The New Shiny Escapist

[Buizel91]

Seriously Susan...THE BRIGHTNESS IS BURNING!

All ya's need to is the borders (which were fine anyway)

The news which is all over the place

And maybe using the old design for the nav bar, as this new blue one seems like you got it from Piczo or something xD

other than that i don't mind change, however maybe warning the whole site first would of been better

 

[mrF00bar]

Is it just me, or this the menu font hideous? It makes my eyes hurt reading the nav bar and the title of the videos. x,x

 

[falcon1985]

It's ok. I like the layout. Just make the background less eye-blindingly white, and we're good.

 

[Susan Arendt]

*snip*

I understand your frustration but perhaps you could see ours? Alot of us have been coming to this website for years. Alot of us cannot or choose not to pay for the PubClub. Only warning the PubClub members is disrespectful. Also is disrespectful is the off hand thing someone threw out that we Obviously will get used to it in a few days so stop complaining (paraphrased).

I understand it does take time with these changes but your team was informed from the PubClub people that the background was bad. Adding a tiny really light grey gradient doesn't fix that since people are still saying the massive amounts of white actually hurt their eyes even with monitor brightness turned down. I really enjoyed coming here to read the articles and now I can't read any of them. I haven't been able to physically read anything on this website since the change and I really wish I could.

The news page is also muddled and that is another common complaint. The old system had all the posted items of the day in order filling the page. Now it is a tiny space and confusing since there is no good spacing, there is a bunch of front page articles pinned over it and there is no page numbers to keep from getting lost while scrolling.

It has been a few days, we have given it time and alot of us still feel this is a bad change. I don't mind change, plenty of people don't mind change but your and other people's nice comments aside, it feels like you are brushing us off. Particularly with your comment that even three days later you aren't going to change the background that is painful but "think about addressing" it. That tells me you are not taking any of our complaints seriously since even people who don't mind the new structure, have complaints about the background causing pain. Also I doubt all of us are exaggerating the pain the background causes since
I at least get blinding headaches any time I try and read and article since the change. I am not sitting in a dark room either so it isn't just contrast.

Absolutely, I understand your frustration! I don't know what you're referring to about "someone threw out that we Obviously will get used to it in a few days so stop complaining", so I can't address that. I personally asked that folks give it a few days to give it a chance, but never suggested that anyone, ever just plain shut up.

As for your suggestion that we're being insulting by not snapping to change the background - first of all, we need to decide what we'd change it to. We've certainly gotten the message that the new color scheme bothers people, but rushing to change it to something would be foolish and likely to just make people even more angry. Whatever we do, we want to make sure it's a good idea, not just slap a band-aid on and then change it again when we make up our minds what the "right" thing to do is. We don't want to jerk you guys around back and forth. That's all. The tweaks, whatever they may end up being, will not happen overnight. We're not blowing you off.

Please also keep in mind that as more time passes (and it's only been, what, two days?), we get more constructive feedback. Much of the first feedback we got was "I HATE IT WHAT DID YOU DOOOOO?" Now we're actually getting specific issues and detailed information from users, because the community has had some time to actually try to use the new design.

Moreover, some users who freaked out initially are discovering that things aren't as "broken" as they had originally thought - they're just different. As people learn the new navigation system, they are altering their opinion. I'm not saying that everyone is going from hate to love, but their feedback is changing from a more blanket reaction to the change, to a specific discussion of a few key issues. The more detailed information we have, the better we can target areas that are genuinely troublesome, as opposed to those that are merely different, or matters of personal taste.

I am sorry to hear that the color scheme actually causes you pain, that's upsetting to hear. All I can ask is that you hang in there and be patient.

 

[Batmandar]

So I never post. But I wanted to try to give some feedback here as someone who has had a very large interest in site design since I was 12ish and Geocities gave us what you don't want to do lists. I will try to not be "a total cock" and give constructive criticism.

First, I was not crazy about your previous layout, but it was mostly functional. The "push next for page 2" in internet articles is a well documented complaint among readers. Of any website. Also the fact that when you start a video an ad takes over control of the page and means you can not navigate anywhere else on the site without pushing the back button is extremely annoying. Generally all this stuff is bad because at the slightest notion a user may get frustrated and just leave your page.

One of the first things you learn in web design, the psychology of it is to not make the user have to think. Don't require them to go searching through your pages to find what they're looking for, or click extra stuff. Bells whistles fancy coding, just the amount of awesome stuff you can do with code, is fun yes, but generally the average user, or reader will not have a clue what they are seeing. If people have to think about it, they just go elsewhere. I'm a technical person so I love lists. I can navigate through a confusing website pretty easily. But most people, will not. They will just leave the page.

The drop down menu's at the top of the screen are not a popular(among readers) system of finding what they're looking for. It means clicking a button, then realizing it was a drop down, then looking through those lists and clicking on what they think they're looking for. This alienates people who are just looking to browse, or who are new to the site. They will not search through lists to find something new to watch or read for instance. The drop downs also mean if you let go of your mouse while reading an article and accidentally hover over a button it obscures part of the page, you groan and move the mouse again. This is so minor it's laughable I know, but it's something I have observed among users.

Your choice to have large amounts of empty white space on either side of your column is distracting. Another thing you learn in site design is about this very thing. Too much white space says emptiness to a user. It emphasizes how thin the column is even though it isn't that thin compared to other sites. It also makes it seem as though you've stuffed everything into the column, with the drop downs and links at the bottom of the page, while not using the space to the sides. It's especially apparent and glaring on a widescreen monitor. As someone who comes here for the videos, I must agree that the sidebar that showed a new episode was a huge help in seeing when there was a new episode up. Most people do not keep a schedule for web episodes. This sidebar also was what got me to watch shows I never had an interest in because I saw the episode title or what it was about. (Such as your podcast. I have no idea what day you post these but I did notice when the tag changed.)

In addition, the facebook comments shown at the end of your articles are in bad shape. As they are forced into a teeny tiny column next to your links and just make you scroll further and make them annoying to read.

Ultimately, extra clicking, extra navigation, extra pages, extra searching, bad.

Simplicity of use merged with aesthetically pleasing design good.

Your colors are fine, just far too much open white space. Top bar drop down are a bit constrained for the nature of your website. Perhaps a mix of top bar links for text contents and a sidebar type for videos and the like would be an easy fix.

For the love of Aphrodite please allow us to continue navigating your site while/after watching a video instead forcing us to just leave or hit the back button, this is the kind of stuff that encourages people to use ad blockers, it's annoying. And also pages in web articles are bad.

 

[kebab4you]

It's ok. I like the layout. Just make the background less eye-blindingly white, and we're good.

Whoring this out again but wrote a stylish that replace the white background with a black one, hope it´s helpful:
http://userstyles.org/styles/57994/escapist-magazine-fix-for-white-background?r=1323983926

 

[Diplian]

Im not sure if i like this new look.
It will take some getting used to but at first glance i strongly prefer the old look.

okay, everything seems to take longer to load, Opera loads the main page poorly: images dont really load but
videos still seem to work.
alsold look.
o that news bar which changes topics every now and then is being obscured by a yellow box, Im guessing the box is for the Extra Punctuation article.

Also the link to the forum is small and not very visible and I cant press my name to go to my profile, i need to search for some button which says 'profile' first, turns out its next to the forums button.

Its not that i dont like change but you changed alot, I still prefer the
also a random CAPTCHA just popped up.
atleast it said it did.
I cant see it.

^I wanted to post that yesterday.
i couldnt, it seems to be fixed somewhat now.

 

[Backerdem]

It's ok. I like the layout. Just make the background less eye-blindingly white, and we're good.

Whoring this out again but wrote a stylish that replace the white background with a black one, hope it´s helpful:
http://userstyles.org/styles/57994/escapist-magazine-fix-for-white-background?r=1323983926

One internets for this man!

 

[game-lover]

It's pretty nice looking. I miss the link that took you to the hot threads and latest threads though. It's a very noticeable difference.

I don't mind the brightness. Though a splash of color wouldn't be bad.

 

[Koroviev]

It's ok. I like the layout. Just make the background less eye-blindingly white, and we're good.

Whoring this out again but wrote a stylish that replace the white background with a black one, hope it´s helpful:
http://userstyles.org/styles/57994/escapist-magazine-fix-for-white-background?r=1323983926

It's very helpful, thank you!

 

[MattAn24]

The Daily Drop logo and Shamus Young look awfully stretched. As far as I'm aware, Shamus is awesome. Stretching that logo like that? Not as awesome. The Shamus must be obeyed!

Yeah, our sizes changed just a *wee* bit, and we haven't caught up with all the assets we had to replace yet. So a few things still look squishy or stretchy. It'll all be fixed bit by bit...though, I dunno, I kinda like Shamus looking all Stretch Armstrongy. Makes me chuckle.

Also, folks, this should go without saying, but we're far more likely to listen to your feedback if you're not being a total cock while delivering it. (This obviously doesn't apply to to the post I'm quoting, which is perfectly fine.) We're not trying to fuck anyone over, or trick anybody, or just generally ruin your experience because we think it's hilarious to watch you all freak out. We launched the redesign in response to a great deal of feedback that we got, over several years, that our old site was confusing, cluttered, and just plain hard to use. If the new design we've chosen needs a bit of tweaking yet, that's ok - we didn't really expect it to be perfect right out of the gate. That's why we're asking for feedback, so that we can focus on the areas that really, truly don't work for you guys and try to find some kind of compromise.

Speaking to us like we're all clueless jackasses who just got drunk one night and decided to fuck up the site just for kicks doesn't help anyone. We all work very, very hard on The Escapist, not just because it's our jobs, but because we believe in it. We want it to be great. We want it to be something that you genuinely look forward to visiting every single day. And we're pretty sure you want it to be that, too.

So how about giving us the benefit of the doubt that we genuinely want to move forward in a positive way, and stop talking to us like we're beneath your contempt?

Howdy, Susan! Thanks for the response! Good to know there are steps in motion to fix stuff, even though that was a minor.. Thing? I had.
Granted, a previous post before that one, I was a complete asshat, and I apologize. I certainly don't want to be an ass about it, just trying to weigh the pros and cons and be a little more realistic, y'know? Plus I really wanted to draw a blue beard on an already bearded Graham Stark. That was for lulz.

As I also stated elsewhere, Semiotics has been a large part of my recent college studies, so I tend to notice big changes in "signs/symbols" of things a lot more.. I'm certain others were more.. Unforgiving than me, but I genuinely want to help. (My rather ragey comment about "high-quality journalism" may contradict that though. Just trying to compare things properly, that's all. :3

Thanks again for the update! ^_^

 

[Triaed]

Oh my god, what happened to MY Escapist? It is horrible

... now, after the initial shock is over, I am a believer that all change is good, even the bad change is good. I will survive and I am sure something good will come out of this

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ok, I've given it a few days.

Positive Points: Latest Work : Excellent. Something I didn't think I needed.
Fonts : Clear and understandable.
Dropdowns: Not immediately apparent, but can be used well.
Overall look: Clear


Negative Points

1) White: Seriously it cannot be understated how much the brightness distracts from posting. While giving the site more "air", it feels like you cannot grasp a specific point to look at. Referring back to the calls that books/Excel etc. are white - that's true, but they're delineated so as to provide context. You can SEE where to look and where not to. With the site as open as it is, you're never sure where your Field of Vision ends, so your eyes are opening up full to the bright contrast. Something as simple as reducing it to grey or providing black lines around it works.

2) Front Page: This is a mess. All of the order to it has disappeared and I don't know what part of the website I am looking at. The News Column has exactly the same dimensions as the Staff Twitter feed - which I'll come back to later. Also parts of the website scroll and move around depending on what you're doing, which makes having fixed visual references very hard - leading to eyestrain again.

3) Bylines - News: The primary purview of the Escapist, I believed, was to provide information. The amount of information has been chopped down to bare bones. Heads are missing, the pictures seem crushed/stretched and it's often tough to tell which piece of text belongs to which picture. What should be the flesh of the Escapist is now simply a fingernail. Given there can be 12 articles a day, space for 5 is unfair to those working on them.

4) Organisation - At the top of the page is the different computers used. Macintosh is missing for a start, and there's a strange order to it. I'd suggest Alphabetical/Reverse-Alphabetical because the order at the moment simply doesn't follow any strategy the Escapist has. Especially given that clicking the "Wii" tab will give you an article from last year as "The Latest News".

5) Placing - Left screen is most used / Right screen is subsidiary. Especially if you swap sides when clicking on profile.

6) Speed - Slowed. And group posting often clogs up, even at low traffic points.

7) What's New: What actually IS new? All I see is some big pictures - often not the ones related to the stories - often with differing text...how can I tell what's something I've not already read?

8) Crashes : Many times I go to look at "Latest Stories" and it's blank.

9) What's Old? There's a lot of good archive material in the Escapist which is completely hidden away from sight. Doomsday Arcade? How...do...I get to it?

10) Relevancy: I click on the Mobile Tab and I get 5 articles. 2 of which are duplicates from Jun/July.

11) Community Tab

12) White : Honest to god, if there's one change I would beg for it's to lose the contrast.

13) Words: "This new tech facilitates easier navigation, more contextually relevant articles, greater social integration, and expanded user customization."

Sorry Greg, but that's just flying past my head. How about "The new look means you can find what you want, when you want, and how you want"?

Some of us still think that cakes being lies is the epitome of humour. Business speak invites comparisons with Electronic Arts et al - and I know you don't want that.

Realistically - in solving this - a few lines, a splash of colour and a re-organisation could get this new look to be loved, but there's still a few hurdles to go through yet.

(Yes, I know - hurdles)

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I hope the new features will prove useful.

In the meantime however, please tone down the bright whiteness! I've got a headache after just the first few minutes. Add a background or something...

EDIT: Also, why do all my Escapist RSS feeds appear to have gone nuts?

My thoughts exactly.

But the front page is pretty bad, honestly, it's not very organized, and everything is spaced out and all over the place.

Can you give us the option to choose which format to use please?

 

[shadyh8er]

Well, there is a LOT more open space, like you said. I can get used to this!

 

[5-0]

It's ok. I like the layout. Just make the background less eye-blindingly white, and we're good.

Whoring this out again but wrote a stylish that replace the white background with a black one, hope it´s helpful:
http://userstyles.org/styles/57994/escapist-magazine-fix-for-white-background?r=1323983926

Thank you so much sir, the difference is incredible.

 

[b1aksh33p]

This is one of the few times that I'm generally pleased with a new website overhaul.

I do thinks its a little too bright and there's an slight bug that shows the webcomics whenever you (or at least I) hover over the forums section of the bluebar on top, but I am really liking the new Escapist.

Edit: That "Webcomics when hovering over Forums" bug happens when I am logged out

 

[Duskflamer]

It's ok. I like the layout. Just make the background less eye-blindingly white, and we're good.

Whoring this out again but wrote a stylish that replace the white background with a black one, hope it´s helpful:
http://userstyles.org/styles/57994/escapist-magazine-fix-for-white-background?r=1323983926

Escapist staff take note: An uncomplicated solid-black for the sidebars works wonders to make the site easier to look at. I know it's been said that you don't want to do something to hastily, but when people are in physical pain from the current color scheme, changing it to something simple as a stop-gap measure before deciding on what the final color scheme will be is appropriate.

As far as the layout as a whole, let me contrast how the old site looked compared to how the new site looked.

Old site

Top
Escapist logo, advertisement.
Top navigation bar
User profile bar, including quick links to profile, messages, friends, and groups.

Left, from top to bottom
The three most recent feature videos, very prominent
Assorted spotlighted articles
Full news feed

Right, from top to bottom
Advertisement
Quick view of the newest 5 articles
Latest forum threads
Latest additions to the site's shows and comics

I'm going by my memory and the image frozen into Chromes "most visited sites" selection, so I might have missed a few things, but overall it was organized, it was easy to understand, it was easy to see what the most important things were and simple to see the rest.

New site

top
Advertisement
Navigation bar including the escapist logo, the e bleeding into the white above and below it (a problem that a better color scheme could solve though)

left
A barrage of news stories with no apparent rhyme or reason to which are showing up here, and no consistent organization. At the very top, there's one that gets a large image next to three that get smaller ones, then there's an article that doesn't get to have an image at all, then what appears to be the latest comic posted, 6 more assorted articles, and then 5 more articles next to a relatively tiny feed for the latest updates.

right
Profile section (I like the idea, but it could stand to have a little more vertical space to it)
Advertisements
Latest Quiz (I do like this being a part of the front page)
Latest forum posts
Twitter feed
Facebook recommendations

my one major suggestion: have a clear organization and progression for the left side of the front page. The old site had 3 prominent features at the top, then 2 columns of featured articles, and then 3 columns, before the full list of articles that took up most of the page (all at the bottom though, it wasn't getting in the way of anything). Figure out a similar organization or progression for the new site, or just use the same organization the old site had, and it will look a lot better than the slapdash, unorganized mess that the frontpage is right now. I don't mean to be rude or anything, it's just hard to see why you would position the articles the way they are right now.

 

[physikl]

When I click on the videos tab, all of the suggested videos are from the end of November. Just a slight bug that can hopefully be fixed fairly easily, but that was slightly annoying.

OT, I rather enjoy the new layout. Not that much has actually changed, although having a hover-over for the links to the videos as opposed to the banners on the side of the page makes it a bit harder to find them.

As well, the links next to the home page to the various consoles seem completely unnecessary to me. The Escapist generally covers trends in the gaming industry, and dividing those trends into the various consoles and platforms seems counterintuitive.

(Also, my first post! Yay.)