yoof" like design....

    Please El Reg, throw the Librarian some more bananas and let him continue to do a bang up job, and let the zero-hours intern go home.

    The site redesign looks like the result of a under fives HTML class where everyone had to finish before their juice and afternoon nap...

    Enough?

    P.

  552. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't go the way of trustedreviews.com

    In 2011, trustedreviews.com was quite a vibrant site - reviews would easily get 50+ comments, some of them quite helpful. Then came the redesign, which wasn't entirely popular with the readership - a few comments still remain here:

    http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/welcome-to-the-trustedreviews-beta-site#disqus_thread

    Now no-one really comments on anything and the site has definitely lost out. Don't want this to happen to El Reg.

  553. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Print option

    I for one miss the option to render articles in a "fit to print" format, especially for multi-page articles.

  554. Len Goddard

    Unconvincing

    "We don’t think we are any brighter than, say, Amazon or the BBC".

    someone else said this, but for some reason I can no longer upvote (yes, I am logged in):

    Amazon is full width. BBC is not, and its news page is unpleasantly bright on the edges but makes better use of the central column than you do now. Other pages have different coloured backgrounds and are less obnoxious for that reason.

    My favourite option would be to roll back to before you went fixed- width, which was a daft idea from day one, but that is not going to happen so I would vote to dump this attempt and start again bearing in mind the feedback (flames?) this generated.

  555. mccp

    Bylines

    The byline on an article is now very insignificant, usually hidden below the fold in my browser because of the big picture.

    Any chance you can improve that? It's always good to set the correct prejudice configuration _before_ reading the copy.

  556. davemcwish

    Death Threats

    "Let’s acknowledge straight away that our makeover has not received universal acclaim - although we have yet to receive a death threat."

    That's a relatively one to fix, just make a Playmanaut video satirizing the IT capabilities of an Asian country and its Supreme Leader.

  557. a pressbutton

    - Too white

    - Pic at the top is too big

    and ... Nice if there was some subtle way of dividing today's news from yesterday.

    for one answer, look at vice news,

    lhs and rhs are grey.

    the pic is too big, but it is a good quality, relevant pic (makes a big difference) and has a nice fake 3d effect

  558. Alister

    Drew, please can you re-introduce some navigation at the bottom of the page to get back to the homepage. You used to be able to click on the "Register" banner in the footer but you've taken that away.

    If you've read down to the bottom of a long page of comments, it's a pain to have to scroll back up to the top to get back to the home page.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      navigation at bottom of the page

      Thanks for the spot. We'll think how best to do it.

  559. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    Wait, what?

    We don't think we're brighter than the BBC

    Perhaps not, wouldn't know, don't care. You're also not brighter than even a pretty dim star, or a 500 W construction spot for that matter. I usually avoid staring at those, too.

    images

    Yeah, that. well they're not going away apparently.

    There's also the mouseover bar; the newly-added delay is nice but on my browser when you pass the mouse over it to reach the browser's command bar it pops up and won't go away, which means I have to sneak the pointer by the side gap. No biggie; a bit annoying.

    Soooo I found a solution. w3m. Black background, no image. No problem.

    I don't know what it does to advertising revenue but at least it's a version of the site I can actually look at, which has to be better than no page views at all.

    Plus I get to use a truly good no-nonsense web browser.

  560. Wheaty73

    Change is scary

    OK, while the changes are jarring at first, and they do look bloody awful on *wide* monitors, does anyone remember the shit Arstechnica got when they had a redesign? Or the BBC? People hate change.

    There are valid points about the amount of white. Allowing a nerd-mode light-on-dark would be nice, but in the meantime a little less glare would be appreciated. Again, check out Ars' Dark on Light theme.

    The images are... a bit ameteurish? And having Miley Montana pop up gurning at the top of a page is a bit unsettling at work. Get a graphic artist not an intern.

    Columns. Four columns to a page is excessive, particularly as they are fixed in width. Pull out your highlight stories to one on the RHS and leave two columns on the left for your main content. Make them flow with the width of the page as well.

    Site looks OK on Mobile IE but too much zoom needed. As others have said, and as you have responded, responsive design is needed but complex. Still, its much better than before.

    Keep at it, i am sure you will get to a point where people forget the old site and the new changes bed in.

    Or, license the CMS from Ars. And the forums please, theirs is great.

  561. JDX Gold badge

    Oh for goodness sake

    Every single site redesign I've ever seen people demand "I just want the choice to turn it back the old way". Get over it and grow up, like you had to with Ribbon.

    The quicker you accept it is here to stay, the quicker you will get used to it and stop even noticing. The other choice is to choose to make it a massive problem which only hurts you in the long run, like people who love to show off how they can't use Office or Windows8. If those people spent 10% of the time they spend bitching, learning how things worked, they would be fine.

    As for the "too white" - this also comes up all the bloody time on site re-designs. It is NOT bad for your health. If your eyes hurt, turn your monitor down or stop staring at it. It is no whiter than all the other sites you look at.

    It's a bloody website.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Oh for goodness sake

      "Get over it and grow up, like you had to with Ribbon."

      Being forced to use Office + ribbon by policy is one thing. Liking it is another. Personally, I simply switched to LibreOffice since I was able to and it does everything I need. MS lost all future Office sales from me. And I am quite grown up thanks.

    2. Len Goddard

      Re: Oh for goodness sake

      One of the most irritating posts which comes up far too frequently is the idiot who says "get over it" when people voice legitimate complaints about a change. How about I change your A/C so that it sprays cat excrement all over you at regular intervals - are you going to get over that? It is perfectly reasonable to complain about change if you think it is for the worse. If you think these changes are an improvement then by all means say so, but don't try to make others stop complaining if they don't. If you don't like reading their complains, stop reading the comments because it is clear most people don't appreciate this makeover.

      Oh, yes, it is whiter than most of the other sites I read. And it is uncomfortable but turning the monitor down is not a sensible suggestion as too many other things would become unreadable.

      Can't downvote your post until I figure out why it doesn't work any more on my system.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Oh for goodness sake

        >>One of the most irritating posts which comes up far too frequently is the idiot who says "get over it" when people voice legitimate complaints about a change.

        No, it's the idiot who thinks that because they're borderline autistic and can't cope with change, this is a legitimate complaint someone should do something about.

        I'm not talking about technical glitches like alignments getting broken, but the things I mentioned. I've seen loads of community websites announce new versions and these comments come up EVERY TIME. Even when a website refreshes a 2nd time, the same comments come up again. They're not comments about usability or real problems, they're just people who cannot adjust.

        Again - voice real complaints and then let go, it is the quickest route to getting on with your life and getting over the thing.

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Re: Oh for goodness sake

          @JDX - If people didn't care so much, they wouldn't take the time to complain (in their droves it seems).

          If you are advocating that people should care less, then doesn't that have a knock-on effect to the (legendary) loyalties of the El Reg readership?

          You know what they say, be careful what you ask for.

          1. JDX Gold badge

            Re: Oh for goodness sake

            'Loyal' communities are the worst when it comes to changing anything because they view the site as home and think they own it or have some say over it. When management come in and run roughshod over their desires, it's a reminder that's not the case.

            I think that's why things get so heated, it's like if your local pub of 30 years has a refit and you hate it, you feel like you should've been consulted.

            I actively choose to just get on and acclimatise even if I don't like it much because I never saw a site flip-flop on these kind of things and the content is what's important. I've already almost stopped noticing the changes in layout/

            1. Sir Runcible Spoon

              Re: Oh for goodness sake

              "I've already almost stopped noticing the changes in layout"

              I wish I could say the same. I've given it a while to try and get used to it but it just isn't happening.

              Funny thing about pubs, a few of the locals that I knew in my youth (that I stopped going to once they had their souls ripped out with a re-furb) have had more changes of management than I can count and are looking decidedly ratty these days (and not in a care-worn kind of way).

              What those pubs forgot is that when they alienated the 10-15 regular drinkers to attract a more well-heeled clientele, they forgot about the tides of fashion and how quickly they can leave you high and dry. Those regulars (from one particular pub I know about) ended up patronizing another of the local pubs (not quite as nice as the original, but still has that care-worn feel to it). That pub is still going strong.

              I'm not so egotistical that I believe I have a say in how the Reg presents itself, or generates it's cash to keep running, nor am I ignorant of the resistance to change that most people feel. I do, however, have experience of how easily a reputation can be lost, never to be recovered, when the hard-core of a site that makes it so vibrant and attractive to visit is alienated to the point where they drift off to other corners of the web.

              For all I know getting rid of the current crowd of hooligans would be the best thing that the Reg has ever done - it may get a different set of loyal readers that actually see that adverts (let alone click on them!) - I'm not convinced though.

              1. JDX Gold badge

                Re: Oh for goodness sake

                In my experience lots of people clamour "this is awful" and "I'll have to consider leaving if you don't put it back" but very few actually will leave unless the site is actually broken rather than aesthetically unpleasing to them.

                And the ones who really will leave over a colour scheme, are generally not that much of a loss although they think they will be.

                Sorry for being blunt in my other comments but as I said I've seen this story unfold on other techy/IT/nerdy community sites and it's almost like there's a script that gets passed round. The moment I saw the new design (I wasn't aware it was coming) I knew the kind of complaints and feedback El Reg would get. So forgive my grumpiness, people complaining about someone trying to improve a wonderful resource they get for free makes me feel old and weary the Nth time round ;)

  562. Mint Sauce

    The only thing I'd really like to see is.....

    A page somewhere which shows the stories ONLY in chronological order - most recent stories first. No 'most read' no 'featured' etc. Just every post to the site, newest first.

    I usually use the mobile site as it's the closest to this, but I still have to scroll past the top stories, and also the list that follows often has old stories popping up amongst the newer ones...

    #firstworldproblems ;-)

    Other than that, no real probs with the new layout. If I can get used to Win8 I'm sure I can get used to this ;-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The only thing I'd really like to see is.....

      There is actually that page of all stories in reverse chronological order -

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/Week/.

      1. Len Goddard

        Re: The only thing I'd really like to see is.....

        That is SO much better than the home page. Thank you (and others who have posted it).

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

  563. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Not Convinced

    What on earth is wrong with having stories in a simple list style (variable width of course). This is the most user friendly way to make information clearly, and efficiently accessible.

    As has been said repeatedly. We're not kids, nor shiny-chasers with a goldfish attention span.

    Why are so many technically orientated sites going on this bling downward spiral? I'm even seeing it from mainstream electronic parts suppliers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/Week/

      Above is link to all stories in reverse chronological order.

      1. Steve 114
        Thumb Up

        Re: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Week/

        Thank you - I've changed the link from my icon. Could you post a notice there if ever the frontpage nonsense is sorted out, so that we can move back?

  564. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My feedback on your latest missive

    "We don’t think we are any brighter than, say, Amazon or the BBC, although we recognise that our restricted colour palette may be an aggravating factor in your perceptions of glare. While we consider this, as an interim measure we are thinking of changing the background colour outside the site."

    * Amazon - has lots of pictures of items that I might want to buy, breaking the site up. Full width page so more shown - meaning less background shown

    * BBC - couldn't comment, wouldn't go to that left-wing rubbish

    Your site is now literally so white that I haven't read a single article apart from BOFH since you did the redesign. And even BOFH I did a CTRL-A, CTRL-C, CTRL-V to a VIM window so I could read it without hurting my eyes. The only page I've read since your change is this one, and then only once, maybe twice a day,

    Why do we all hate it with such a passion?

    The vast majority of us are in IT - we've all done, or do, web design at some point in our careers, (with varying degrees of success). And over 800 comments later we're telling you that this design is a total utter failure and we don't like it.

    I know your tag line is "biting the hand that feeds IT" - well right now you are biting us. I recall in a previous comment you claimed that our feedback is akin to claiming that "we have physically assaulted you". No, we are not claiming that *YOU* have physically assaulted us, we are saying that your site is an assault upon our sense and sensibilities.

    In regards to your feedback:

    I noticed one of the El Reg people making a few responses to people in the comments and saying "why do I bother". I have 2x things to say to you:

    1) I don't have the time/patience to wade through 18 (currently) pages of comments to try and find where you have responded to an earlier comment. I should be able to see your new comments on the latest page with something like "In response to ..." and a link to the previous comment. Your site is far too bright to spend a huge amount of time here.

    2) You have to EXPECT to get down votes etc when you are not giving people the responses that they want to hear. Yes, I know that you have to toe the corporate line, and that you are not the person responsible for this mess. But you are the voice that is responding, and we need SOMEONE/SOMETHING to take out our frustrations on. So I guess in a word I'm trying to say "GROW UP AND TAKE IT LIKE A MAN - IT'S ONLY A BUNCH OF COMMENTS, NOT LIKE WE'VE PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED YOU (unlike what your site has done to us - see point 1)".

    Finally: pictures.

    I do not come to the Reigster to look at pictures. If I want to look at pictures, I either pick up one of my kids books, turn the telly on, or go to a damn p*rn site and look at some REAL pictures. The images on your site are a distraction from what I come to see, which is the articles themselves. Now when I look at your site, all I'm confronted with is giant pictures that I couldn't care less whether they have anything to do with the article or not. The only place pictures are relevant is part of a review, in which case you should be showing me thumbnails and giving me the option to see a larger version IF I SO CHOOSE. Not forcing me to look at your damn clipart fetish.

    Right, I'm off to the pub for the office Christmas do. Enjoy, and make of this as much or as little as you like.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: My feedback on your latest missive

      "GROW UP AND TAKE IT LIKE A MAN - IT'S ONLY A BUNCH OF COMMENTS, NOT LIKE WE'VE PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED YOU"

      I only sighed to the effect of "why bother" because some people wanted a total revert, no other options. Which doesn't leave much room for dialog. Trust me, I've had far worse from the internet than the feedback here :)

      Merry Christmas,

      C.

      1. Anonymous Custard

        Re: My feedback on your latest missive

        I think it's more we want you to step back to what it was before whilst you rethink what went well and what went badly in this update, rather than leaving us stewing in an update that we hate at least parts of whilst you do so.

        I'm sure there are some parts of it that people do like, even if they're not fully aware of them directly (if it's stuff under the bonnet/hood) or just that everyone's focussed on the negatives like the whiteness.

        Also it's probably a bit surprising at the attitude that's being taken (or at least appearing to be taken, after all the only feedback for our complaints is your good self so far), especially given the delight that el Reg (or certain members of it) have taken in lambasting Microsoft for doing almost the very same thing with Win8 in terms of ignoring user (or reader in your case) feedback.

        So maybe it's time for some more "official" feedback or action on all this, before the frustration leads to the only other course of action we have than venting in comment threads like this, namely abandoning the site (either fully or just visiting less).

  565. julian abbs

    i like it

    not a lot, but it's ok

    however despite many years of reading the register i have to say i hadn't quite realised what a miserable whining bunch of entitled bastards my fellow commentards are, so you have my sympathy there...

    p.s. One issue (forgive me if it's been mentioned before, i lost the will to live after the first page of whinging) is that the site search overlaps the link to "WEEKEND EDITION" in the nav when active

  566. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Educational Training - news just in...

    Just got a call from the wife who teaches in one of the local schools. I showed the misses what had happened to the site and how bad I thought it was, as you would need a 55" monitor, in portrait just to by-pass the images so that you could read the article or else do a whole lot of scrolling. Guess what - she showed this to the Web Development class teacher, and congratulations to the The Register, the teacher of that class now has a web site to show how "not to design a site". Way to go The Register, I now have a reason to promote this site once again. Many thanks for this. What is that old saying, every cloud has a silver lining - sometimes we just have to look really hard to find it. (Posted Anonymously as I am in work at the moment).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Educational Training - news just in...

      'she showed this to the Web Development class teacher, and congratulations to the The Register, the teacher of that class now has a web site to show how "not to design a site"'

      I'll take That Never Happened for $500, Alex.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Educational Training - news just in...

        When a web development teacher knows the first thing about designing a proper website I'll eat my hat. I've never ever seen a site, even one built by a good web designer, that ANY other web designer wouldn't say "that's a bit crap, you should re-do it".

        It is massively subjective for a start, and also affected by trends and fashions just like magazines are in terms of what looks good.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Educational Training - news just in...

          Thanks - still in work so posting anonymously (did the original post you replied to). Used to work in IT a long time ago and never did web design but I do understand what you are saying. Maybe you are 100% right as I do not have a clue other than to say, it hurts my eyes, the white. Here it goes, this is the time to show my total lack of knowledge in the web and how the whole thing works but can a site give you a configuration page whereby you could set things like background colour, text colour for read and unread articles? If that was possible and implemented here, everything else they have done, I could accept. Is this type of configuration page possible? I know a cookie would have to be stored on my PC to enable the site to remember my preferences for this computer I am working on, but could it be done? If so, could we add in other settings for things like image sizes (or to remove then altogether), ads (static, animated, video) selector options as I love static ads but hate animated / video ones. Would any of that be possible through a configuration page? Really would like to know as I know nothing of the languages / tools / packages available for web design. Honest questions, asked honestly and would like a simple honest answer, if possible - many thanks to one and all. Really appreciate it. Thanks - Happy Holidays

  567. Nick 18

    Well. It is a sterile sort of clean look.

    My biggest gripe - there's no "Print" button on any article so that I can view/search an entire article on one long page.

    I had thought about checking all 18 pages of comments for a similar comment - and gave up after 2 pages. If only you had a print button that put it all on one page - I could have searched through it much easier.

  568. Dan Dyer

    Try reducing the contrast by making the text very dark grey rather than black

    People complaining about how white the site is are perhaps more irked by the contrast than anything. Most modern sites that use a white background don't usually have fully black (#000) text. Try a dark grey such as #333; it will make things a bit less stark.

  569. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @theregister - you're doing it wrong. The biggest mistake of all was just dropping the design on us.

    People ***HATE*** UI changes. That seems to go double for nerds. Look back at the comments for any UI changes, by anyone, anywhere and you will see exactly the same reaction. I refer you particularly to Windows 8; Facebook changes and any software that people spend a lot of time on; but any UI change will do. Partly this is to do with convenience...people don't like having to relearn where everything is and what happens when you click this bit etc.

    What you should have done was to consult with your readers first. This would have the triple benefit of 1) throwing more brains at the problem so you would have got more ideas (and you would have been made aware of stuff that you maybe hadn't thought of; the 'print' bit being useful for those using text readers as an example) 2) you would have got some people onside so the commentardery would have been more various factions and it wouldn't be Reg vs. readership ("I am become death, destroyer of eyesight") and 3) It would mitigate the fact that the redesign is mainly for the benefit of El Reg and it would seem less like a fuck you from our point of view. Bear with me for a sec here...the redesign would appear from your initial comments to be largely about ad placement and tuning the ads for maximum profit. You're the site owner and nobody has a problem with you making a few quid (although it's fairly dicey ground to start with given your readership's near-allergy to ads and tracking and that sort of malarkey); but what works for you is not necessarily what site visitors want. Designing the site for your own purposes at the expense of treasured toys and dropping it on your readership is going to feel like a gigantic "fuck you and your opinion because you're not important, minion" to every single reader. And you're looking at 18 pages-worth of the results of that feeling.

    Everybody uses the site differently; in their usage patterns; the kit they are looking at it with; and their reason for visiting the site in the first place. Therefore different aspects of the redesign are going to have varying effects on different visitors. I have a mouse with a scroll wheel, so I don't give much of a toss about scrolling. I have a 17" 1080p monitor and mostly work at night, so the glare is a big problem for me...it would be hyperbole to say that I'm getting calls from the local lighthouse asking me to turn it down a bit; but saying that I can't see the fucking thing for 15 seconds after using your site is a statement of fact. It is really -in case you've missed it in the subtle comments- too bright. That's my particular bugbear, followed closely by the lack of vlink contrast. Other users are going to have other things that particularly piss them off, depending upon the way they use the site etc.

    @Drewc - don't take it personally. Everyone hates UI changes. Dropping UI changes upon an unsuspecting bunch of readers is going to be seen as a fuck you and that will affect the tone of any response. Doing that to a readership who are technically sophisticated just...doesn't help.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Redesign for ad changes

      Thanks Moeity for your feedback - we'll read it carefully. Just one point from me for now - we did not make changes for ads purposes. By placing ad above the masthead - we have actually de-emphasised the top ad slot.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Redesign for ad changes

        Welcome. The post above was mostly to point out that a shitstorm was inevitable, so don't take it to heart; and also that you can lessen the pain somewhat in future by having a consult first (although I suspect that -after this has all blown over- you might not feel like redesigning for quite some time) rather than just sproinging it on people between page refreshes.

        I posted about the psychology and effects because you seemed disheartened and a little surprised by the reaction. Remember that a UI redesign for software that people use often is -actually and physically- rearranging their desks without asking them. Only a tiny bit of the desk, but nevertheless. Butthurt is going to happen and there's no avoiding it. The "without asking them" part is key and that bit can be avoided.

        Apologies for the assumption that the redesign was ad-tuning based - your early posts did seem to imply that a bit.

      2. Joseph Eoff

        Re: Redesign for ad changes

        Actually, putting the ad at the top like that emphasises the ad as well as pushing actual content off the bottom of the screen.

        My eyes start at the top of the screen and scan down. The ad is the first thing my eyes hit while scanning for content.

    2. julian abbs

      it was a bit of a shock, coming as it did on top of the guardian redesign i felt overwhelmed... (that's not sarcasm, sadly) it is a bit bright too, was the logo really that red before?

    3. JDX Gold badge

      @moeity

      From my experience consulting members just makes them believe they will get what they want and they'll be just as cross when they don't, maybe more so "you didn't listen to us at all".

      I think "dump the new site and stick your fingers in your ears" is probably as good an approach as anything. Feedback will always be overwhelmingly negative with a large proportion clamouring "put it back how it was" so I'm not sure attempting to placate people actually achieves anything other than wear you out and risk you getting pissed off with your users.

      You raise good points but being pragmatic, people are going to bitch.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @moeity

        @JDX - I see where you're coming from and -yes- consultancy does not come without it's own pitfalls, but it can be done with minimal pain if you structure your consultancy properly and state the rules upfront; something along the lines of:

        1) These bits are going to be changed in this way for this reason...we're open to suggestions to better ways of doing it, but these things -or something analogous- are going to happen.

        2) These are the bits that might be changed - thoughts? Remember that we only have so much space and implementing a new toy may well require losing an old one.

        3) Any other suggestions, including things about the current design that annoy you and maybe can be fixed while we're poking it.

        RULES: We know we're not going to please everyone. Weapons will be confiscated at the door. Thank you.

        The main argument for consultancy is prepping your audience so that they know that something's coming and lessening the shock when it actually arrives. People will -of course- still bitch but consultancy takes some of the heat out of it and also redirects and disperses some of it. Then there's reader engagement and making people feel involved in the process which helps keep your loyal users loyal. There's also the fact that there's no clickbait like a good argument and -with a suitably rabid userbase- you could keep it going for a good week or three. From an adminning point of view, it's funny as fuck to watch the "Off-White Crew" square off against the "Semi-Transparent Sepia Militia"; with occasional raids by the "What's Wrong With Cream You Cunts Posse". Then someone will inevitably mention fonts (office pool for the time interval) and it all goes religious, as do your ad impressions.

        The other main point is to remind people gently whose site it is. Our territorial instincts are just not built for other people's 'property' to be running in our homes. The correct etiquette is, I believe, to call whoever changed anything twelve types of bastard and threatening to leave. Dropping the design and the mic does establish ownership, right enough; but it's possible to broach the subject in a much kinder fashion and establish a mood that's more we're all in this together rather than take it bitch.

        It is hard work, I'll grant you; but worth doing, in my demi-anonymous internet opinion.

  570. Oninoshiko

    "we will not be making panicked or rush decisions."

    You mean you're done doing that after making the worst possible changes you could?

  571. TheRealRoland
    Joke

    That's it!

    A bit of comic relief thrown in for free.

    "Daddy, I do not want a boat like this."

    or

    "Hey, Daddy, *I* want an Oompa Loompa! I want you to get me an Oompa Loompa right away"

    or, for the younger generation:

    "But I don't want any old squirrel! I want a *trained* squirrel!"

    (and no, i won't get my coat. I like it here, thanks very much)

  572. Admiral Grace Hopper

    White

    I know from your last update that you don't believe that the site is now too white, but believe me, it really is very, very white indeed.

    1. Admiral Grace Hopper

      Re: White

      Though I must admit that 30+ years of staring at 80 column / 24(or 25) line green on black screens may have coloured my judgement.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: White

      We completely accept that many of you find the site too white. In itself that is not a biggie. The fact that many of you find the sight too bright and therefore harder to read is an issue that we have to consider.

      1. Ralph the Wonder Llama
        Happy

        Re: White

        To show, despite my colleagues' insistence, that I am not a complete curmudgeon, thanks for this. If there was one tweak I could wish for above all others, it would be this. By comparison most other issues, for me, are relatively meh.

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: White

          For balance, it's not too white. It's quite pleasant on all my monitors.

          I use Visual Studio and NotePad++ and MSWord and Explorer all the time and they don't hurt me either, and I don't change all my theme settings to brown on black or anything.

          Maybe you all have your monitors turned up too much or sit too close to the screens :)

  573. sjsmoto

    Except for the large and often unnecessary image at the top of articles, I have no complaints for your free site that I get tons out of for free.

  574. This post has been deleted by its author

  575. Triggerfish

    Some thoughts

    So from your latest article some responses from me.

    1. The site is too white - making it hard on the eyes.

    Its not that the site is to white as such that makes it hard on the eyes its that you have chosen a shade of gray almost at the white end of the spectrum as your dividers it doesn't break the site up into sections properly that's what's effecting the readability.

    2. Pictures and headlines in stories and the “hero pic’ at the top of the front page are too big, making for unnecessary scrolling.

    Serioulsy they are try using an average office monitor and its to big on a mobile its bloody awful, also if you don't want to have an autoswitch to mobile because its to tricky/risky fine but if you are not then really you need to get the picture sizing sorted.

    3, Just put it back to the way it was before

    I don't know if it needs that but it would be nice you actually listened to some of the feedback and acted on it, rather than coming back and complaining that we all don't like you, either ask for the feedback and deal with it or don't and publish and be dammed, but don't start giving out the "your holding it wrong type excuses".

    Also I liked the side tab that gave you most read and most commented, the new way of doing it is inelegant and messy in comparison.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Some thoughts

      Well - we are looking to do something about pics.

      As for 3. - I am not complaining! Seriously, I am just trying to summarise the feedback.

      1. Triggerfish

        Re: Some thoughts

        OK apologies on the whining comment, this is turning into a bit of a megathread though, have you thought of doing some page were you collate suggestions or give us a vote on what would be a preferred change and what we find truly abhorrent.

      2. Haku

        Re: Some thoughts

        "Well - we are looking to do something about pics."

        Here's a couple of suggestions I think a lot of regular visitors can get behind:

        NO PICTURE ON THE FRONT PAGE AT ALL!

        and:

        DON'T PUT A PICTURE IN THE ARTICLE IF IT HAS NO ACTUAL RELEVANCE TO THE SUBJECT BEING DISCUSSED!

        You're splashing stock pictures around like clueless people used to do with excess amounts of clip art in the early days of desktop publishing. It's not wanted, we're already here to read the articles, you don't need to try and lure us in with stupid, irrelevant pictures that hog most of the screen.

    2. deshepherd

      Re: Some thoughts

      > 3, Just put it back to the way it was before

      or just addd www.theregister.co.uk/classic

  576. Ketlan

    Sadly, I had a whole lot of shit to say here but after reading God knows how many pages of pissed-off commentards putting in their bits, I can't be bothered. You want a death threat? Here you go. 'If you don't revert, I'll kill myself.' Fucking sad, isn't it. 'If you don't revert, I'll go elsewhere for my IT coverage', sounds a little better.

    At the moment, I'm reading this site via the feed. Gawdelpus, I used to love reading it by any means possible.

  577. Jan 0 Silver badge

    Now I never need to look at the home page again!

    > "we continue to offer this view: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Week/"

    Wow, I'd never explored that link before, now there's no turning back, although I'd still like you to turn down the whiteness.

  578. heyrick Silver badge

    Random comments

    [this long post represents my meandering thoughts - if you have a short attention span, just hit Page Down a bunch of times...]

    First up, comparing yourself against Amazon "because both have lots of white" is a bit dumb. People don't go to Amazon to read stuff. It isn't like El Reg and - to be honest - thank god for the accessibility option on my iPad where pressing the button three times inverts the colours. White on black is a bit old-school, but at least I can read without eye pain.

    Secondly, comparing yourself against Amazon is a bit dumb because Amazon makes good use of available screen space (their webdev mission statement probably says "a wasted area of screen is a missed sale"). You? You have huge swathes of white on either side. It looks... amateurish. Like somebody playing with <table> layouts not realising the difference between px and % because "it looks okay on my screen".

    Thirdly - http://m.theregister.co.uk/Week is a 404. Any plans to fix it, or are we going to be stuck with the arbitrary order? How about give us an option - "most recent first" vs "stories we think you'd like" (or something). After all, Amazon lets you choose what order to see things in. <nudge><nudge>

    Could we have an "age" indication on the mobile version, please? It is useful to see if something is "X hours old" so you can quickly scan through for items that have been posted since the last visit.

    I notice that you said that you don't have in-house resources to develop, and that nobody likes change. Actually, change can be good. But to handwave concerns with "nobody likes change" is a bit churlish, especially when the change is to something that does not look or feel as nice as it was before. Here's a bit in bold, please read it twice: YOUR SITE WAS NOT BROKEN. NOW IT IS. Clear enough? Would it not have been an idea to develop this in-house, run it alongside for some feedback (maybe of your gold-shield commentators) and tweak it accordingly prior to a public release? Wouldn't that have been better than a "here's shiny new whiteness, now beta test it, oh and there's no downgrade". Reminds me of Orange with their Livebox firmware (every update looks nicer but makes simple actions tedious and breaks loads of stuff along the way - thank God they only update like once every two years).

    I read the link. I find it interesting that desktop advertising brings in more revenue than mobile, given that it isn't hard to remove advertising from a desktop browser, but generally mobile devices do not have this sort of functionality. What you may actually be seeing is that advertising on a desktop machine is "tolerated" because it loads quickly (even at slow ADSL speeds) and there isn't much in the way of technical restriction. On the other hand, I completely avoid visiting advertising-heavy sites on my mobile device as it takes longer to load (an eternity if on EDGE instead of 3G), most of the browsers I have used on phones have a really annoying habit of throwing away all content and refetching it if you switch to another app (even something as simple as reading an SMS), and phone contracts tend to come with a data allowance. Some have gigabytes, some have hundreds of megabytes, some have less. I have 500MiB/month, which works out to be about 16MiB a day. Not enough to mess around with advertising I am not going to read. And, some sites, sadly, accept to receive revenue from advertisers that do really shitty things like "oh, you're on Android, here's a 400KiB apk file every bloody time" - animelyrics.com I'm naming YOU, or you visit a webpage and suddenly you are staring at some game you wouldn't look at in a million years in the app store. Behaviour like that, and the fact that bandwidth is restricted (moreso if your contract is one that will let you go over and hit you with ££££ for it) mean that people are likely to be less tolerant of advertising on a mobile platform (despite Google's best attempts to insert advertising everywhere possible). As it is, I have reprogrammed my ElReg bookmark to the mobile version as the main page is massive. I can't justify >200K every time the browser decides to reload the page. But, if it continues to be difficult to sort new stories from things that I have already noticed, I'll just stop reading it during my break at work (when I read most stuff on ElReg).

    Your linked article finishes with "This is why the media industry's crumbling fortunes cannot be ignored." What was ignored for too long was the media industry publishing generic mass produced junk that alienated the readership. Take, for instance, Dr. Dobb's - a recent story here on ElReg. It started being hardcore, then it went commercial, then it went through long protracted death throes due to having lost the readership that it had in the beginning, and having lost the essence of what made it different. It might do for the publishing industry to start making things that people are willing to pay for, instead of trying to "make a killing" by publishing things that some clueless marketing twat thinks the readership might like. There's a magazine I buy from time to time. The subject matter is Japan. Things to see, interviews, lots of J-Pop, reviews of manga and such. Somewhere along the way, it started taking on a lot of stories about K-Pop. Now, I understand that maybe to a clueless Westerner, Japan and Korea are kind of the same place, but to those of us who can actually find them both on a map, they're not the same, their language isn't the same, and don't they kind of dislike each other anyway? My knowledge of Korea is a few seriously bad-ass films and That Song That Broke YouTube. Obviously, I haven't bought the last two issues, and judging by the fake sticker on the front saying "100% Japan" on the latest issue, I'm not the only one to think that. If they want to promote Korea, go for it. In a magazine all about Korea. Simple! It's really the same sort of story as Dobbs, isn't it? It's a balancing act between satisfying a potentially smaller readership versus attracting new readers while not alienating the ones they have, and not becoming so generic that their publication has nothing to make it stand out of the crowd. Perhaps, instead of whining about how mobile pays less, publishers might want to think of things that people would actually pay for...

    "This may sound lame to you but we have 50 mouths to feed." - fair enough. I can't say I agree, but it's your site, your decision. You've already pretty much lost a mobile-device reader and you're in danger of making a regular become a part time lurker. Is this what you intended?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      http://m.theregister.co.uk/Week - questions

      -" http://m.theregister.co.uk/Week is a 404. Any plans to fix it, or are we going to be stuck with the arbitrary order?"

      - I am not sure that we ever had this view. I will find out tomorrow. But m.theregister.co.uk except for the top five stories - the ones with the pics - are all in reverse chronology. Does that still make it hard for you to find stories you haven't read?

  579. Anon5000

    When the BBC changed their design a couple of years ago to something resembling this el-reg change, it was universally slated in comments in a similar way to what we see here. The BBC ignored all the comments about shit layout and gave lip-service about fixing the 'too much white' but basically changed bugger all. Full expect el-reg to do the same.

    Although community created userscripts changed the layout back to something similar, ended up hardly visiting the BBC website after that change which is still the case to this day. Not only looked horrid but there was much less words and worded for twitter type first paragraphs and some crap about being 'media rich' to explain the stupid size graphics and limited text while pretending it had nothing to do with phones and tablets. A slippery slope to resentment which I hope the register do not continue to follow although deep down we know the answer already.

    1. Mage Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: BBC

      I now spend as little time as possible on BBC.

      The Images get bigger, frequently fill browser on a 1600 x 1200 screen

      The text is too big

      The Content is getting poorer

      They now feed different .com and co.uk versions based on Geolocate and no assurance a link you send works for someone else.

      This change seems to copy the BBC news site, which is now one of the WORSE designed sites on the internet!

      Perhaps El Reg and BBC are designed for a 42" HDTV about 7 ft away (a bit more than 2m) rather than computer screens?

      Do you all need reading glasses?

      Are you all using UHD retina displays?

      The design may look pretty, but in the real world it doesn't work!

  580. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Aaaand another thing.

    Where's our snowy banner?

    Missing yet again!

    Do you guys hate daddy crimbo that much?

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

      Re: Aaaand another thing.

      Well, I'm pleased to see we've got that bit sorted :D

      Just the rest of the site to fix now ;)

  581. Alistair
    Linux

    my two cents

    Have been hanging about the Reg for ages. I rather like the site - the change implemented was .... drastic. My commentary:

    The banner, well -- I think it would be improved if the Vulture got his texturing back. Just a hint of black in there to break up the red/white.

    Yes - too damned white - hard on the eyes. - a possibly shading the background to other than white, but I suspect you'd get as much mileage from darkening the deliniators and/or putting a shaded background under the subheading. Please put the author's name on the title flyover.

    My god the pictures. Many of your readers/vistors are command line/green screen junkies. I'd be fine with the pictures most of the time, if they didn't leap off the page and bite my face. *grin* -- its possible that the sizing would work fine if you changed the overall page texture, but at the moment I just want to see them about 30% smaller overall -- possibly 40%. I realize that blows the layup to hell - -but then you'd be able to make the top 3 articles on the right wider.

    Please -- most commented on the right -- I see top stories and most read. Havent looked at mobile yet - but I suspect that this would not lay up well on my SIIx.

    Here's hoping we can get it tweaked to a point where the screaming stops. Clarisse will be much happier.

  582. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Re: "we don't think we're more white than [X]"...

    There are some pages where I need to turn down my monitor. Most pages I don't have to. But The Register is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for me. Turning down my monitor for 1 page that I'm spending 15 minutes on is one thing, but when I am using El Reg for resource/reference all day long, it's really quite to bright.

    I tried using Hacker Vision, which works well on Wikipedia and other offenders, but it really makes El Reg look quite silly. I'm working on fully converting the CSS so there's a proper dark theme that I can apply via greasemonkey, but the thing is eleventy squillion lines long.

    I am not going to stamp my feet and demand El Reg fully support a dark theme. I'd love it if you had time to work one up, and provide us the option for logged in users. That would be nice.

    But I think the idea of a vote is great. "Is it worth El Reg's time to invest in a dark theme" or somesuch. How many readers would like it? Does the site need to be viewed the exact same for every reader?

    Anyways, them's the thoughts...

    1. Britt

      Oh why did I not have that add on in my life before. Thank you.

      Reg, add a theme switch.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        I live to serve, sir. I am glad I was useful in this circumstance.

  583. Phil Koenig

    My criteria: RSS, Printing, Mobile.

    The Register has always been somewhat simply designed, which makes it more attractive to return-to on a regular basis to read articles and news of interest without wanting to throw things at the screen the way I often do on other I.T. websites that are completely garbaged-up with pointless scripts, popup nag windows and miscellaneous non-textual content.

    And so I noted in the latest missive about the redesign that "responsive" design will have to wait. As long as it's in the cards I can live with that for now. Especially if you do not resort to intolerant browser-sniffing tactics that penalize anyone who does not use the "Top Two" browser du-jour.

    But since I often like to print out (or save to PDF) articles for future reference, I really mourn the loss of the "print" icon, or at least some sort of "read as single page" option, because printing ElReg articles is becoming more difficult as of late.

    RSS is also important to me because this is the most convenient way to catch-up on news from my smartphone. However many of my mobile RSS apps struggle with the ElReg RSS content for various reasons.

    As for the "brightness" thing - sure, one could use a stylish script or something to change that but that's a hassle in the long run. My fantasy is a button to change from the standard view to the "tired/hungover low-contrast view" on demand. (E.g., grey background instead of white. This is how I configure terminal screens on my systems.) Hope springs eternal. :)

    When using the website, I historically used the "weekly" view here, it's just a pity that page is hidden by default these days - if I'm using a new system or device without a bookmark I have to dig for it.

    Mea Culpa - looks like the link is at the bottom of the page now. Thanks.

    Overall - thanks for your efforts to keep listening to your readers.

  584. Ryegrass

    Visited Links

    Please increase the contrast between viewed and non-viewed links, as it is hard to distinguish between the black (unclicked) links and the grey currently used (visited links). The red for selection (mouse hover) is fine.

  585. Shannon Jacobs
    Holmes

    How to pay for resources for responsive design: Let US do it

    First the summary: After a week, I still see no advantage of the new design, and it still feels less useful than the design it replaced. I would accuse it of being less intuitive, too, but I can't really remember how long it took to get used to the previous design. For example, the hot article feature was good and easy to figure out, but I'm not even sure if it exists in the new design...

    Wasting the keystrokes on the funding suggestion, but:

    Two-part project:

    (1) Implementation costs: When enough people pledge to implement the responsive design, then you release the funds and do that project. (As previously suggested, you would be holding the money already.)

    (2) Operating costs: On an annual project basis. Of course key features should be funded years in advance, but if the so-called responsive design is not a key feature, you should implement it to allow it to be turned off if there are not enough donors for the operating costs. The website would continue operating, but we would see a link to the operating-cost project. As a concrete example, imagine that the 2016 year is not funded at the end of 2015. Then the responsive interface would turn off, but we would see the link to fund it, if we really want that feature. Imagine the thrill of being the last donor who gets to turn on the popular feature? You could even feature that donor at the top of the funding donation page for the feature. Then again, if no one actually wants to support the feature, then it should remain turned off, sorry. If I had been one of the people who had wanted to put 10 quid towards enabling it, then I might be unhappy, but no skin off my nose. My pledge would become available for some other project.

  586. salek

    I have been a fan of the Reg since the mid 1990s. I read the BOFH files back then. As to the new look, I prefer the prior art. It just simply worked. When it was introduced, sure, I had a moment of "I don't know". However, I realized its better design. Now, I think that the prior art is the better design. I liked that I could easily see if I had already read an article. Now, the mousing makes any article appear already read. I must carefully move the mouse up between articles to avoid the "used" coloration. And, yes, the big picture at the top is a little bit too big. If I could, I would return to the prior art. it worked. I liked it. I like it better.

    Salek

  587. Christian Digby-Firth

    No "News" would be good news.

    The Reg publishes news – we get that. So why head each section as Business News, Data Centre News, etc, when Business, Data Centre... is perfectly clear? "Bootnotes News" doesn't even make sense. Loose the News, eh?

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Coat

      Re: No "News" would be good news.

      "Loose the News" and let slip the dogs of media?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No "News" would be good news.

        Oh - could that be a Pink Floydd reference?

  588. Benjol

    Not really anything to do with design here, but I'd really like a way to 'thumbs up' subtitles. Or the occasional 'alternate subtitle' competition?

  589. Joseph Eoff

    One more thing (again)

    Do you realize that updates to the comments section are being more or less blocked?

    When I post a comment or upvote a post, the address in the my address bar changes to include something like "/?thanks=2392633#c_2392633" Clikcing reload or hitting F5 causes the page with the "Thank you for posting" message to be reloaded - but doesn't load any new content. I have to edit the address and then reload to see my post.

    Additionally, if I post a new comment then immediately edit the address and reload, then my comment shows up immediately. It looks like there's no real delay in posting, just some shenanigans with the address that prevent you (or me) from seeing the post immediately.

    In other words:

    Ditch the "thank you for posting" and "your vote will be counted shortly" crap, and just let me see the update immediately - it seems the changes are already made anyway, and the other crap is just an irritant.

  590. Joseph Eoff

    Pictures

    If you must keep the pictures on the articles, then squash them down to the size of the ones in the Spotlight section.

    Most especially the big picture on the front page, and the (mostly useless stock image) from the articles.

    The stock images are fine - as a visual hint as to the general feel of the article. The image for the article "If 4G isn’t working, why stick to the same approach for 5G?" is great - if the image in the article were the same size as the image in the spotlight, or maybe the size of the ones in "More from The Register." The full size, ginormous image in the article is just a fucking waste of space. Seriously, enormous image of some twat yelling into an oversize dummy telephone followed by two lousy lines of text? Tells me fuck all about what the article is about.

    You should think of those images as the icons in the comments - sort of relevant, sort of (mildly) funny, and small so as not to detract from the story.

    The actual relevant images in the story can be larger. That's fine. Just not at the start of the article. I come to the Reg to read the articles, not look at clipart.

  591. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Firefox Mobile - not pretty

    Tried it out the new homepage on a new Droid with Firefox, which broke its tiny brane. On an Xperia Z3 your page came out pretty much as the desktop form with no problems (so not responsive as you've said elsewhere that you hadn't tried). Resizing the zoom it got confused, then switching between portrait and landscape scrambled the UI, and doing that a few more times made Firefox crash altogether. May be more their problem than yours though.

  592. oldhand

    I hate the big picture at the start. You are not selling newspapers from a newsstand so you do NOT need them. They obstruct and delay access to the words, and I do NOT read the Reg for pretty pictures but for words. I appreciate the words. Add pictures only when relevant to a topic I have already started reading.

  593. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    Hell fire and damnation

    Another AdBlock rule:

    theregister.co.uk##div#author_box

    Why would I want a pop-up? I'm fully capable of clicking a link if I want more info about the author - provided of course, that the link behind the author's name is recognizable as such. A pity the new color scheme makes the links indistinguishable from plain text, thereby requiring you to beat us about the head and shoulders with pop-ups.

    PS: We still need a "more FAIL" or "FAIL harder" icon for times like this when "FAIL" just isn't enough

  594. Joseph Eoff
    FAIL

    Face Palm - Where's Piccard when you need him?

    Q: What's at the top of the "More articles by this author" page?

    A: A link to the "More articles by this author" page.

    Seriously. Double face palm, WTF?

    Please add a "more fail" icon.

  595. Rimpel

    Search site

    The popup search box that only appears when hovering over the magnifying glass is horrible, and is impossible to use from my phone.

    Amusingly just clicking the magnifying glass icon produces search results for the query text "Search site". Nice one guys.

  596. CarltonR

    El Reg's Rose-Tinted [Google] Glasses

    Would it be at all possible, before you close down for the hols, and whilst you ponder other changes that you might consider making, to change the ‘have read’ colour. Its driving me crazy at the moment. Might I suggest that you use the Black/Grey for the mouse cursor location (as if I didn’t know where it was already) and then use ‘red’ to indicated that the article has been accessed. It can’t be rocket science, just a cut and paste should do the trick.

    Many thanks

    P.S. Also whilst on the subject of UI, I’m finding this forum very odd, in that 'reply' entireties are not in date/time order but are grouped together with the original post, which could be many pages earlier. This might be useful if I where to read everything from the start of the comment thread, but makes no sense when keeping up with the flow of conversation. The other thing is the time it seems that it takes from submission of a comment to when it appears on the forum, I’m talking hours rather than minutes.

    1. Joseph Eoff

      Re: El Reg's Rose-Tinted [Google] Glasses

      Last things first:

      The update business is caused by a peculiarity in the addresses. Look at your addressbar, and remove everything after "Drewc_El_Reg_Redesign_leave_your_comment_here/" The gibberish (like this: ?post_received=2393437#c_2393437) at the end is what is preventing you from seeing the updates. Delete that crap and reload, or just reload the page from the link from the article. Either of those will show you the latest comments in just about zero time.

      You can fix the appearance of the links (in Firefox at least) by using the userContent.css file. See Google for finding/creating this file. Once you've got it, you can specify the colors for links and such (I like blue for links and red for read links.) Put the following in your userContent.css:

      @-moz-document domain(theregister.co.uk) {

      a { color: #101070!important; }

      a:visited { color: #A01010!important; }

      a:hover{ color: #FFFFFF!important; background: #3F455A!important; }

      }

      1. CarltonR

        Re: El Reg's Rose-Tinted [Google] Glasses

        Joseph Eoff

        Many thanks for this info. The issues is not with any refresh, but the time it take to go through their release process . . . I submitted my comments just after 2pm, however checking it a few minutes ago it said 30min, which means it took over one and a half hours to appear !

        With regards to the colours, thank you for this information, but as this would be quick win for an embattled El Reg I just though that they might like to implement it. Good will on their part.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re: El Reg's Rose-Tinted [Google] Glasses

          OK - now I understand. You need to have five comments accepted before you are moved to automod status for reader forums- this is your sixth comment.

          We do this to help stop spam - it is simple and effective.

          1. CarltonR

            Re: El Reg's Rose-Tinted [Google] Glasses

            Drewc

            Many thanks for the information on both the 'forum order' and 'five comments accepted' issues I was having. Understood.

            Is there any news on the 'have read' colour ?

            1. CarltonR

              Re: El Reg's Rose-Tinted [Google] Glasses

              I've just discovered my confusion over the 'Sort comments by' . . . to get to get this menu you have to be logged-in. If you are not, then the menu does not appear and the default setting is 'Thread'.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: El Reg's Rose-Tinted [Google] Glasses

      A quick answer - we are thinking right now about visited state. On the forum order - check the "sort comments by" box at the top of this forum thred - it has newest, oldest, popular and thread options. It sounds like your view is set at "thread"?

  597. storax
    Happy

    Thanks for listening

    Switching the background to #ffc; has made a world of difference.

    THANK YOU !

    As others have noted, the color being used for borders ( #ccc; ) is somewhat hard to distinguish from the background. That makes it a tad more difficult to scan a page.

    A similar concern exists with the visited links color.

    But with the slight de-whitening, I can now scan the main page again; I can find the articles I want to read. So I'll stop commenting now and go back to reading.

    Thanks again for listening.

  598. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bad redesign

    What the heck with the sudden redesign of the site? It is horrible, the glare of all the white space hurts my eyes.

    Are you jealous of Google maps and feel the need to mess up a good design with a redesign that your readers did not ask for?

  599. Joseph Eoff
    Meh

    Well..

    That's a start.

    Nice that my monitor isn't doing its best impersonation of a search light any more.

    Given that it has only taken a week to get one attribute changed, I figure that all of the complaints will have been handled and corrected shortly before the second coming of Zarquon.

    Nice "Snow Vulture" on the frontpage.

    Given that you've got an ad from F5 as the banner ad and simultaneously as the first ad in the right hand column, I figure you could remove the banner ad and not lose any real number of clicks. That way the top of the page wouldn't look so retarded, and there'd be that much more actual NEWS on the front page.

  600. Joseph Eoff
    Pint

    A beer for Diodesign

    One step at a time. Thanks for fixing the background color.

  601. Tikimon
    Unhappy

    Get rid of the pictures! They add NOTHING!

    I just looked at an article about Space-X and you have a huge image from the movie "Space Cowboys" wasting space and bandwidth. Wot the hell do Tommy Lee Jones and Clint Eastwood have to do with Space-X?

    HORRIBLE DESIGN! Go back to the old one or TRY AGAIN! This feel-good picture-heavy whitespace hell is not what a tech site needs!

    1. Mage Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Get rid of the pictures! They add NOTHING!

      Also 1st image is FAR too big!

  602. Joseph Eoff
    Pint

    Another beer for the design team

    Now the link to http://www.theregister.co.uk/ from the masthead covers (nearly) all of the red area around the logo.

    Keep it up. You might beat Zarquon yet.

  603. Joseph Eoff

    About the banner ad

    So that you can see why the banner ad bugs me, try this:

    Go and buy a copy of Playboy.

    Open it up, and find an ad in there somewhere (whilst you are at it, take note of the appropriate use of pictures. )

    Cut the ad out and glue it to the cover just above the Playboy title.

    See how stupid that looks?

    That's the front page of The Reg right now.

    For an even better impression, take a stock photo of some random woman and glue that in place of the playboy bunny on the cover.

    That's what your stock images do to the front page of The Reg.

    Now take the text of one of the articles and glue that over one of the pictures in the magazine of the current bunny.

    That is like one of your articles with a stock photo slapped on it and hiding the real content.

  604. Joseph Eoff

    Oh, bugger

    Two steps forward, and one back.

    See my last post comparing The Reg and Playboy..

    By moving the ads into the text, you've gone and done the equivalent of slapping an ad across the playboy bunnies' most valuable assets.

    Leave the ads in the right side column, please. Or make use of the dead space in the left column. Or both. Just not all across your most valuable assets.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh, bugger

      Used to have ads here, but they got so bad they interrupted the articles and made them very hard to read (for me anyway). Took ages, but eventually I just had to turn on AdBlock for the El Reg. Did wonders for the reading of the articles but since I am no IT expert or Web Design Guru or even Web Guru, had no idea of how to just turn off those appearing in the article. Still, without ads, the site is a lot better but honestly, if I could have static ads outside of the article, that did not "push" the main stories off the page, I would not be running AdBlock on El Reg. We do what we must but sometimes, it just does not feel right.

      1. Joseph Eoff

        Re: Oh, bugger

        Yeah, well.

        Right now I've got AdBlock taking out not just the ads, but all the idiotic oversized elements.

        I was using IE8 to see what improvements have been made, and found that besides the improvements there were also regressions.

  605. DToma

    Compared with some sites that I visit, it seems to load a lot faster. However, that could also be the time of the day that doesn't get a lot of activity. I don't think it's too white. In fact, I would like to see a bit more white space around the blocks of text. The text could possibly be a bit darker, though. People with low vision need to have the contrast in order to discern text from background.

  606. CarltonR
    Thumb Up

    Thank you, O thank you

    Have just noticed that the 'have read' is now red . . . black is for unread, and grey for mouse hovering (although, I don't really think that this is actually required).

    Just one minor thing, the 'The Channel' links do not change colour, which I always noticed was the case with the previous design also.

  607. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Incremental improvement

    OK, came back after a few days absence and was (pleasantly) surprised that some of the feedback was actually taken and used!

    Much better, although I would still prefer a denser text / information setting.

    the ads are ok, ( the hovering bar is still really annoying).

    Images are STILL TOO BIG but sizing them seems to be happening....

    Although I read the designers commentary with some empathy ( I used to manage a team of graphic artists in the cable TV industry & commercial websites), their early responses were not very mature . After all, what would you expect when you make wholesale changes that are jarring and unwelcome to your client base.

    Sorry Trevor, my sympathy only goes so far; if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen (& stop cooking). Criticisms, critiques and complements are part of a designers job. Although the vitriol was a bit heavy at times, man up and listen to your customers....

    Anyways, keep listening and take comfort in the fact that people are passionate about your site. In my web creation days, I wish I could of received 10% of the feedback you folks are getting ( & for free no less).

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Incremental improvement

      "Sorry Trevor, my sympathy only goes so far; if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen (& stop cooking)."

      So you want The Register to close up show and stop creating the content you presumably come here to read because you don' tlike the site design? Or do you want El Reg to close up because they object to taking abuse from commenters?

      Please, do fill me in. While you're at it, you can hopefully explain to me how you believe your stance is moral.

      "Although the vitriol was a bit heavy at times, man up and listen to your customers...."

      Just so we're perfectly clear, you and I? We aren't the customer. We're the product. Also, to be perfectly clear, you're attempting to justify bully and abuse directed at decent people trying hard to create a website (and content to go in it) that you get for free.

      So...um....what the fucking, fucking fuck, man?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Incremental improvement

        Sorry, beg to differ

        NOBODY is "justify(ing) bully and abuse". If you are in public forum, that unfortunately happens. Not right but it happens ( in ALL creative industries).

        NOBODY (at least on these forums) wants The Register to close up shop and stop creating the content. Bear in mind we are also the consumers and have our own opinions.

        Fine for you to stand up for your buddy. As he 's taking the brunt end of a lot of dissatisfaction over the creative side, presumably he understands passionate arguments. If not, then he's in the wrong business.

        Nothing personal.

        BTW, If you have to stoop to vulgarity in an argument, you've already lost........Flame away, if it makes you feel better.

        FYI, I have supported the advertisers here. Just for the record.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
          Trollface

          Re: Incremental improvement

          There's a line between "passionate arguments" and abuse. It has been crossed multiple times. Your response to this has been "suck it up, that's what you get for working in a creative industry".

          I submit you're an asshat. And if I had more time this close to crimbo I'd come up with something far more vulgar.

          By all means, show passion and make arguments for change, where the existing design bothers you. If you take a few minutes you'll note I've a few posts of my own in this thread with my own suggestions for the brass hats. But there's no need to resort to abuse, which is absolutely what more than a little of this has been.

          By saying "shit happens" and taking issue with someone calling out the abuse you absolutely are justifying it. And if you want to go twenty rounds with me on this one, I'll gladly go toe to toe. That gold badge isn't honourary, mate.

          As for the rest: in your comments you very clearly stated that if The Register doesn't like receiving abuse, then they should "close the kitchen". Don't back out of your statements now, chap. Own them. Explain your viewpoint. Better yet, explain why the people who own and operate this site shouldn't simply nuke the account of people who are abusive? It's their house. We're all just guests in it.

          "Bear in mind we are also the consumers and have our own opinions."

          Have whatever opinions you want. Being a reader of the site is no justification for abuse, and it entitles you to nothing. You aren't paying anything. You are provided content in exchange for having advertisements displayed on the same pages as that content.

          Literally everything else is a bonus. You aren't entitled to any of it, including posting to these forums. If we want to play here, we have to play by the rules. Sometimes we go over the lines. I'm probably one of the worst offenders for that.

          But what's seen in this thread goes beyond any of the thrashings I regularly hand out to the slanted of foreheads. There has been outright abuse and bullying. That's no okay. It's not acceptable. And it's not to be tolerated "because that's the way it is" or in the name of the almighty sense of entitlement.

          If you've a beef, go right ahead and list it. But don't abuse the staff.

          The business they're in is providing content. Not putting up with ungrateful entitled prima donnas. That would be the job of an internet troll. And with that in mind...

          ...I'm at your service, monsieur.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Incremental improvement

            Just so you know....

            I was referring to the designer(s), not Reg, to "close the kitchen". If you chose to interpret that statement differently, then go ahead; I've just told you my intent. You may have noticed that the vast majority of the commentary take issue with the new UI, not content or Site.

            Has some of the posts here gone overboard?

            Yes

            Has there been unfair expectations?

            Yes

            Does this happen in other industries ?

            Yes (go to a TV production meeting sometime for an eyeopener, especially if you are dealing with the talent)

            Again, I am not condoning abuse but am pointing out it happens. Giving half-hearted replies that imply the readers are computer Neanderthals does not endear the design team to the readership. Frankly, it seems less than professional.

            "Being a reader of the site is no justification for abuse, and it entitles you to nothing"

            Absolutely right

            If I have offended your sensibilities by this, then I'm sorry your sensibilities are offended.

            Ad hominem attacks aside, "nuke the accounts of people who are abusive? "

            Good idea; why not suggest that to the editor.

            I remain....................

            1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

              Re: Incremental improvement

              "I was referring to the designer(s), not Reg, to "close the kitchen""

              You mean the three staff developers who were thanked by name in the initial announcement of the site design? Those three people?

              "Again, I am not condoning abuse but am pointing out it happens."

              Okay, you've pointed that out. And you received a response, which was "abuse will be challenged." You seem to take great offense to that.

              "Giving half-hearted replies that imply the readers are computer Neanderthals does not endear the design team to the readership."

              If the shoe fits, wear it. Nobody is dismissing any suggestions out of hand, but if you behave like a troglodyte, get treated like one.

              Also: my some of my ancestors were Neandertals. We've absolutely no idea what their society was like, so I'll thank you not to imply that they were somehow less than exceptionally well behaved.

              ""nuke the accounts of people who are abusive? " Good idea; why not suggest that to the editor."

              Because the last time I raised a flag on that, Eadon was evaporated. I am attempting compassion, logic and some semblance of restraint. I haven't even tried putting any of my writing skills to use attempting to really shame or belittle you.

              If you prefer, I can refrain from attempting restrain and tell you what I really think. Somehow, however, I suspect you would become agitated were I to demonstrate the lack of sympathy for you that you loudly declared to lack as regards someone else.

              Have a joyous and happy holiday season.

              1. Sir Runcible Spoon
                Paris Hilton

                Re: Incremental improvement

                So, what DID you do to earn that Gold badge Trev? :)

  608. Efros

    Much better, visited links can be seen easily and less white acreage. I'm all set.

  609. Joseph Eoff
    Meh

    Cool

    Now you've got ads down the sides you can remove the ads in the articles and the ad above the masthead.

    You're getting there.

  610. Return To Sender

    Ah, respite...

    Well done chaps, starting to tone it down. It's surprising what just darkening the side bars does for you, isn't it. Now all we really want is for the font sizes to be dropped a wee bit; that should increase the overall text density on screen and help to bring down the impression of burnt-out retinas.

    Pics; still too big. And frankly, just plain pointless at times. And a banner ad above the Reg masthead? Why? In the name of any four gods you care to name, why? It just looks silly, as well as wasting vertical screen real estate. Put tower ads down the empty space at the sides or something, maybe.

  611. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Red vlinks

    Thanks for that reversion. It really,really helps.

    Lack of images in stories where perviously was found some oddly irrelevant stock image is greatly appreciated. But the headline image at the start of the stories where it does exist is still way too big.

    I do most of my Register reading on a 4:3 laptop, On rare occasions I read from my Galaxy SII or Nook HD+. In both cases, it sort of works ok in portrait mode, but to save having to keep zooming in for every page change I read inlandscape mode. So back to the same as the laptop. Story image too big so I always have to scroll just so I can get to reason for opening the page in the first place.

    Just checked on my 16:9 netbook. Same problem.

    Do you site stats collect any data on the screen size or browser size of your readers? Has there been a change since the make over?

    On the whole, the changes made today pretty much make the overall look and feel of the site more like the old site but with changes, ie acceptable. Not perfect yet, but an improvement on the steaming pile of dingos kidneys you dropped on us last week. :-)

  612. This post has been deleted by its author

  613. Sl1ck
    Meh

    Getting There

    Dear Reg Team,

    Getting there - thank you :-) Not just for the changes over the past 48 hours or so, but also for providing feedback and proof you are indeed listening.

    I primarily read the site on 1080p monitor, with a scroll-wheel mouse, and large volumes of black coffee.With this configuration in mind (less the coffee I guess), just 2 more updates and I will be far more accommodating of the new design path (although still mournful at the loss of an old friend)..

    1 - Ad at the top of the page.

    Please, please, please, please remove the ad from the top of the page. It's distracting not only to my eyes, but it also forces the important stuff down the page, makes the site less usable, and in my opinion devalues your brand image. This is especially the case given it's the same target product at the ad that's under the Top Stories column on the right......

    2 - The Hero picture on front page

    This is probably for the 900th time in this thread and you are no doubt bored, but significantly reduce the size of the hero pic. How about (assuming my target viewing environment of course), making it only two columns wide and reducing the size of the text a little, whilst letting the 3rd column take what would now be the vacant space?

    The white space issue *appears* to be improved a little, but the article blocks still seem a little spaced out/wasteful, but not sure what to suggest there.

    Thanks,

    A *Potentially* Calmer Reader :-)

  614. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Thank you.

    Less white and red vlinks have made a vast improvement - yeah, I'm easily pleased.

    Have a beer or 12 for listening!

  615. Mage Silver badge
    FAIL

    Only remain major issue

    Initial image is TOO big,

    648px × 429px

    378 x 288 should be MAXIMUM. You can always have a link to a larger one.

    It simply is adding risk of RSI having to always scroll.

  616. Mage Silver badge
    Happy

    Delighted with change!

    As a result of figuring how to cope with redesigned site I have learned how to change settings in Firefox to block ALL images from doubleclick and googlesyndicate and regmedia

    It's wonderful. Thanks!

  617. Shades

    My solution...

    @-moz-document domain(theregister.co.uk) {

    html {background:none repeat scroll 0% 0% #ddd!important}

    #topbar {margin:0px 0px 0px 0px!important;margin-bottom:0px!important;}

    #top_tease {display:none;}

    #ad-ldr-spot {display:none;}

    #follow_btns_top {display:none;}

    #right-col {padding:0px 0px 0px 0px;}

    a {color:#00d!important;}

    a:hover {color:#f00!important;}

    a:visited {color:#a00!important;}

    a:visited:hover {color:#f00!important;}

    #top_nav li a {color:#00f!important}

    #top_nav li.on a, #top_nav li:hover {color:#fff!important}

    div.bootnotes_nav {display:none!important}

    div.sec_nav {display:none!important}

    .glue #nav_pop > div {height:30px!important}

    #nav_pop > div {height:30px!important}

    .static #nav_pop > div {bottom:-31px!important}

    #nav_pop .story_row {display:none!important}

    a .standfirst, a:hover .standfirst, a:visited .standfirst, a:visited:hover .standfirst {color:#000!important;}

    a.story_link:hover {background-color:#fafafa}

    .headlines {padding:0px 0px 0px 0px!important;border-right:2px dotted #ddd}

    .headline {width:190px!important}

    .standfirst .trailer {color:#000!important; font-weight:bold}

    .story_grid_img {display:none}

    .toprot.large, .full_width_headline.block {width:633px!important}

    .full_width_headline.block {height:265px!important}

    .toprot.large #toprot_image, .toprot.large #top_story_image, .full_width_headline.block img {width:404px!important}

    .image_above img {display:none!important}

    .headlines .author_time_stamp, .headlines .comments .count{display:none!important}

    .full_width_headline.block .comments {display:none!important}

    .time_comments {display:none;}

    .dont_miss {width:415px!important;}

    .dont_miss.dcl .story_link .trailer {color:#000!important}

    .more_content {padding:0px 15px 15px!important}

    #nearby-index {padding: 10px 15px 10px!important}

    #ad-mu1-spot, #ad-mu2-spot {display:none}

    a.story {color:#fff!important}

    #rh_reviews h5, #spotlight h5 {background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)!important}

    .headline.with_image .comments .count, .first_headline.with_image .comments .count, .full_width_headline.left .comments .count, .full_width_headline.right .comments .count, .promo_story .comments .count {display:none!important}

    .article_img {display:none}

    #social_btns {top:15px!important}

    #article .byline {margin:28px 0px 0px!important}

    #author_box {display:none!important}

    #article_body_btm .comments a {color:#fff!important}

    .wptl.btm {display:none}

    #story_rhs_more {display:none}

    #whitepapers {display:none}

    #read_more_on .story {min-height: 150px!important}

    #sponlinks {display:none}

    #forums_page .heading .post a, #in_article_forums .heading .post a, #forums-nav .reg_btn.logout, #forums-nav .your_topics .more a, #forums-starred .your_topics .more a {color:#fff!important}

    #footer {background-color:#eee;margin:0px!important;padding:15px!important}

    #end_scripts {display:none!important}

    }

    1. Shades

      And here's what it does!

      1) Changed body colour to be slightly darker to create slight contrast with footer

      2) Removed Social Buttons from Masthead

      3) Removed Top Banner and side pane adverts

      4) Removed HUGE lead image/story and "top" stories section. (All stories still available in main links section)

      5) Restored links to old El Reg colours

      6) Fixed Navigation link colours to new colours after restoring original El Reg main link colours

      7) Removed stories/images from Nav popup

      8) Removed redundant navigation popup sub navigation boxes for sections WITHOUT sub navigation links!

      9) Changed sizes of headline divs to introduce a bit more seperation between main content area and side pane.

      10) Fixed headline link bylines to remain black after restoring original El Reg Link colours (El Reg changed the entire div to a link so whole text changed to match default link colours)

      11) Added a (very) slight hover colour change to headlines to indicate whole div is now treated as a link too

      12) Removed thumbnail images from main page and sub-section headlines

      13) Removed timestamp and comment count link (which doesn't actually go direct to comments!) from below headline links on main page.

      14) Changed "spotlight" over-image text box background to black to help reduce the amount of white.

      15) Removed article "Hero" images, rest of images in article unaffected.

      16) Removed article author popup box.

      17) Re-aligned article byline and social media buttons

      18) Reduced verticle size of article "More from The Register" divs.

      19) Removed LARGE Whitepapers links from certain articles

      20) Removed "Sponsored Links"

      21) Removed Right Pane "Related Topics" on article pages.

      22) Removed ALL comment count overlays (until they actually start pointing to comments!).

      23) Fixed various button text (back to white) which had inherited their colour from the standard El Reg link colours

      24) Rejigged padding and margins of footer to enable colour change to add seperation (and reduce a little of the whiteness)

      25) Hidden "scripting" div below of footer which caused uneccessary white box

      1. Shades

        And it looks like...

        Screenshots

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: And it looks like...

          Delving behind the facade of FireFox is new for me. The screenshots look exactly like the effect I want - but I can't make the sample code take effect.

          This is what I did on Firefox 34.0.5

          Opened profile folder via about:support

          ...AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\gqoqbzmx.default

          created folder

          chrome

          Pasted the example code into a new .txt file and renamed it

          userContent.css

          Then restarted Firefox.

          El Reg home page still has all the things that make it useless for me.

          Is it obvious what I am doing wrong??

          I haven't read an El Reg article for a week - it would be nice to get the home page back in a useful format.

          PS. I have GreaseMonkey and Adblock Plus add-ins

          1. Shades

            Re: And it looks like...

            I wonder if copying and pasting the CSS from above has introduced something to stop it from working? By the looks of it, for me at least, attempting to copy from this site is hampered by the sticky Navigation bar and it pulls in lots of extra stuff, without making it immediately obvious. Can you confirm that your userContent.css file has ONLY the CSS code in it?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: And it looks like...

              Thanks - a new copy&paste now works. It is not obvious what was corrupted in the original copy&paste. Will dig out Vmerge and do a file compare later.

              Been meaning to dig into Firefox's scripting facilities - this gives me a starting point by further customising of the El Reg home page for my needs.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: And it looks like...

                Adding the following lines have made the home page more informative on my 1152x864 display

                #site_nav {display:none;}

                div.dont_miss.dcl {display:none}

                .headlines {font-size:11px}

                Still need to reduce the whitespace round those headlines though - and possibly tone down the overall white background.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: And it looks like...

                  Replace

                  div.dont_miss.dcl {display:none}

                  with

                  div.dont_miss_row {display:none}

                  It temporarily loses the article to the right of the suppressed "Do Not Miss" section - but that will become visible when new articles are added to the page.

                  Again - many thanks to Shades for the original userContent.css posting in this thread. That's what the IT community is all about.

                  Now it's starting to feel like a good "at a glance" page.

            2. Vira

              Re: And it looks like...

              This works perfectly, thank you!

              As Shades says, check that the content of the file is what is posted earlier. Apps like TextEdit on my Mac adds content before the css code that breaks it.

              1. Shades
                Thumb Up

                Re: And it looks like...

                Glad I could help. I'm surprised El Reg have left the CSS up to be honest! Lol

                I've got a couple of additional tweaks that need adding, or not depending upon your preference, which Ill post below, as a reply to this post, later.

        2. Phil Koenig

          Re: And it looks like...

          Kudos on going to the effort to make those tweaks.

          However unfortunately people often seem to forget that websites such as this one do not exist simply to provide a free service - they need to at least pay for their costs to produce it. And unless people want a paywall (highly doubtful), that generally means advertisements. So, removing all the advertisements everywhere they appear is not likely to happen on the default site for obvious reasons.

          So, a good effort turning it back into something that looks straight out of 1994 (and believe me, I rather miss those days of straightforward websites that were 95% useful content that you could actually browse with Lynx without missing much), but let's not get our hopes up that the default site will look anything remotely like that any time soon.

          1. Joseph Eoff

            Re: And it looks like...

            No problem with ads - as long as they stay out of the way and aren't in idiotic positions (above the masthead? really?)

            If you look, hardly anyone is bitching about the mere presence of ads. We are bitching about idiotic changes in layout and appearance. We are bitching about piss poor use of monitor real estate. We are bitching about huge freaking stock photos that cause actual content be hidden beneath the edge of the monitor. We are bitching about the loss of functionality that people use (print pages aren't just for printers, people who use screen readers need them, too.)

            That's the problem, not the ads.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Pint

        Re: And here's what it does!

        Many thanks for this, at long last the site is usable once again - it is a pity the images have to remain on the right (spotlight section) with the text imbedded (?) into the image, would be nice if we could just have the text there as well.

        Thank you so very much for posting this as a site I have been a member of for 10 years (just checked my profile - wow), that had become difficult and off-putting for me since the re-design, is now once again very much usable.

        Cannot express deeply enough my gratitude here. I may work in IT but not in this area and know nothing of what you did but the site is now very usable, and thanks to the others who posted on where to put the code. This is what IT is about, the commentards all working together to resolve the issues we have, with a site that we love. Many thanks for all the hard work and Happy "insert holiday of choice here".

        This has been a real Present for me. Really enjoying it now. Have a pint of the black stuff (from Ireland)

        1. Shades

          Re: And here's what it does!

          Shame that it's down to us to have to "fix" El Reg. At least others are finding my tweaks useful.

          I'll post the code to remove the spotlight images in a bit.... Once I'm feeling a little less stuffed (and I've played a bit of CoD:AW)

          1. Ben Tasker
            Pint

            Re: And here's what it does!

            Add another happy user of your CSS, looks much, much better

    2. David Pollard
      Pint

      Re: My solution...

      @Shades: Nice work. I hope you got the job.

  618. V 2

    Please please please get rid of the floating navbar. for those of us on smaller screens, it takes up valuable space, and more importantly, tapping the spacebar to scroll from one screen of article text to the next leaves the first couple of lines of page 2 under the sodding navbar

  619. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Funny thing is

    I just spent ages disabling my AdBlock filters, trying to figure out why the grey was still there!

    Now re-enabled them because of the still over-sized image top front. Now to post this and go back and see if 'most commented' is back. And check out article date format.

    Certain 'tards - who seem to be of the 'bend over and take it' persuasion; fully-signed up members of the 'you won't win so don't even try' Party aka winner of the ideal voter award for the umpteenth century in a row as voted for by the Government Lackeys of the English-Speaking World - like those exposed in Psychological investigations as hopelessly conformist, so trying to deflect their own self-loathing by arguing that they're the sensible, non-delusional ones who know you can't lose your guts if you don't have any, put their usual limp oar in with observations about how people complain but eventually cave. Whereas I was a loyal Firefox user since it was Firebird, but I'll never use it again.

    With Australis, Mozilla fucked me over. Anyone with any sense and/or pride lives by 'forgive, but don't forget', but forgiveness takes a long time. And while the changes to date format and removal of 'most commented' are clearly the acts of a less-than-stellar sort, that massive pic is more reminiscent of Microsoft and it's absolute refusal to allow the option not to see the crass ad hoarding formerly known as TIFKAM.

    I'm surprised they haven't replaced File Explorer with Bing!

    Vista was an honest mistake, but the aesthetic of Windows 8/8.1/10 is 'by the wankers, for the wankers'. I just pray this debacle has been El Reg's Vista moment rather than it's Metro. Harsh? No; not if those proportions persist. If it's as cynical as Start Screen. Actions and words an' all that.

  620. Dwarf

    Light at the end of the tunnel ?

    I decided to come back for a peek to see what happened. I used to visit several times a day, but this week, zero times till now.

    I'm glad that things are starting to go in the right direction - there's not so much of a white blizzard, I can see see links again, and on *some* articles, there is no pollution by the pointless image, so thanks for sorting that out.

    There are still problems with :

    1. The front page image - still way to big and continues to cost me money on bandwidth when I look on the train.

    2. Still some articles with pointless pictures, these will be slow to load and cancelled as I'll get bored.

    3. Whats the deal with the advert above your strapline ? They come and go, really odd. Where's your branding ?

    4. Print .... Missing in action +1 on wanting to see it back.

    5. Still doesn't work properly on mobile devices - look at some of your pages on an IPAD and see how little information you can actually see. - try to open the Pick a superior christmas #1 page for example. The longest line manages 7 words before wrapping at 1/3 of the wider and only manages 10 lines of text - You are only using 1/15th of my available display space with stuff I actually care about.

    6. Still can't size to the window dimensions I want on a PC.

    7. Still far too many adverts, pointless pictures and flashing adverts = slow page load and data costs when mobile. I choose to use the web site rather than the app when mobile so I can see by the highlighted links what I've looked a previously. I'll ignore 100% of the time any advert that flashes, or simply close the page and do something else without reading. I control my eyes, not you.

    You are on the right track, but please finish the job so you don't loose readers like me.

    It feels like Windows 7 to Windows 8x all over again. Like any experiment, you can say "that didn't work" and move on to something better. Nobody will hold that against you !

  621. This post has been deleted by its author

  622. zimbo

    Responsive design

    I cannot believe that any business or organisation is still developing two separate sites these days, one for desktop and one for mobile.

    Have you El Reg folks not heard of responsive web design? I've been developing responsive designs for 3 years now, it's just crazy to maintain two separate code bases for a website when the principles of responsive design are so well established these days.

    Whichever idiots you used to develop these new sites should be sacked forthwith and return whatever dosh you paid them. Then go find someone to develop a proper responsive site.

    Apart from that, I agree with most of the other comments. The site wasn't broken in the first place, it worked fine, there was no need to change anything. Now it's just annoying to use.

  623. oneeye

    Greetings all,

    I know there was an uproar over the new design,BUT, after using it like I do,opening links From the news letters.,I really don't mind the new design. The side column could be better done,without the LARGE pictures. They are wasted space. So,you could add more stories/links and I often will follow rabbit trails 2,3 or more clicks,before returning to the news letter. That's the only suggestion I have for now.

  624. oneeye

    Hi all,

    I am in mobile only,and read the news letters from gmail,and open in Chrome,or Firefox. The size and layout are ok. I expand a little,and that pushes the right-hand column off the page,then the text is just the right size to read. I can scroll,or navigate in any direction to view the rest of the page just fine. The site seems well optimized for mobile,which is overtaking desktop as we speak. My screen is 4.7" and os 4.1.1 . I have a stock browser that displayed just fine,even with text wrap on expanding. The site is vastly improved since the first renditions. I imagine some of your people are pulling their hair out,and some are laughing like hyenas! I already gave my opinion on the pictures side column,as the vast majority have too. As for me,I'm just happy to read all the great articles. All true smartt people will fuss with minutiae

    Think of it as an adventure in how not to do things right from the beginning. I don't know if you all polled the readers first,but that's where you should have started. Lots of love,not lol. And thanks for all the hard work.

  625. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Most commented section

    I know you have binned it with the new design. But I keep coming back to see if you have reinstated it, but no.

    I don't have time to read all your articles so I read the ones that have caused the biggest reader reaction. But no more.

    You say it wasn't used much but that's no reason to kill it. I suspect it was killed because it cluttered your new design. So, a form over function call.

    I'm afraid you have lost this visitor.

    1. Old69

      Re: Most commented section

      "I'm afraid you have lost this visitor."

      Try using Shader's userContent.css detailed above - plus the additions by other people. You get a reasonably tight, uncluttered home page in a smaller font size without too much white - and the "read" articles clearly differentiated.

      It's made it possible for me to resume checking for new articles several times a day.

  626. El Zed

    a couple of weeks on and..

    sorry, but it's still annoying.

    This is my third stab at putting in a comment, I scrubbed the first two as I thought, well, I'm just repeating all the same gripes as everyone else, let's see if they fix them. But no, things like the stupidly large images are still there.

    I've frigged around with various extensions, css hacks etc, but the results are less than satisfactory.

    I'm off as a regular visitor (i.e. browser tab/window usually left open on site), I'll still pop in from time to time (with scripts disabled, automatic load of images blocked etc.).

    Happy Christmas etc, I'm off to make friends with a rather nice bottle of single malt..

  627. Chris Evans

    n.b.The new policy of having things listed as X hours/days old rather than giving a posted date/time is a real pain. Many people will know I last read thereg on say 23rd/24th at 4p.m.. How many days ago is that?

  628. noominy.noom

    Link to columnists

    I've searched through the threads in the forums and can't find a mention of this. What happened to the link to the columnists?

    1. Shadow Systems

      @noominy.noom.

      They removed their links because they don't want the readers to inundate them with hate filled emails due to the crappy redesign.

      I mean, hideously huge pictures that do nothing but eat up precious screen space, fixed width spaces that leave giant swaths of screen empty, ads everywhere, colours that were evidently chosen by a cocaine-addled crayon-muncher, no "Print" link, adding "print.html" to the end of the URL now results in a page just as full of the crap that the old style removed (you know, to make it something printable), and all the other mind numbingly stupid alterations they made... that over a thousand comments telling them in no uncertain terms were generally vilified & detested, requested to be put back, hundreds of comments giving CSS hacks to undo the stupidity (or at least tone it down to an easier to tolerate level), and complaints that no matter what size screen the visitor used to view the site it essentially ignored the user settings as far as resolution was concerned & just gave it to you as a third-screen strip down the middle... after all that, you'd think they'd get the hint, but no.

      Instead they fiddle with the background colour, tweak the link colour, and call it done.

      Don't bother waiting for any of them to reply to you. Even if one of them comes down off their High Horse to talk to the mere peasants (that would be all of us Readers to whom those advertisements are aimed at), their reply will be "we'll think about it" at best, "tough shit, it stays" at worse. And to add insult to injury, they'll take a function that used to work, screw it fifteen ways to Sunday, and turn it into something that not only no longer works but actively shits on your experience.

      So give them a golf clap for their efforts, then give them The Finger for having done it.

      It's what they've done to us.

      As a long time Reader, I can only say that *IF* I decide to continue reading the site, it'll be done with all their ads blocked, images turned off, Scripting turned off, and a CSS in place to make the site Accessible to my Screen Reader for the Blind.

      As it stands now, the design team has taken the DDA out back, held it down, shat in it's mouth, and kicked it square in the crotch to make it swallow the "Christmas gift".

      Kiss your ad revenue goodbye guys, you've pissed off the Readers so much they've generated the CSS & AdBlock rules required to negate them entirely. How's that reflecting in your bottom line? How's that massive hit to the bottom line feel? Hopefully it's as big a pain in the ass to you as your UI cluster fuck has been to us, your Readers.

      Because without us you're nothing, and pissing us off is a great way to become the next Geocities.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Link to columnists

      Link to columnists was demoted because rarely clicked on. However, it is still available - click on vulture icon in nav bar.

      1. Dwarf
        Megaphone

        Re: Link to columnists

        Well, at least its not consistent with the rest of the web site - people won't be clicking on that either.

        Whilst you are in the mood for change, you might want to make the front page logo bigger and the text too, there are at least 15 words on a page that people want to read, you could fill them with adverts.

        FFS when are you going to fix what you've broken ?

  629. Vic

    Page numbers on comment pages...

    When a comment page spreads over multiple pages, there doesn't seem to be a way to tell which number page you're actually reading...

    Oh - and the "newest" ordering still gives you the oldest page of comments if you go in through the tab on the right. I reported that yonks ago, but no-one seems to want to fix that :-(

    Vic.

    1. jake Silver badge

      @Vic (was: Re: Page numbers on comment pages...)

      Look at the address bar. The number after "http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/" is the page number. You are quite welcome.

  630. Redbaron

    "Older" posts

    Couldn't find this mentioned in the last fortnight and it's still a bug, so...

    When you click "Older posts" you get some more posts to read. Great! Click one and click the back button after reading and you're looking at the front page without any older posts listed, so have to click "older posts" again to see the rest.

  631. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Many kudos for the small-but-disproportionately-effective changes made so far, but can we please not use enormo-gifs for the hero image? It's bad enough that it's as huge as it is - it doesn't need to be a megabyte to boot. My poor phone's allowance is crying.

  632. mi1400

    "Skip to content" in JS disabled mode very creative but still ....

    posting after keen observation till date... Dear AlReg team the "Skip to content" in JavaScript disabled mode is very creative wayaround... there are two thing surrounding this...

    1. This does appear in forums at same top position but does NOT work and takes to http://www.theregister.co.uk/#main-col instead of html frame from where posts are starting.

    2. Right next to "Skip to content" yes in JavaScript disabled view/mode... plz also add "Print version" aswell... Yes should also work same for forums page too causing paginated posts to appear in one single large page aswell.

  633. mi1400

    "Skip to content" in JS disabled mode very creative but still ....

    In addition to prev post ... i have found a bug, that ... on "http://www.channelregister.co.uk" pages ... the "Skip to content" appears "after" the signup/login frame. it should be like every other page of alreg i.e. should be the first link in JavaScript disabled view.

    ----Prev Post--------------------------------

    Posting after keen observation till date... Dear AlReg team the "Skip to content" in JavaScript disabled mode is very creative wayaround... there are two thing surrounding this...

    1. This does appear in forums at same top position but does NOT work and takes to http://www.theregister.co.uk/#main-col instead of html frame from where posts are starting.

    2. Right next to "Skip to content" yes in JavaScript disabled view/mode... plz also add "Print version" aswell... Yes should also work same for forums page too causing paginated posts to appear in one single large page aswell.

  634. Triggerfish

    For gods sake

    Please make the pictures smaller.

  635. ShadowOne
    Thumb Down

    Bring Back the Print button

    Its not only for printing.

    It gives you the entire article in one go, and doesn't leave that awful whitespace on the left and right of arc.

  636. DaisyMichael_Techspert

    Well, if the site is being redesigned please consider changing the red colour of the top banner and make the pictures a bit smaller.

  637. neile

    Images too big

    I need to scroll pretty much the entire width of my window to get past the irrelevant image to get to the story. Far too faffy...

  638. Sl1ck

    Any more changes planned?

    Drew and Co.

    Just wondering if there are any more planned changes to the design of the site and if so what time frame this would be in?

    I (and I believe others) would like to see the ad at the top of the page above your logo removed, and it sounds as if people are asking for the "hero article picture" on the front page to be smaller.

    The changes of late have helped make the site far more usable, but is this the end of the changes based upon the feedback from the Reg faithful?

    Many Thanks,

    Richard

    1. Sl1ck

      Re: Any more changes planned?

      Hi Reg Team,

      May I assume that this will go answered, and thus indicate the end of any changes?

      Thanks,

      Richard

      1. Sl1ck

        Re: Any more changes planned?

        So, given no change, and no response, it looks like the damn advert banner at the head of the page is here to stay then :-(

        Is there anyone else who thinks that this, and the hero pic are probably the only two major issues remaining?

        If these were resolved, I'd gladly return to viewing more than just the comments section on the reg.....

  639. Joseph Eoff

    Still completely fucked up

    No improvements? OK, no problem. I'll just keep the Ad-Blocker turned on to reformat the mess into something useable.

    What? You won't get any ad revenue? Not my problem. You fucked it up, you fix it, then I can turn off the ad blocker.

  640. evilkiwi

    Horrible, awful, empty white space. Not you too, El Reg!

    Oh, Reg. I thought you were bright people who could see through the 'clean and modern' bullshit. Acres and acres of useless white space. And a giant stock photo that conveys no useful information. Why? You're a news outlet - so print news! White space has no information content. Stock photos are for USA Today and other infotainment sites for the masses. Your readers are bright and want information. Please save the Disney layouts for thickos. We are intelligent readers and we want the news.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Horrible, awful, empty white space. Not you too, El Reg!

      Clean design with space between things is hardly modern BS, it's graphic design 101.

      BTW are you complaining about desktop or mobile - I feel people should always stipulate.

  641. The Quiet One

    IBM Article

    Will Someone from The Register please take a look at the IBM Mainframe article and explain exactly what your reason was for putting a HUGE picture at the top of the article and then THE SAME picture just a few paragraphs further down?

    Seriously guys, this looks so amateurish and it's driving us crazy!

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: IBM Article

      Oops - that was a bug of sorts. The internal tag to disable the "hero" pic in that particular article had a typo in it so it didn't work. We meant to switch off the top photo, but that accidentally didn't happen.

      Now fixed, ta.

      C.

      1. The Quiet One

        Re: IBM Article

        Thanks for the explanation!

      2. jake Silver badge

        @ diodesign (was: Re: IBM Article)

        Now fix the "Hero" pic. Have you not noticed that we don't like it? And have you not noticed that it doesn't actually do anything useful, other than waste bandwidth and screenspace?

        As for that persistent navigation bar ... Why? Honestly, why? What good is it? What does it do that's useful? It doesn't even make ElReg any money when folks are too clueless to block the silly-ass thaig. As near as I can tell, it's a totally useless use of CPU, bandwidth, and screenspace for all concerned.

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: jake

          > Now fix the "Hero" pic

          First off, I'm not a site designer, nor am I directly in control of the site design. I just work here.

          But I will say this: the hero pic works well, IMHO, with stories that have good pics, eg: Cameron and Barack, Raif Badawi, Musk's railgun pods, etc. That's just from today. Yes, we'll slowly and gradually eliminate the stock photos. But, as US editor, I feel we should promote strong illustrations/photos to support our stories, IMVHO.

          C.

          1. jake Silver badge

            @diodesign (was:Re: jake)

            The hero pic works well HOW, exactly?

            All it does is take up space, for no apparent reason.

            I note that you chose not to address the fucking useless persistent navigation bar.

            1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

              Re: @diodesign (was:Re: jake)

              "The hero pic works well HOW, exactly?"

              A picture tells 1,000 words, etc.

              C.

              1. Joseph Eoff

                A picture tells 1,000 words, etc.

                Not really. A picture might say a lot of things, but not necessarily what you meant it to - and it might not even say anything at all.

                Try this one:

                http://www.planet-wissen.de/bilder/mediendb/planetwissen/bilder/politik_geschichte/persoenlichkeiten/wilhelm_zwei/intro_exil_interfoto.jpg

                Without looking at the url or reading the web site, what does that picture tell you? Absolutely jack.

                Only the text and the name give that picture its significance.

                .

                .

                .

                .

                .

                .

                .

                .

                .

                .

                .

                That's Kaiser Wilhelm, the last Kaiser of Germany, in exile in Holland. The interesting part of it is that the man who was the absolute ruler of an entire country spent his time in exile sawing logs and chopping fire wood - for fun. How much of that can you see in the picture?

              2. jake Silver badge

                Re: @diodesign (was:jake)

                "A picture tells 1,000 words, etc."

                Not necessarily. For example, about a third of a century ago I was fiddling about with C compiler design. I was timing the rendering of Mandelbrot & Julia sets (yes, this was work related, we were number crunching ... ). One of the janitors (known druggie, but never at work) came into my office late-night and said "WOH, dude! Is your computer on acid?"

                My brain went through several hoops in about 5 seconds, until I came up with "Yeah, dude, somehow she managed to get a contact high."

                Reply: "Cool! Maybe computers are are a good thing!"

                During the meanwhile ... Anyone who has ever taken a Journalism class knows that a lead-in paragraph, describing the scenario at hand, before the first picture, makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. Especially in environments where most readers are textually inclined (thus the term "readers"). We don't pay much attention to pictures on news sites, just the news.

                In summery: Headline. Strapline (for amusement, obviously). Who/what/when/where descriptive paragraph. Photo. Rest of story. It's not only a good idea, it should be the law.

                I note that you chose not to address the fucking useless persistent navigation bar. Again.

                (Before you reply, consider how many "up" vs. "down" votes I have received in this thread, compared to how many down-votes my fanbois generally provide for their wanking pleasure.)

              3. Anonymous Coward
                Coat

                Re: @diodesign (was:jake)

                "The hero pic works well HOW, exactly?"

                A picture tells 1,000 words, etc.

                No seriously, how can it? The picture's too damn small. I'm running 1280×800 here and it only takes up a quarter of it. Then there's all the waste of space text below it!

                Tell you what, why don't the designers do away with the silly text below and make the image the full browser window?

          2. Joseph Eoff
            FAIL

            "Hero pic works well"

            Yeah, like this one:

            http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/28/earth_timelapse_video_blue_dot/

            You've slapped a generic stock photo of the earth on article that is all about photos of the earth made by Alexander Gerst.

            That worked well. NOT.

          3. Joseph Eoff

            Cursed "hero" pics

            And, as a US citizen who is fully capable of actually reading, I suggest you make the "hero" pic smaller, or eliminate it all together.

            Slapping an enormous stock photo into an article doesn't help the article at all - it only makes YOU (as editor) look like an incompetent twit.

            The "hero" pictures are too large, even in those (rare) cases where the pictures are actually relevant.

            Make them smaller in general, and just DROP the damned things rather than slap in an irrelevant stock photo.

            1. Smaller "hero" pics.

            2. No "hero" pic if all you have is a stock photo.

            3. Don't use a picture as a "hero" pic and then re-use it within the article.

            1. Joseph Eoff

              WTF? Downvotes?

              Several of my latest posts that attempt to explain why we don't like the changes have gotten a single downvote each.

              Have I hurt the feelings of some Reg staffer os badly that he now feels it necessary to downvote facts?

  642. PleebSmash

    in reply to

    Can the "In reply to" alt text include either the name of the poster replied to, a snippet of the post, or both?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: in reply to

      Indeed, and here's a template for you to get started with:

      (substitute &lt; and &gt; since this forum doesn't understand them.)

      &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="{{post_url}}"&gt;{{author}} wrote:&lt;/a&gt;

      &lt;blockquote&gt;{{post_text}}&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;hr /&gt;

      &lt;/p&gt;

      which would render like this:

      PleebSmash wrote:

      Can the "In reply to" alt text include either the name of the poster replied to, a snippet of the post, or both?

      --------------------------------------------------------------

  643. ChrisElvidge

    Who brought back the "expand comments" idea

    Sack him/her/it! If I'm reading comments, I want to read comments.

    1. jake Silver badge

      @ChrisElvidge (was: Re: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea)

      "Sack him/her/it!".

      Concur. H/Sh/it really needs to take a class in user interfaces ...

      1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

        Re: @ChrisElvidge (was: Re: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea)

        Demanding people be sacked is ludicrous. Just stop and think for a second.

        C.

        1. Vic

          Re: @ChrisElvidge (was: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea)

          Demanding people be sacked is ludicrous.

          So is the "expand comments" link...

          Vic.

          1. jake Silver badge

            AVic (was:Re: @ChrisElvidge (was: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea))

            "So is the "expand comments" link..."

            Concur.

        2. Joseph Eoff
          FAIL

          Re: @ChrisElvidge (was: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea)

          The bit about sacking the responsible person is a eference to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

          Haven't you watched all the requisite nerd classics?

        3. jake Silver badge

          @ diodesign (was: Re: @ChrisElvidge (was: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea))

          "Demanding people be sacked is ludicrous."

          Really? Rolling out an interface design change without pilot/alpha/beta testing it with the intended userbase? That's definitely a firing offense in my book. Pissing off the people who pay your bills isn't exactly a good idea ...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @ diodesign (was: @ChrisElvidge (was: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea))

            "Pissing off the people who pay your bills isn't exactly a good idea ..."

            If you're pissed off I think you should immediately demand a refund, close your account and find another tech journal to give your hard earned cash to

            1. jake Silver badge

              Re: @ diodesign (was: @ChrisElvidge (was: Who brought back the "expand comments" idea))

              "If you're pissed off I think you should immediately demand a refund, close your account and find another tech journal to give your hard earned cash to"

              You are not listening. Adverts pay for this site. Ticking people off causes prodigious use of ad blocking software. Snowball rolling downhill, and all that.

  644. ChrisPW

    Now that I'm somewhat used to the design

    Day one the new design was a clusterfuck; now it is at least a usable site so I thought I'd sit back and think about what the new design has done to my usage of the site.

    I think I sum sum it up like this: Previously thereg felt like a somewhat professional/technical site that threw in enough silly or trashy content to keep things light. Now it *feels* like a trashy tabloid that might have an occasional good artical, but I can't spot them with a quick glance anymore so I go elsewhere.

    My visits have reduced hugely and I've realised that 90% of them now consist of me loading the frontpage, then closing the window without reading anything. I've also turned adblock back on (previously thereg was excluded), the new design combined with the adverts results in far too small a percentage of my screen actually having content (i.e. words) on it.

    Any more design updates planned?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Jamie Jones Silver badge

      Re: Now that I'm somewhat used to the design

      "I think I sum sum it up like this: Previously thereg felt like a somewhat professional/technical site that threw in enough silly or trashy content to keep things light. Now it *feels* like a trashy tabloid that might have an occasional good artical, but I can't spot them with a quick glance anymore so I go elsewhere."

      Spot on!

      That's just how I feel - I couldn't have put it better.

      "My visits have reduced hugely and I've realised that 90% of them now consist of me loading the frontpage, then closing the window without reading anything."

      Same here. As I said before, I'm not on some campaign to stop reading, but like you, I rarely get much beyond the front page.

      It's been a month now, with no significant fixes, so I guess I'll slowly drift away like many others.

      Not that it matters - obviously the demographic the Reg wants to reach for it's advertisers like the shiny-shiny fluff. Indeed, I've noticed for a while the adverts are targetted more at management types than techies.

      And now they've added a new bit of bling, with the 'expand comment' function.

      Ok, this isn't too major to be annoying, but it shows the priorities are in the bling.

      Never once have I read comments and thought "this post is so long that I wish it had been truncated". The full comment is still downloaded anyway, so what's the point?

      The thing is, the comments page is one in which vertical scrolling is inevitable. Truncating comments doesn't stop that.

      But now, instead of being able to simply scroll through the comments - scrolling past those you don't like - you have to interact to expand comments you do want to read, so yeah, another step backwards

      Sigh, can El Reg please use someone other than an adhd afflicted PHB to sign off these stupid changes.

      AT LEAST let us disable this shite in our profile (along with the stupid blingy date/time changes - code so unthoughtout that the non javascript fallback shows the day-date only without the time)

      But yeah, whilst on the subject of that.... "this post posted in the last few minutes" or "...just now".. What the frigging-facebook-fuck is the use of that?

      If you insist on that sort of of code, this is how it should be done:

      All date changes made *server side* prior to sending the HTML.

      Then, if you have to have the dates changing, have the javascript start up after a timed delay.

      That way:

      1) It works whether javascript is running or not. Those who have disabled javascript won't expect the date info to auto-update anyway.

      2) It still works as intended with javascript enabled, but with the added bonus there's no major date manipulation made to the page on-load.

      Oh, and for the 'expand comment' thing, again, if this whole thing really was an issue, the 'fix' would be to have periodic (skip to next post) buttons. That adds the 'feature' without making it more hassle for those who don't care for it.

      But I guess that this isn't blingy enough considering it could be achieved with boring old standard 'A' anchors.

      Ho hum

      EDIT: The top banner ad that is now visibly 'outside' the main page looks like the sort of thing you get on spammy sites which are covered with dodgy ads.

      HTH

  645. RG10122
    FAIL

    This site redesign was a xxxxing unusable disaster when it was launched AND DESPITE ALL OF THE COMMENTS HERE, IT IS STILL A MESS.

    I am using the site with full addblocking/ghostery filtering, and reformatting the worst bits with a css overrides from stylish/userstules.org.

    hooray for: https://userstyles.org/styles/108249/theregister-co-uk-2014-12-redesign-xw

    It saddens me to see that there are staff members who are still deluded to think the new design works well. I'm looking at you, diodesign. You should hang your head in shame.

    Bah!

    1. maffski

      Red or Green? It's all the same to me

      '...AND DESPITE ALL OF THE COMMENTS HERE, IT IS STILL A MESS...'

      And so we finally get to the true point of this 'redesign' - it's really just to test if the 'Page: ' selector on the forums rolls over to a new line correctly or goes out the border.

      Admit it El Reg, we're all just a unit test to you!!

    2. TechnoTechno

      @ RG10122

      That's much better thanks! An excellent app

  646. PleebSmash

    number of replies

    Below thumbs up/down counts on http://forums.theregister.co.uk/my/posts/ I'd like to see the number of replies.

  647. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Stop

    You, there...

    What is the meaning of this 'hero' image?

    Come on, explain the joke for the rest of us. We're all waiting to hear it.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: You, there...

      Killed it. Will have a chat with the chap who thought it was a good idea.

      C.

      1. Joseph Eoff

        Re: You, there...

        While you're at it, have a chat with who ever thought that the giant "hero" pictures were a good idea.

  648. Mage Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    main page image

    Still x2 too big.

    Either the content is poorer or site is horrible because I hardly spend any time here now.

  649. James 29

    No real update on changes since end of December. How about an official response to the issues raised, or are we just hoping all the problems (and compliants) go away?

  650. John Dann

    I'm no expert web designer so I can't comment with precision on design matters. But I'd be interested to know what the readership of The Register is nowadays. I'm probably not typical, but I've certainly gone from being a very regular reader to a barely once a day glance.

    Why? Because:

    1. The information content 'above the fold' has been slashed. It used to be easy to glance over a set of maybe a dozen stories in one gulp, but no longer.

    2. The eye just doesn't know where to look now - it's just frustrating even to try.

  651. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Could I respectfully ask J. R. Hartley to add a suitably pithy closing comment to this thread after he/she opened it so succinctly.

  652. romanempire
    FAIL

    Adblock installed...

    ...because of the redesign. Previously I didn't bother on the Reg as they weren't too intrusive.

    It also has the added benefit of blocking that dumbass 'hero' pic. Draws the eye for absolutely no benefit.

    The Register

    Biting the eyes that read IT

  653. romanempire
    FAIL

    [Set Adblock slider to:- Blocked element:

    <DIV

    id="top_tease" >]

    And the 'Expand comments' is dumb beyond words. If I'm interested enough to read the comments then I use the PgDn button. The 'Expand comments' crap forces me back to the mouse which doesn't help my RSI!

    The Register

    Biting the eyes that read IT

    1. jake Silver badge

      @romanempire

      "The 'Expand comments' crap forces me back to the mouse which doesn't help my RSI!"

      Indeed. I don't have that problem, but my daughter's hubby does.

      "The Register: Biting the eyes that read IT"

      How about "starting to bite, in the world of IT"?

      Seriously, ElReg, listen to your users. We pay your bills.

  654. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Print Page button

    Bring back the "Printable Page" button. The whole article on one page, please.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Print Page button

      Pssst.... stick a Print/ between the .co.uk/ and the year in the URL, eg: this one-page print-happy review versus the normal look.

      C.

      1. Joseph Eoff

        Re: Print Page button

        Psst...

        Doubly sad because it doesn't help those who NEED the print function - such as those using screen readers.

  655. nipsy

    where did everyone go?

    Out of interest, what site has everyone gone to? presuming you've found a navigable site thats not diamond white, and has a useable menu!

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: where did everyone go?

      Psst... scroll right down to the bottom and, on the right, hit the "mobile version" button. You'll get the mobile-friendly design that doesn't have all the extra layout and multiple pages – just a plain drop of links for the front page and one-page articles.

      If you get sick of it, scroll down to the bottom, click on the desktop version link to switch back.

      C.

      1. Joseph Eoff

        Re: where did everyone go?

        Psst...

        I must be blind, as I can't find the mobile button (even when using IE, which doesn't block out all the crap.)

        And how sad is it that YOU (as an editor) must recommend such a work around to your readers?

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: Re: where did everyone go?

          Hm. Odd. It's right down there, bottom right, in the grey box. Under the Twitter and Facebook button links. Or you can try m.theregister.co.uk, but you may be redirected to the desktop version if you're logged in as a desktop user. I tried just now in a Chrome Incognito window and it worked for me.

          As for this being sad, I say no, sir. We've got a new design. It's not everyone's cup of tea. There's an alternative layout (and the hidden print page) if you want to give it a go.

          C.

          1. jake Silver badge

            @ diodesign (was:Re: where did everyone go?)

            You are arguing against actual computer users who understand interface design, in favo(u)r of the 1D10T GreatUnwashed who have zero clue beyond their fondle-slab?

            Really? What has ElReg come to?

            1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

              Re: @ diodesign (was:Re: where did everyone go?)

              "You are arguing against actual computer users who understand interface design"

              I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. I'm saying: here's another layout to try. You may like it. You may not.

              C.

              1. jake Silver badge

                Re: @ diodesign (was:where did everyone go?)

                "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

                The idea is to get it right the first time[0] for the intended audience. If they complain, listen to them. Don't send them "out back", to a "just in case" interface. Comprehend[1] yet?

                [0] Preferably with pilot, alpha & beta tester folks who actually use the site.

                [1] Reading between the lines, not trying to cause confusion ...

              2. Dan 55 Silver badge

                Re: @ diodesign (was:where did everyone go?)

                So is this the official announcement that there will be no more changes to the layout and if anyone doesn't like it then they can go to the mobile site which has no comment icons and doesn't let you edit?

                1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                  Re: Re: @ diodesign (was:where did everyone go?)

                  "So is this the official announcement that there will be no more changes to the layout"

                  No – I don't have the final say on the design; there may be more tweaks coming but certainly nothing like turning the site into lwn.net.

                  Just trying to be helpful suggesting things that readers, who I do appreciate, may be interested to try. Not exactly perfect solutions, but I figured it would be better than silence.

                  C.

          2. Joseph Eoff

            Re: where did everyone go?

            Still not there, either under Firefox (with all the filters disabled) or IE (which doesn't have any filters.) Not showing up with Chrome, either.

            Your link to http://m.theregister.co.uk/ works just fine.

          3. Joseph Eoff

            Re: where did everyone go?

            Still sad.

            I've been all over the mobile and the (helpfully hidden) print views - surely you've noticed how many times I've posted in this comments section.

            It is still sad that The Register has gone the way of the big pictures, little text layout for the barely literate.

            The Register is NOT your typical site aimed at the general public. You get clicks from people who are looking at the actual CONTENT. Content is what keeps us coming back. Hiding content behind huge pictures does NOT encourage us to keep looking.

            Here's a site that manages a good mix of content and pictures (though the ads are too intrusive:)

            http://lwn.net/

            Nice, clean layout. Relevant pictures where a picture is of use.

            If I wanted lots of pictures, I'd visit a porn site instead of The Register.

      2. nipsy

        Re: where did everyone go?

        hmmm, no thats even worse, might be ok on a phone i suppose.

        could you come up with something kind of in the middle.

    2. nipsy

      Re: where did everyone go?

      one of these has to be worthwhile!

      http://www.moreofit.com/similar-to/www.theregister.co.uk/Top_10_Sites_Like_Theregister/

  656. Joseph Eoff

    Another bug - Sigh...

    Assume I've repeated all the usual curse words..

    1. Open a forum (comments on an article.)

    2. Set to sort comments by newest.

    3. Close the page

    4. Return to that comments page using any link or just copy and past the address.

    5. Comments are sorted by newest, so that the newest items are at the top of page 1

    6. Unfortunately, you land on the LAST page of comments.

    Every time I return to this comments section (El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here) I have to click to the first page to see the newest posts.

    1. Vic

      Re: Another bug - Sigh...

      Unfortunately, you land on the LAST page of comments.

      I've been reporting this one for months. It would appear to be a "don't care"...

      Vic.

  657. ratfox
    Facepalm

    Why are all posts centered??

    I hope this is a bug, and not a redesign!

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Why are all posts centered??

      I think it's a bug. It happens to me about once a week, admittedly only since the re-design happened. Just going back to the main page and then back to a thread seems to fix it. Or closing and re-opening the browser window.

      In case they're bug-hunting, I use Win 8.1 and Firefox.

      I don't think I've ever seen the centering thing on the iPad, which is the other way I tend to browse El Reg.

  658. This post has been deleted by its author

  659. Only me!

    Big Pics

    Just stop it with the HUGE pictures.

  660. dajames

    Links

    A couple of things:

    1. There used to be a red vulture link at the bottom of a page (in the forums, at least) that led straight back to the homepage without having to either scroll back to the top of the page or use a browser bookmark. I miss that.

    2. I've sometimes found a desire for a link from the "Post Comment" page back to the article -- useful to right-click and "open in new window" to check again what the piece actually said. Could we have one of those, please?

  661. TonyBanjo

    So this is pretty much the final version excepting a few tweaks?

    Shite. Bye bye.

  662. diodesign Silver badge

    "Out of interest, what site has everyone gone to?"

    FYI, looking at the latest stats, Register traffic was up globally in January 2015. US unique visitor count was up 18% compared to the year-ago month; other regions (UK, Canada, Australia) experienced same order of rises.

    (No Reg badge for boring reasons - posting via public site from home rather than logging into the backend)

    C.

    1. jake Silver badge

      @diodesign

      "Register traffic was up globally in January 2015"

      Define "traffic". Is that individual people looking at ElReg, or bandwidth paid for by ElReg serving up useless advertising & huge graphics?

      Define "unique visitor count". Is that by IP address, or by account handle? (as a side-note, I can't remember seeing a handle with a number higher than 75000 ... for awhile there last year, I was kind of curious if the system would get B0rk3d when all y'all hit 64K. Growth in vocal user-base has not been exactly staggering.)

      ElReg badges are useless. We don't need no stinking badges.

      1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

        Re: Jake

        "Traffic" as in page views and unique visitors. It's a general term. Bandwidth is not used in readership analytics.

        Unique visitor count is the number of people we can identify as, well, unique, using IPs and cookies. If 5 people visit the site 10 times in a month, that's 50 visits or 5 unique visitors. (Yeah, we know, by the nature of the web, it's not going to be super-super-super-precise, but when you get into seven-figures, the noise barely moves the needle; it's good enough.)

        "Growth in vocal user-base has not been exactly staggering"

        Have you seen the Daily Mail article comments? We'd much rather have quality over quantity.

        C.

        1. JoshOvki

          Re: Jake

          I am curious about how many of these are how I have started using the reg. While before the change I would read a few articles and then go back to work, just to break up the day a bit. Now I go to the homepage, try to find something to read, close el reg, realise I still need to break up the day, go back to el reg, find an article totally randomly, close the page quickly when a NSFW picture comes up, find another article, quickly scroll past the image (just in case). Go to the Forums to see if there is any news on when the hell these picture are going to get removed, close it all back down and go back to work. Suddenly you have 7 page hits right there and I still haven't read an article!

          On a side note I have had to disable flash on the reg too, because all of the adverts were brining my work laptop to a standstill.

    2. JoshOvki

      "unique visitor count was up 18%"

      What was the count of returning visitors?

      Up 18% of unique visitors is good, but if you are down 19% returning visitors that is not so good.

  663. TheRealRoland

    I like the font-size doodad when i use my Note2 -- font size all the way down (small) - lots of articles in a relatively small space, much better than google news' waste of space.

    (can't seem to get my news page in the 'old style' - started happening only a week or two ago)

  664. TheRealRoland

    Shortest clickpath to get to your 'My Comments' page?

    What's the fastest way (other than bookmarking it) to get to the 'my comments' page? And is it in the plans to get the comments button back on the mobile pages?

    Roland

  665. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How can I disable the "expand comment" feature and have ALL comments immediately fully visible? I speed read all comments and detest having to click that link on practically every one. Pointless "feature".

  666. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Were you so disappointed that the shitstorm had died down...

    ... that you had to include *animated* gifs (that stupid one related to the photoshop story)

    Seriously guys, I'm sure whoever is driving all these changes secretly works for a competitor...

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Were you so disappointed that the shitstorm had died down...

      It was one of the most read stories of the week, enjoyed by thousands upon thousands of people, and not one comment about the amusing GIF (that I can see).

      There is absolutely no way we can keep everyone happy.

      C.

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: Were you so disappointed that the shitstorm had died down...

        I read, and enjoyed, the article too.

        The annoyance was trying to read other articles, with the thumbnail flashing back and fore amongst the links to other articles over the right of the screen.

      2. jake Silver badge

        @ diodesign

        "enjoyed by thousands upon thousands of people"

        "Enjoyed by"? Really? Can you actually demonstrate that?

        "and not one comment about the amusing GIF (that I can see)."

        I can't see the "amusing GIF" either. Must be something in the air.[1]

        "There is absolutely no way we can keep everyone happy."

        Except the ElReg Marketing Department, who are obviously out of touch with the readership, apparently. Before you nuke this post, kindly re-read the entire thread.

        [1] Do I really have to point out the sarcasm?

      3. Joseph Eoff

        Re: Were you so disappointed that the shitstorm had died down...

        I didn't bitch about the animated GIF because I didn't see it. I'm still blocking all the "hero pics" and your ads.

        Clean up the mess and I'll unblock your ads and the pictures.

        Ad Block is the only way to view the mess that the Reg has become.

        PS:

        WTF was so "amusing" about the GIF? It looked like a flash back to the 1990s - senseless blink and bling "because I can do it, isn't it cool?"

        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

          Re: Joseph Eoff

          Mate, I don't think this website is for you.

          C.

          1. Joseph Eoff

            Re: Joseph Eoff

            Actually, it was for me up until you guy decided to completely fuck the site up. The information still is for me, as well as the writing style.

            Just fix the "layout for the illiterate" and tone down the ads.

            What in the name of Sam Hill gives you the idea that this site isn't for me? The only thing about The Register that doesn't suit me is the idiotic new layout.

            1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

              Re: Joseph Eoff

              "Just fix the "layout for the illiterate" and tone down the ads."

              It's not going to happen.

              "What in the name of Sam Hill gives you the idea that this site isn't for me?"

              You just seem really unhappy. I mean, we work really hard to fill the site with quality techie but fun and entertaining copy, pick nice pics to go with it, all for free (we just ask you view some ads) and yet you're unhappy.

              It's sorta like wandering into a Chinese restaurant and expecting pasta, no?

              C.

              1. Vimes

                Re: Joseph Eoff

                Speaking of adverts, I think I mentioned this some time ago and it hasn't been mentioned since: is there any possibility of a paid membership that allows the site to be viewed without the ads?

                I'm getting increasingly tempted to install AdBlocker - the advert above the site banner can be irritating and it breaks up the layout for example - but all the same I would prefer to avoid stopping this website from getting its funding.

              2. Vimes

                Re: Joseph Eoff

                WTF???

                Talk about irritating adverts - I click on the link to edit my previous post, and get something covering the entire screen!!!

                https://patrick.seurre.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ad.png

                We really do need some sort of legitimate option to remove ads entirely - paid or otherwise. This isn't the first time your ad providers have screwed up. Far from it...

                Edited to add: paid membership could perhaps also have other perks, like increased customisation of the layout. Users could, for example, choose whether the most recently commented topics is shown in the smaller right hand pane or the latest headlines - depending on how they want to use the site.

                Incidentally, my silver badge seems to have gone? Have I not posted enough?

              3. Vimes

                Re: Joseph Eoff

                Given the amount of negative comments here to do with the layout, I'm curious: did the process of re-designing the site include getting feedback from users before making these changes as to what they would actually want to see?

                I might see the adverts as annoying personally, but at least they serve a purpose. These extra large headline image change amongst others seems to be almost universally reviled though.

                I have to ask: why make such changes?

              4. Vimes

                Re: Joseph Eoff

                we work really hard to fill the site with quality techie but fun and entertaining copy, pick nice pics to go with it

                Much of that hard work will be for nothing if the redesign is so poorly handled that it drives people away (no apparent attempt at asking readers what they'd like to see *beforehand* followed by apparently sticking fingers in your ears to block the sound of people complaining afterwards).

                I may have missed something here, but I have yet to see a single positive comment about the large cover image on the front page in particular. If something is that unpopular why keep it?

              5. Joseph Eoff

                Re: Joseph Eoff

                Re: Joseph Eoff

                The problem isn't the content. It is the idiotic format that you've (corporate "you," not personal) have changed to. I love the content I get from the Register. I'm still reading it for the content, despite the format changes that make the site itself ugly and unusable.

                Do you know why I am still reading your content? Because it is good. The content is so good that I've gone to the trouble of creating filters that reformat the site so that the content is visible again instead of being hidden behind oversized images.

                Seriously, the site appears to have been formatted for the typical low content, high reader numbers tyipical of the boulevard press - a format where information content is of less importance than filling pages.

                As for your chinese restaurant comparison - that doesn't fly.

                It is more like I've been going to a chinese restaurant for YEARS, when suddenly the restaurant starts putting enormous TVs on the tables that take up so much space that I don't have room for the plate and have to eat with the plate on my lap. Sure, I can do that, but it is uncomfortable. If the food is REALLY good (and the Reg is REALLY good for content) then I might keep going back to the restaurant despite the problems.

                In the case of the Reg, I'm still coming back, but I've learned to heave the TV off the table and onto the floor before eating. I'm sorry you're not getting the revenue for the Ads that you're running on that TV, but I'm here to eat the content.

                1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                  Re: Joseph Eoff

                  "the format changes that make the site itself ugly and unusable."

                  It's looking pretty good, to be honest. Thanks for reading.

                  C.

                  1. Joseph Eoff

                    Actually, no

                    Took a quick peek with the filters turned off.

                    The blasted pictures are still too large, you are still using all capitals in your menus, everything is still of those (expletives deleted) "social media" buttons. You are, of course, aware that you are getting multiple copies of the same ad plastered all over the articles? I count four ads for "Entega Ökoenergie" on one page of one article.

                    And Jesus Christ, I had forgotten how much I hate those pop-ups on the menubar.

                    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                      Re: Actually, no

                      "The blasted pictures are still too large"

                      They look pretty neat, TBH.

                      C.

                      1. Joseph Eoff

                        Re: Actually, no

                        If you prefer pcitures to actual content, then yes, the pictures look pretty neat. I am, however, here to READ the CONTENT.

                  2. jake Silver badge

                    @diodesign (was:Re: Joseph Eoff)

                    "They're looking pretty good, to be honest."

                    There are 1100+ posts here, only one of which (other that yourself) that I can remember actually likes the new design. Why is ElReg in denial?

                    "Thanks for reading."

                    You are quite welcome. I read text, I eschew daft images.Lynx is a wonderful web browser:-)

                    As a side-note, none of all y'all have addressed why, exactly, that fucking irritating persistent navigation-bar that I doubt anyone actually uses is a necessary component to the "use and feel" of ElReg.

                    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                      Re: @diodesign (was:Re: Joseph Eoff)

                      "Why is ElReg in denial?"

                      There are 1,100 posts, but nowhere near 1,100 individual people posting. I reckon a couple of hundred people tops, maybe 300? 400? 500? Frankly, that's not even a rounding error compared to our monthly pageview/uniques tally.

                      Or let me put it another way, 99.999...% of individual unique readers in January read our stories without commenting on the design tweak.

                      Not everyone will love the new design, and that's a shame, but you can't please everyone all the time. We're still motoring on nicely in terms of traffic, shifting ads, paying the bills, causing mischief, having fun.

                      "persistent navigation-bar"

                      It's pretty cool, isn't it? The rollover expansion is balanced so it doesn't get in the way unless you pause your pointer. Other sites expand immediately, which sucks. We're way better than that.

                      C.

                      1. Anonymous Coward
                        Anonymous Coward

                        Re: @diodesign (was:Joseph Eoff)

                        Well is what you are and what you what you want be..........if you want to cheese off the hard core reader fine, we got you where you are and we will leave. (We must be chimps)

                        Your choice, sell your soul

                        I thought you were better.........ha yo

                      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

                        Re: @diodesign (was:Joseph Eoff)

                        "99.999...% of individual unique readers in January read our stories without commenting on the design tweak"

                        No they just crank up the filters some more or leave and never return.

                        Didn't you ever study Human Factors? Or Dale Carnegie's comments about unhappy customers?

                        There's a reason that IBM forced its OS2 developers to use sub-par systems for operational tests and there are similar reasons why web developers (and the people who hire them) should be forced to view everything on 1280*1024 (or less) and a 28k8 dialup modem before loosing it on the world.

                      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                        Re: @diodesign (was:Joseph Eoff)

                        "The rollover expansion is balanced so it doesn't get in the way unless you pause your pointer. Other sites expand immediately, which sucks. We're way better than that."

                        Umm, yeah. After a lot of people screamed at you because it was popping up every time you moved the mouse over it. It appears it was "cool" when it did that too but a lot of people disagreed. It's good that you at last listened enough to add in a delay. It's still a pain the arse at times though.

                  3. Vimes

                    Re: Joseph Eoff

                    It's looking pretty good, to be honest. Thanks for reading.

                    Why not run a poll and see what the users of the website tell you?

                    Has it occurred to you that visitor numbers may be up in spite of the changes rather than because of them?

                    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                      Re: Re: Joseph Eoff

                      "Why not run a poll and see what the users of the website tell you?"

                      Or we could look at something far more accurate, non-self-selecting, and valuable: our actual traffic stats, which are showing increases in individual unique visitors across the planet, on a year-on-year basis.

                      C.

                      1. jake Silver badge

                        Re: Joseph Eoff

                        "Or we could look at something far more accurate, non-self-selecting, and valuable: our actual traffic stats, which are showing increases in individual unique visitors across the planet, on a year-on-year basis."

                        Keep telling yourself that. A year-to-year basis isn't exactly germane in this conversation, now is it? We're discussing a recent awful overhaul of an interface that wasn't b0rken.

                        Old techie adage: "If it ain't broke, don't "fix" it."

                        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                          Re: jake

                          "A year-to-year basis isn't exactly germane in this conversation, now is it?"

                          Actually it is. It's a phenomenal increase.

                          "Old techie adage: If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

                          Screw that noise. That's how you end up sleeping in a dumpster wondering why you can't afford a bag of rice. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' applies to airport runways, motorway bridges, and third-hand COBOL code you've convinced an IT boss you can maintain when everyone knows you barely know how to install a Win32 scanner driver.

                          If a redesign means there's more money to be made, bank it. Our traffic is up: people love our redesign, and so they should.

                          C.

                          1. Vimes

                            Re: jake

                            Screw that noise. That's how you end up sleeping in a dumpster wondering why you can't afford a bag of rice.

                            I'm sure that's what the people in charge of developing Windows Vista thought after the success of XP, and look what it got them.

                            Not all change is good.

                          2. jake Silver badge

                            Re: jake

                            "Screw that noise."

                            So you're employed to fix things that aren't broken?

                            "That's how you end up sleeping in a dumpster wondering why you can't afford a bag of rice."

                            Uh ... no, that's how I get payed to tell customers that the existing systems work just fine, and that they don't have to pay to upgrade anything for the simple reason that it still works.

                            "'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' applies to airport runways, motorway bridges,"

                            Under-engineered 40-50 years ago. In need of repair. Agreed.

                            "and third-hand COBOL code"

                            COBOL coders are few and far between, and that's sad. Your Bank depends on COBOL ... and Fortran.

                            "you've convinced an IT boss you can maintain"

                            I am that IT boss, and I maintain Fortran & COBOL.

                            "when everyone knows you barely know how to install a Win32 scanner driver."

                            Cupertino & Redmond aren't worth mentioning in this scenario, not really. But I did port a couple scanner/printer drivers from Win3.x to WinNT. I still get headaches ...

                            "If a redesign means there's more money to be made, bank it."

                            So it's about the money.

                            "Our traffic is up:"

                            Cool.

                            "people love our redesign, and so they should."

                            You keep saying that. I don't see it. Don't tell, rather show me. Or is ElReg trying to invent a religion?

                            1. Vimes

                              Re: jake

                              Most people who visit the site probably wouldn't bother commenting either way regardless of whether they like the changes or not, so the lack of an outcry isn't a good measure of how well the changes have been received. Neither are visitor numbers, since people come here for the articles and may well be willing to put up with a broken design to read the content (which admittedly is well written).

                              As I asked before how can you know that the visitor numbers are up because of the re-design rather than in spite of it?

                          3. Joseph Eoff

                            Re: jake

                            Actually, these guys (http://www.similarweb.com/website/theregister.co.uk) show your monthly visits relatively stable since August of 2014, with a slight DROP in January. You may see an increase over January 2015 from January 2014, but the fact is that your numbers have been fairly constant for several months - your site overhaul wouldn't seem to be the cause of any increase over last year, and may have caused a drop. I can't check further back without paying for the info on similarweb, but back to August seem pretty clear.

                            Then there's these guys (https://siteanalytics.compete.com/theregister.co.uk/) who show you doing a belly flop from nearly 1million visitors per month in November 2014 to less than 600 thousand in January, 2015.

                            Google (http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=theregister.co.uk) claims you are getting less popular as time goes on, and there seems to have been a drop off the cliff about the last time you overhauled the site. I've used up my one free view on the google site for today, so I can't be anymore specific there.

                            Maybe you should visit the Wayback machine, dig out the old Register, and see what a popular site actually looks like.

                            1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                              Re: Joseph

                              Those websites are completely wrong. The uniques are way off, it's not even funny. How can they record our traffic better that our internal analytics when we're the ones with the log files?

                              siteanalytics.compete.com is off by at least 3 orders of magnitude. It also thinks the Daily Mail website, the most-read news site on the planet with 150m uniques a month, got only 20m uniques in January. That would make us about as popular as the most-read news site on the planet. I'd be bathing everyday in champagne if that was the case.

                              And the Google thing is about searches. People don't get to us by searching for "theregister." They get to us through aggregators, RSS feeds, a bit of social media, or searching for stuff and us coming up top in Google. Eg, right now, Google search for "OpenSSL". Link 1 is openssl.org, link 2 is Wikipedia, link 3 is the news story we published 7 hours ago about the FREAK attack.

                              This is seriously pathetic trolling. You don't like the design? Let it go, let it go. Can't hold it back any more. Let it go, let it go. Turn away and slam the door.

                              C.

                              1. jake Silver badge

                                @ diodesign (was::Re: Joseph)

                                You are arguing "people searching for arbitrary stuff found on generic web sites" verses folks who have been hanging out here for years, to explain suspect interface design? Really? Do you not see an issue there?

                                1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

                                  Re: Jake

                                  We stopped talking about the redesign a while ago, Jake.

                                  C.

                                  1. Anonymous Coward
                                    Anonymous Coward

                                    Re: Jake

                                    Was someone getting a bit uppity?

                                  2. Dan 55 Silver badge
                                    Thumb Down

                                    Re: Jake

                                    I thought I'd pop back in to see how it was going because I was under the impression there were going to be another set of improvements to the website and we have to get this right and so on.

                                    So in short you said a while back you'd have some more improvements and we value your feedback and that and now it turns out you don't have to do them because that was a while back. Meanwhile the metrics are brought out to justify the poor quality workmanship of the lipstick on the pig. Ever a classic.

                                    Bad form.

                                    1. Vimes

                                      Re: Jake

                                      Personally I'm beginning to wonder if one of the editor's kids has been involved with the redesign and they're so emotionally invested in this new layout that they can't see what's wrong with it.

                                      At the very least can we please have some consistency in the size of the adverts placed above the banner bar with the Register logo? The recent Microsoft Cloud one was particularly large and certainly bigger than most of the others displayed. Having the rest of the page pushed down that much further at irregular intervals is bad design in itself IMO.

                              2. Vimes

                                Re: Joseph @diodesign

                                Just out of curiosity is it possible to see what proportion of users are using ad blockers now compared to a year ago?

                                If the new design is attracting new users, but most of them are using such add-ins, then surely this will hurt rather than help you?

                                1. Sl1ck

                                  Re: Joseph @diodesign

                                  I understand and encourage change, but sometimes you have to take a step back and evaluate whether it was the right thing. For the most part (now) I am neutral on the redesign save for the ridiculously large adverts and hero pics, and especially the banner ads.

                                  We don't pay for the Reg, so income has to come from somewhere thus I am not against advertising, but the banner ad and side bars are a step too far.

                                  With regards to % of ad blockers in use, it's an interesting point. I would think though that it's not of concern to the Reg. If most of the technically savvy Reg faithful are using ad blockers (present company included), the Reg still gets ads served - we just don't see it. Sure the click rate might suffer, but I suspect not by anything huge.

                                  One could argue that by using ad blockers we are sanctioning the change in design...

                                  1. Vimes

                                    Re: Joseph @diodesign

                                    thus I am not against advertising, but the banner ad and side bars are a step too far.

                                    Believe it or not I agree with that too. Personally I quite like the pop up headlines at the top too - I just think that in general the register have gone overboard in recent years with the advertising (and the excessively large image for the promoted headline in particular).

                                    I choose not to use ad blockers though, since in general I like this site and want to see it continue. If nobody viewed the ads then presumably they would have a hard time surviving. Personally my personal preferred option would be for them to offer some sort of paid option. You can get rid of the ads for a monthly fee, or use the site as it is.

                                    I wouldn't see the ads and the register still get some money from me as a result of me using their site. That can't be a bad thing surely?

                                    the Reg still gets ads served

                                    Do they really though?

                                    If the add-in strips out the ads from the page then this presumably means this has an impact on the files requested as a result of processing the HTML. The ads never get served surely from the point of view of the provider?

                                    1. Sl1ck

                                      Re: Joseph @diodesign

                                      Vimes,

                                      I guess if the blockers are stopping the requests before they load as opposed to stripping them out at render time what you're saying makes sense. In either case the click response rate might get whacked depending on the use.

                                      Maybe a micro charge to have an ad-free site would be good. I for one like the Reg and would probably pay a nominal fee to keep it going - say £5-10 a year (I'm in Canada so that's about $10-20 bucks depending on the exchange rate swing and something I could justify to my accountant wife!). It's not a lot, but likely more than the revenue from ad clicks the Reg would get from me and all but guaranteed. I am a very passionate believer in net-neutrality and would refuse to pay for a 2-tier internet service, but as a developer I like to earn my pay, and am willing to pay for quality to the right provider to support the team and work behind a worthwhile effort. The Reg would be one of these.

                                      1. Vimes

                                        Re: Joseph @diodesign

                                        It's not quite right to refer to net neutrality here IMO - especially since a large chunk of that seems to involve charging people more than once for the same service (if you charge the likes of netflix more then they'll just hand that on to their users and it will be them who end up paying).

                                        That wouldn't be what would be happening here. They need to get funding one way or another, and we could choose which one. A better analogy if you wanted to involve the sort of behaviour shown by the telcos in this case would be them putting up a pay wall and still force feeding users advertising even though money has already been handed over.

                                        1. Vimes

                                          Re: Joseph @diodesign

                                          @diodesign

                                          Some of the header adverts force the title of the page down 1/3 of the way when initially displayed.

                                          I'm guessing that on lower resolution devices - I'm curious and might dig out my netbook and see - might even have to scroll before seeing the name of which site they're browsing, let alone any content.

                                          This ordering seems to be out of whack - surely it makes more sense to put the title first and then the advert?

                                        2. Sl1ck

                                          Re: Joseph @diodesign

                                          Fair correction :-)

                              3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
                                Thumb Up

                                Re: Joseph

                                "Those websites are completely wrong. The uniques are way off, it's not even funny. How can they record our traffic better that our internal analytics when we're the ones with the log files?"

                                Maybe there's a good El Reg story in that? Let's hear what these analytics companies have to say for themselves when you confront them with your real, actual data demonstrating that their service is little more then divining chicken entrails. I'd be genuinely interested to read that.

                          4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                            Re: jake

                            "people love our redesign, and so they should."

                            Without commenting on the actual design, how do you know this? Have you got testimonials? More testimonials than complaints? Or are you basing that purely on the fact people still read the content, possibly despite the site design?

                            Oddly enough, I've made the effort to search out your competition and to be honest, the content is far better here in general. The site designs of your competition is, on the whole, even worse. This doesn't mean I like the huge "hero" images, especially when not directly relevant as many still are not, or the silly pop-up menu bar, but I'm still here for the content

                            (eg, the sticking plaster photo on the latest MS patch tuesday story. It doesn't add to the story. If you'd had a quote from a relevant MS bod and placed their photo there, then that would be relevant. Maybe your graphics or story editors could make more use of the option to choose NOT to use a hero image since that would have the effect of making genuinely relevant ones stand out all the more. I rarely even notice what the image is these days. I just automatically scrollpast it)

                            In terms of the sire design, it a case of "least worst", which really isn't all that much to be proud of IMO.

  667. Only me!
    Facepalm

    Well I am back...but why?

    The big pics........just why oh why?

    Why is the latest stuff just not there?

    At least you seem to be replying to comments now.......can you please stop that and spend the time fixing the site....PLEASE!!!!!

  668. nipsy

    "persistent navigation-bar"

    It's pretty cool, isn't it? The rollover expansion is balanced so it doesn't get in the way unless you pause your pointer. Other sites expand immediately, which sucks. We're way better than that.

    Unless you are using chrome in 8 mode on a surface.

    prod, it pops up and disappears, prod and hold it pops up, taking half the screen up with pointless shite, prod the bar to get the right click menu to disappear, (making sure i don't accidentally prod the wrong link) then click the link you actually wanted.

    basically half the site is now pretty much to much bother to look at.

    the only solution i've found is to read in an rss reader!

    1. Joseph Eoff
      FAIL

      Umm, no

      Quote:

      "It's pretty cool, isn't it? The rollover expansion is balanced so it doesn't get in the way unless you pause your pointer. Other sites expand immediately, which sucks. We're way better than that."

      Really good.

      You point out that your nav bar only sucks balls when everyone else's sucks ass.

      Major improvement, there.

      1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

        Re: Joseph Eoff

        Friend, don't be so tedious.

        C.

        1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
          Meh

          Re: Joseph Eoff

          Love and marriage,

          Love and marriage,

          Go together like a horse and carriage....

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Umm, no

        And the pause was only done after badgering from the commentards.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      "Unless you are using chrome in 8 mode on a surface."

      It's pretty dire on a Note4 too, even with filtering enabled.

  669. Goblin

    Oh dear

    I have been lurkin for a while now (formly one of the silient majority) and reading through Diodesign comments has rubbed me up the wrong way to such an extent that I have broken my silents and lost my SM badge :/

    I as one of your reader (mainly lurking and spliting tea on my keyboard due to BOFH) I do not approve of the click baid ad redesign. When i started on this site commenters and el reg staff talked and listened to each other, but it seem that some at el reg have regress to "I know you are but what am i stance". If el reg is so confident in their figures why will you not let us see them and then we can sit in a corner and cry knowing that we are in the minority... Surely this will work to el regs advantage... so can we see them?

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Oh dear

      They say 9.5M worldwide readers (a month), but that was in November 2013. There appear to be no later publicly available figures.

      http://media.theregister.co.uk/

      http://www.abc.org.uk/Products-Services/Product-Page/?tid=20603

      I suppose the explanation is the same as usual, TPTB have decided that there are no hours (in-house) or money (outsourced) to make any more changes, and that's that.

  670. Vimes

    When viewing my posts, the date/time link that leads to the post is immediately above the 'withdraw' link. Admittedly it doesn't happen too often, but there have been a few occasions when I've clicked the 'withdraw' link in error as the two are quite close.

    This is just my two cents, but if somebody is viewing a post in their list then I would have thought seeing that post in context of the thread would be one of the main things they would be interested in at that point.

    Would it perhaps be possible to give the link that leads to the post more prominence and greater spacing between it and other links?

  671. Vimes

    Another thought: and this seems to apply to the old design too - if I make more than one comment in a thread then that thread is displayed first in the 'my posts' list even if the posts in question are sometimes older than posts in other threads.

    Would it be possible perhaps to be able to either collapse the comments for a given thread or order the posts purely by date, rather than by thread first then date?

  672. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    kinL

    The BBC is currently getting a mauling over their redesign of the News site. Similar sort of rehash, worse if anything than the Reg. So that's my two favourite sites trashed. Is this a conspiracy to get me more productive?

  673. myhandler

    Yes - the damn BBC in on the act.. and as you say 'kinL worse than the Reg - get my news off the Grauniad now.

    What beats me is why they can't do a desktop size design - oh yes that's it, they can.. they just think it's not cool.

  674. Periodic Trans Reaction
    Thumb Up

    https on the images

    I notice you've changed your regmedia to https - had the http blocked so was interesting to see all the pictures - like it :) can you do rest of site too ?

    If any ads appear it will be blocked straight away tho, unless I don't notice them ...

    Whisper

    1. Marco Fontani

      Re: https on the images

      Damn, that was quick of you to notice! :)

      If you don't disallow the images, and you use a recent enough browser (which is able to speak SPDY) you should notice most/all images should now load in parallel!

      Well, the main site might take a wee tad longer, but again we're Working On It ;)

  675. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Trollface

    Nice to see you've finally taken on board our pleas and reduced the image count accordingly. Looks much better.

  676. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Meh

    I don't know if everyone got it but it was some kind of CloudFlare DDOS protection asking for a Capcha for requests to regmedia.co.uk, which made the images unloadable from the main site. Now the Capcha is gone and the images are back.

This topic is closed for new posts.