A.S.: using Chrome as browser, tested on IE9 too
New style is ...non-offensive, and i'm not sure i mean that in a good way.
Not to be bunched in with the usual "amagad, new is ugly" crowd default, here's my 3 essential problems at this moment:
- It's slow
The site is note very responsive, changing sections (ps3,xbox,pc,video,feature) takes ages to load a page, loading articles is slow, and even a box-tab (as in the forum box on the mainpage) takes way too long. I hope you identify the issue soon.
- It seems bland & chaotic at the same time (though maybe the chaos causes the blandness)
Now it may be that i missed some costumization options due to not yet having looked for them, but mostly the 'content density / area of screen real estate' seems to be down. I do like the categorization tags, though they're a bit too prominent. The Escapist focuses - and is loved for focusing - on content; why then bring the structure so much to the foreground.
Partly this may be fixed by playing with font sizes (in the 'popular forum posts' box, the title of the thread is too close in fontsize to the username/date part for example); partly maybe with a darkening of the Title fonts (a solid blue box springs out more than a title in the same blue, for no other reason than being a solid box of color); etc...
Also, the "news ticker" under the top content box breaks reading flow, and is a little useless as there's no way to navigate it. A sidelined box with a scrollbar would be more helpful.
While we're on the general topic of layout; you have three different layout blocks, each with a differring layout, that simply breaks the flow for no good reason. I understand the top box (one large article & 3 recently featured ones - let's call this Layout A), but then comes the problem:
- News ticker (layout B),
- featured video banner (of greater height than the news ticker - layout C),
- a 3*2 box of features/articles (layout D),
- bottomed by another banned (layout C),
- followed by the clusterfusrohdah of a sometimes-working RSSbox too closely aligned with 4 left-bound articles on it's left side (?? seriously ??), both of which aren't cleanly top aligned with each other (as elements yes, but not visually), and which - while trying to mirror Layout A from the top sorely fails at it.
- and lastly, a 3*1 one-line of layout D.
Image to illustrate the issue: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/215/layoutsm.jpg/
Seriously, you guys consider yourself to be a magazine quality journal/site. While mostly warranted, your frontpage does not currently reflect this mindset - at all.
Videos layout sidenote: on the main video page, the top 3 'featured video' boxes aren't column aligned with the three columns below them; and on a video-viewing page, the videobox is a couple of pixels larger than the video-information box below it.
Images to illustrate the issues:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/215/vidcolumnalign.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/viddisplay.jpg/
- Lastly, the video/feature entries, while well presented while they're the "new" entry, are otherwise hidden; the sidebar linking to ZP, jimquisition, movie bob and the comics is sorely missed. Navigational issue, easily solved by using space on the right hand for a few banners linking to said content (@ "join pub club" & "write for us" area).
PS: it's REALLY slow, i hope that gets fixed soon
tl,dr: not awesome, but fixeable
