The New Shiny Escapist

[rofltehcat]

Ok, I tested the site a little longer now and I'd like you change my initial statement.

Initial statement: "Meh, but it'll do if it has to"
New statement:
Please change it back. It is beyond horrible, I don't know what in god's name you guys were thinking? It isn't visually appearing, looks like cheap clone of Facebook and overall looks very bland. In addition, it is far too bright.

Another thing that puts me off is that for every article, the picture is just there without a frame or anything. The strong contrast of the site (really, as I type this it actually starts to hurt my eyes!) makes this even worse.
Overall, it looks like the very test-homepage that I wrote in html code from scratch when I learned very basic html. That is before I learned how to use the background and color scale properly.


Change it. I may not be the most active person on this site but this new design really puts me off right now. Before, I'd watch a few videos and then browse the site for some interesting news, articles or opinion posts. Right now it feels like I'll have to skip news, articles and posts because reading them hurts my eyes.

 

[millerm277]

I registered just to whine. With that out of the way:

- Your font size/video thumbnail ratio is terrible. The thumbnail is tiny, and the font for the title of the video is huge and awkward looking. Change one/both.

- You just did the same thing Gawker did. For everyone who owns a widescreen (which is pretty much anyone who's bought a monitor in the past 5 years), you're wasting 50% of my screen space because your site doesn't size to fit my screen, it desperately needs to scale.

 

[FunctionZ]

Just like Overclock you guys seem to forget that a number of people eyes hurt when starting at black text with a white background.

The contrast is not all that great on the main page. If you look at the the post in this forum the background seems to be a light cream colour. This is good for reading the forum post at the least.

Now look at the names of the posters and the home page the background is pure white. Looking at that text hurts on the eyes when you have a bright HD screen.

If we can change the background from pure white to a light grey (or some other colour with a better contrast) it would be a lot easier to read everything and my eyes would hurt less.

However I am liking the overall design changes. Very clean and looks quite awesome to be honest. I just don't like the colour choice for the background against the text colour.

 

[Legendsmith]

My eyes hurt from this. It's not even plain white. The sides look like they're dirty, instead of having a cool gradient.

 

[Phishfood]

ewww, no. No no no. Dislike. WTF.

1) Need to somehow box off the content, its really odd to have huge areas of whitespace around what you are reading.

2) Top bar is wider than the content even though it looks like it was intended to match.

3) The big spaces around the highlighted articles make it look like something is misisng. EP looks almost right because of the 2 line heading.

4) Moving things when you are trying to read is INCREDIBLY distracting.



I do kinda like the new forum features on the front page.

I'd also add that the titles "NEWS" "VIDEOS" "Latest Content" etc need a bolder font. ATM its weaker than the text, looks odd.

 

[njsykora]

The background is way too bright, it really is starting to hurt my eyes whenever I try to read anything. Also the lack of real divisions and a shrinking of the news feed on the front page, everything seems way harder to find. Have separate lists on the front page for videos, features, news etc and for god sake drop the freaking endless white and it might work as a redesign.

Also from the announcement post:

"We have added a lot of "air" to the site overall, whether on the front page or individual content pages."

That whole sentence screams designer wankery, blank space is not a good thing.

 

[Ruwrak]

Okay, the UI needs to get to know me and I need to get to know the UI better before I can make a comittment. But.. I only have one question.


Why so white?

 

[Strazdas]

when i entered the site today my first though was "wow i must have mistyped the adress". my second though was "what were they smoking".
more like new shitty escapist.

More Open Design - We have added a lot of "air" to the site overall, whether on the front page or individual content pages.

usually sites work to REMOVE air. you added it. i guess tis time to fix that the manual way
were not allowed to talk about.

the popup navigation, and feedback boxes are just awful. oh well. i guess noone really cares about our rage anyway. will ahve to get used to it, or maybe find a decent looking site, not many of them left anyway.

 

[12th_milkshake]

well done worst site reboot since the BBC news.... it looks dated and has less information in a more cluttered layout.. Gratz! I mean light blue test on white?? wtf you trying to give ppl headaches? the Header bar Font is too thin it's almost eaten by the blue... who designed this? lol you 'paid for this?'

And while your at it - see your adds on the videos - i dont like mind them UNTIL you started raising the volume and there is no volume control! IAM SITTING A FOOT AWAY WTF ARE YOU DOING RAISING THE VOLUME THIS ISNT TV! I@M NOT MAKING TEA DURING AN AD BREAK!!!

The New Sh***y Escapist - fixed your title.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Looks and feels bad. Or, more precisely, looks and feels like shitty version of eurogamer.net.

Why? You had a distinct look, at least you could have kept the color scheme... Bah, everything is turning to shit in preparation for 2012.

 

[GoldenRaz]

This has probably already been said, but I'll just throw my three main complaints up here for the heck of it (giving suggestions for solutions as well, since I'm apparently smart enough to "fix" this):

First, all the white is hurting my eyes. A more grey or blue tone (for example) would make it more bearable. Also, it feels a bit too Kotaku-like for my tastes.
Second, despite your efforts I feel it's not apparent whether a given post is a video, news item or an article. I'd suggest something like having different colours on the different section markers to make it clearer.
Thirdly, the news feed feels too small and inconsequential, which makes me a sad panda.

Great initiative, though. I'm sure I'll like it well enough in a couple of weeks, and it's certainly fresh and shiny so kudos for that.

 

[Starke]

Well, this is, polity a mess. The news feed is a wreck, five stories at a time? I know you can stagger off the main page and get at the full news feed, but honestly, why hide that?

The one good thing I can see is the header change, but the body of the site probably actually worked better before.

 

[LeonLethality]

The huge amount of white is really painful on the eyes, I'm not too big a fan of this, and I'm usually open to website change...

 

[Void Droid]

Looks like Facebook, ugly in other words. As said the colour scheme is pretty hard on the eyes. Everything looks cluttered. Site loads slow.

 

[Grayjack]

Everything looks blurry, and all the white burns my eyes.

 

[Canadian Fodder]

Needs to be darker and all shows/comics available on the first paige. Other than that, the layout looks kinda nice. Have to get used to it I guess.

 

[Big Phil]

Well, I guess it'll take some time to get used to, but I don't think the changes are all that bad. The news list could have been a bit larger, though. The rage and negative outburst to follow these changes is just a natural reaction of people who have been deprived of something they already got used to, but in time everybody will adapt to the new design. IMHO, only time will show whether the novelties introduced today are good or bad.

 

[AdmiralMemo]

For one, it's way too bright. Bring back the blue sides. Second, while I like almost everything about the new design, where's the page where I could check out every video series?

 

[TastyCarcass]

I'm getting low res text on the main page.I don't know if that's intentional.

Also I don't like it. I think the front page gives less information yet somehow manages to look more cluttered. I don't know how you managed that.

 

[JackJL]

I like the new top bar, but the list of consoles isn't doing anything for me with so little and unfocused content behind it.

Ok my list'o'grievances:

I really miss the list of videos on the bottom right. To have to go digging around menus for the LRR or Unskippable video on a freaking Tuesday is ridiculous.

If you're gonna have a scrolling news list, put in a scrolling control. I don't want to sit here waiting to see if that interesting title I glimpsed reappears.

Putting every news article, video, comic & feature the same style and importance is not helpful for navigation. Having the Skyrim bacon helmet fluff news story and comics and video content that the Escapist has paid for both at the same level seems assinine.

Why are news articles spread across 3 sections and the box at the bottom AND the scrolling panel? I would spread the news RSS box at the bottom across the full width of the column.

Such a shame that the "Old Site" pub club button at the bottom doesn't work.