Teaching old dogs new tricks

Maybe I will get used to it,maybe I`m nostalgic,but so far......The colours,the navagation,well.....

Over thought,change for sake of change,and this god awful colour,to be quite frank,the old Tyee,everything was before my eyes on one page,the Hook in it`s little section,current stories for comment and news stories down the right side,technicaly this might be better but it feels cold and corporate.

Very snazzy...

But... Pea Green headlines on a gray field?

It'll take some getting used to.

And

Worst of all, it defaults to 'best' comment every time you navigate from story to story

Very bad news - I guess it's obvious why you were so sensitive about THAT issue last week.

Bad Idea.

clutter

The old look was clean, focused. This generic multi-column, multi-box style is more confusing, distracting.

Nice colour choice though.

Defaults to "Best Comments"

Yes, this is one of the glitches we're working on today. Thanks for the feedback! Keep it coming.

Congratulations on the new features

I like the logical divisions of content, but the look is a bit cluttered and font-heavy. Too many different typefaces.

I also agree with G West about the pea-green font, but I would add that it's quite difficult to read when italicized, especially at reduced size. Scanning the front page it's quite difficult to read any of the bylines. They seem to pulsate a bit....

Kudos!

Nice, clean layout. Very glad to see t clear link to the Tyee Photo Pool.

Thumbs up

My initial impression is very positive. It's a big improvement. The pea green is okay, though making it a bit darker would improve readability.

Please arrange things so that as soon as I have logged in to comment on a story, I am automatically taken back to that story, or else please at least have a button that will take me straight back, instead of my having to navigate back via the home page. Or am I missing something that's already there?

Great new look!

From my first click, I have enjoyed the new format.

Re the pea soup colour that others have mentioned: I understand the desire for maintaining continuity of The Tyee brand colour, pea soup. Perhaps the morsels within the soup can be made easier for readers to see if the luminosity can be toned down a bit. It shouldn't be too hard. Just cook it to thicken it a little.

Nice work!

I love the new site! Nice work, all of you. But no, launchability is not a word. ;)

Congratulations!

Looks great to me all around. I think new visitors to the site will find it easier to navigate, with section links in a row across the top of the page. The overall look is clean and classy. If I were to change anything it would be the pea green. Tough to do because that has always been the colour of the sun behind the fish in your logo and it looks great there so I can see the logic of extrapolating. I like the softness of the hue, it's easy on the eyes and doesn't dominate the page, but another colour - maybe a pastel tangerine or something - might be worth a try. It's all subjective but the colour seems to be an issue right off the bat.

It's all cosmetics though and what's keeping me coming back is the excellent journalism. Keep up the great work!

A fellow posting a bit

A fellow posting a bit higher up the page in my untoutered view is right. The old system was easier to scan. You have too much stuff on one page even for us who have very wide perifial vision. But I guess you will do what you want to do. I did find it strange to do the log in bit all over again even though I have been a subscriber for a number of years. But it's you interpetation of what we want to see so it's your way or the highway. I'm presently considering the highway, even though some folks writing columns are worth reading. I rather doubt my opinion will change much on the layout

Looks great!

Well done, nice refresh to the site.

wow !!!

Great design, Great publication, Great people. Love ya Tyee!

Well Done

Looks great, everyone. But I was looking through the list of changes and I was hoping to see one you didn't list. I'll write it up here for your convenience:

Less Bill Tieleman We at the Tyee have finally decided to move away from cynical, narrow, partisan viewpoints from ex-political hacks.

I Like

Thumbs up. Very nice.

HTML errors

I don’t think an online-only news source should even bother replicating its design in IE6. IE7 is probably borking because you made a high-stakes gamble: In a world of tag soup, you declared a Strict DOCTYPE, resulting in the application of Strict formatting rules by browsers. I assure you that for any reasonably complex layout, Strict differs from Transitional.

A related problem is Yesterday’s HTML, where somebody at the Tyee still thinks it’s OK to surprise people with unrequested pop-up windows. Get rid of those, plus a few typos in your code, and maybe your site will work better.

A couple of suggestions

I'd like to second the suggestion that, after clicking 'Login' on an article and entering in the name and password, the user should be returned to the article they were reading.

Also, RSS feeds for the 'Reported Elsewhere' and 'Latest from Canadian Press' would be nice.

Just a thought or two....

1. Is it useful to catagorize articles by news/art/life, etc? Clicking on a category produces a list of old articles to which comments are no longer possible. Maybe the comment deadline should be extended/abolished?

2. Green - yucky.
3. Green - yucky

Question

What is the purpose of the 'badges' label which appears at the bottom of the member 'profile' screen?

wondering

When I press the Opinion mark I get only the past stories, not the current one, why?

count me among those seeing

count me among those seeing how bad the no-design looks (registered graphic designer here) .

typefaces

I agree with deeby about the typefaces. The typofile in me loves the concept but the user in me finds it too cluttered/busy. That's about my only complaint.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if traffic for "The Hook" goes down as it's been given less prominence in the redesign.

All in all a step forward, imo.

easily fixed though -

just a little streamlining - getting rid of the clutter which permeates everything very very very very badly.

e.g. the ridiculous anti-design multiple category title fonts for but one.

ok - font used in comment titles.

...

It's kind of cool to see how long I've been a member (4 years and 16 weeks!), if this info was available in the old design I missed it.

Add me to the list of those wondering what the "badges" thing is about.

Comments in The Hook

Not there. IE 6 & Firefox 3.0.11

It is okay... but

I still don't like the best/all comments dichotomy. Also why bother with a rating system?

I would be interested more in which stories have the most comments. Stories that engender a lot of discussion excite me the most... but that could just be me.

I am not a fan of the pea green being used so very much.

I agree, with the smaller fonts it is not exactly eye friendly.

For some reason the new look reminds me of the Walrus. Did you get it done by the same people?

Not just you, Moonbug.

Not just you, Moonbug. First reaction to the aesthetics, is that it does look all snazzy, particular. I'm for the pea-green. To me it's close to swamp green, brings to mind not just algae, but decomposition, the lurking, the dangerous, the unsettling. Helps make you feel way and beyond those who would make a railroad of you, and is a nice aesthetic counter to usual staid Cdn decorum.

Lookin' good!

Well done! The Tyee continues to grow and impress. Keep up the great work, Dave & crew!

I dunno I like the old style

I dunno I like the old style better.

It takes several steps to

It takes several steps to find the comments, sometimes the most interesting parts.

I suppose we'll get used to it, but right now it is a pain.

Ed Deak.

Fix the default, please!

A new user now is presented with an absurdly blank comment board on virtually every story - once again the best comments/all comments dichotomy is way more trouble than it's worth.

Not too late to change, I hope.

Well put Ed!

now for things I like

I like the fonts at the top and the fonts in general. They are appealing. My only complaint font-wise remains the tiny italic light-green writing.

I think the site feels more slick and professional. I am sure some people might not like that change, but once I got over the shock, I appreciated the change.

Good stuff!

I still think there are one too many horizontal sections in the page headers. The "Tyee News" bar breaks up the navigation/section header bars, and there are too many stylized horizontal lines up there for my liking. A bit too much visual clutter.

All in all though, a solid redesign with some nice new features!

I just had to type this comment for the second time in a day, since the first one was mysteriously deleted... Rough edges?!?

Pea Green?

It is verrrry hard to read. Needs a little more contrast. Reminds me of, well, I don't know what it reminds me of, except I don't like it. The pale gray doesnt help and I feel like I gotta read it sorta sideways (darn italics). Please change the fonts and print colors. It would be way easier to read.

I appreciate all the time and hard work

that you've put into the new look. I guess I'll get used to it but it just seems a bit too busy for me.

pea green

It will take time to find everything in the old format. I find the pea green text too light for easy reading, especially in smaller font size. Give it a month and ask us again SVP.

Looks good

But scrap all the capital letters in headlines. Just cap the first letter of the first word. It's easier to read that way.

Also

It would be cool if we could edit our own comments if we see a mistake after they're posted. Just an idea.

Clip & Save?

It looks very good to me, but I do find the "clip & save" notice in the dotted lines distracting and kind of odd ...

No doubt a lot of hard work

No doubt a lot of hard work involved but The Tyee title heading is a little lost among the clutter. A fiesty fish deserves more splash.

For glitches:

The all comment section of the "Left Needs Soul Searching" thread is not accessible. Ends up at a yahoo site.

Good on you for pointing

Good on you for pointing that out, lynn. 70 comments: let's take a look!

Crisp

Your latest presentation is crisp, clean and fresh!

The navigation is better and I like the width of the main articles.

site

beautiful.
needs more cartoons, thou.

do you not know how to listen?

Like thanks a lot, Now I have to press "all comments" every damned time.
Everybody asked you to stop seperating the comments at all, and now you made it worse instead.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Looks amazing! Definitely

Looks amazing! Definitely one of the snazziest website designs out there. I'm going to keep an eye out for this birocreative.

Retro-fit looks good, and pea green is easy on the old eyes.

In time, some simple graphic additions will be easy with this new plain jane format. The KISS stategy, is it?

humour

You need a cartoons section. There's no better way way to speak the truth of ones' view - political or otherwise. When one creates laughter, or a wry recognition or acknowledgment - one disarmes the subject and arms the viewer - and thus creates a potential for change.

Politicians fear a knowing laughter. When they are the butt of it, and people catch on to it - it is effectively the beginning of their political demise.

flounces

The new design seems nice and manly; sure to discourage those 'girly fights' that keep breaking out. Esteemed editor(s), the 'browsability' is more difficult - I'm madly clicking all over the place to get to 'all comments". As you say, some glitches to work out. Our best love, of course.

Despite the snazzy new outfit

The actual operation of the website is less user friendly, more busy looking and operationally clunky.

Readers still can't default to ALL COMMENTS and the moderators (classing what's BEST) appear to have gone to sleep. For new users it must be hell. Familiar folks can click around to end up with what we come here for 'eventually' but, given the problems, it hardly seems worth it.

Growing pains, I hope so.

For the moment, mostly pains in the neck!

Making changes

for the sake of making changes is unproductive. So far, I find some of the Tyee's changes make some things easy, but other changes make other things more difficult. But I'm old and it really is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. However, I shall persevere with high hopes that I will eventually figure it out. The Tyee is worth the effort.

Top gutter - why?

The huge top gutter just pushes content off the visible page for no good reason.

It might look good to you with your chosen font size but I have weak eyes so I have to magnify the text to read it comfortably. Unfortunately that also expands the top gutter so it occupies about 25% of the available verticle space and makes most of the content go below the fold. That is a bad design mistake.

There is no real reason to have any gutters on the web anyway, but putting one at the top of the page is just stupid and will drive users away.

Why don't you allow your design to fill the user's screen without gutters. With CSS and intelligent design it's perfectly easy to do so.

Also, you should fix those html errors that occur on every page. It is a sign of an unprofessional attitude and does not say good things about your coders.