New Homepage Feedback Round 2

[Ogdin]

I like this one better than the first. The farther down the page the Twit section gets the better.

 

[jpishgar]

Thanks for the great feedback, friends! Keep it comin'!

 

[rubix_1011]

Folks need to understand that cramming as much stuff as possible onto a web page isn't always beneficial....having clean lines and organization is a huge must. You can always provide some basic navigation to other links, but your home page should always be as inviting, informative and clean to everyone, of every tech range.

 

[fakie]

i still prefer the original one because i can see all the recent articles from all the categories without even having to go through that dropdown menu
and because there are more news displayed at a single time

also, the original site has dropdown menus for the charts(graphic cards, harddrives and processors) while this one doesn't. makes it a little less convenient imo


but really, why do you guys have to change the layout? current one is good as it is

 

[army_ant7]

Yup... Still lacks the categories below. The ones that show the most recent articles for each category. 🙂

Is this an attempt though to reduce the amount of loading for the main page? Maybe you should still provide links to pages that show those lists of categories. 🙂

 

[army_ant7]

Also, I don't think that the regular "Deals" like this "Deals June 8: GeForce GTX 460 + 2 Games $99" don't belong in the News section, but in a category of their own. Just my opinion though. :-D

 

[WBTL]

I like the 'Round 2' home page the best. Lots of information but it does not appear cluttered.

Please resist the urge to add 'page shifting' advertisements. You know, the ones that push the entire contents of a page down to make room for an annoying comercial. Then the page is shifted up after the commercial ends.

 

[NapoleonDK]

Dormantreign is on the right track. The 3 main reasons I come to Tom's Hardware, would be Latest News, Latest Articles, and the Forum Feed, in that order.

1. I don't think the News Feed needs to be 2 columns wide, but it should be 16-18 entries long.
2. Forum Feed is awesome, and having a quick "Ask Question" button is GREAT.
3. Dormantreign's horizontal articles item is great, left/right buttons and categories drop-down should all be animated and clear/simple to use. Please don't make it move on its own, or have a mousover scroll function.
4. A full spread of 9 icons for the charts entry is totally cool. Great opportunity for some refreshed artwork.
5. Ads...well, a banner ad across the top doesn't have a huge impact, but a side one sure throws off the formatting. Maybe try it with 2 banner ads, or something. Most of the tech-oriented people on this site not only run adblock, but also ALREADY KNOW about the content of the ads. (I.e. yes, we know about ultra durable 3) Place them where you need to I guess.

 

[TheWhiteRose000]

Still not liking it.
I preferred personally the articles in the dead center.
That's why I come to toms, that and the forums.

XD

 

[dormantreign]

Yeah i agree Articles do need to be dead center. Hence my latest design, I also shrunk the latest articles section and added the "ADS" a couple guys were nagging me for. To put space in for.

For real now, this is the last one i'm doing. hehe.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


One of the key things why i did this revision is that the latest news felt wrong in its place in my last moch up. I think this design should make "Most" everyone happy and give us more of what we want. okay...done. I'm really glad they had this beta stage, i think the purpose of it was not to piss anyone off with a radical new design. I also think this moch up should work well with moble phones. I read a post back a few that said that cramming to much info was a bad thing and i think i found a balance with this one.

DTR

 

[Burodsx]

Beta 2 is so much better than Beta 1, but I think dormantreign's set-up is the way to go.

 

[user 18]

Wall of text alert! Also, I have too many opinions for my own good : )

Beta 2 is a great improvement over Beta 1, but I agree that there is some work to be done still. The most recent mockup above would be a good layout. Part of what I think Tom's needs to consider is the screen resolution. If they're keeping the width optimized for 1024*768, the height should be as well. Having a banner ad under the searchbox - like there has been on all of the iterations so far - really cuts into the 768 pixels of vertical space. For those of us who spend a lot of time doing web browsing on computers with 768 or 800 px of vertical space, that's what really counts. The current layout allows me to see 3 articles and 12-16 news stories from the top of the home page in 768px of height (not counting the browser window and the XP taskbar). Beta 1 actually let me see more news and articles, but if I scrolled down I wanted to stab myself in the eyeball. With Beta 2, I can see at most 6 stories, but 6 articles at my fingertips. That's not really balanced compared to the pace that the two sections move at.

Now, the only improvement I see having been made to the original homepage was in the top <768 pixels of Beta 1. What I'd change about that is to remove the banner ad, and put the forum feed in where featured topics was - and move the 'ask a question' button to the top. Alternatively, the original layout could remain, with some consolidation of the stuff down below, and the forum feed could be where 'topics' and the square ad is - keeping the banner ad at the top, and pushing the square ad down.

Although the overall impression of Beta 2 is better, the first impression of Beta 1 is cleaner. The current default combines the best of both, but is missing the forum feed.

 

[dbdarrough]

I was one of the guys that hated the Beta 1 layout. The Beta 2 layout is definitely improved and I also like some of dormantreign's ideas. I like that the Beta 2 look is cleaner with more apparent whitespace and flow. I personally can't stand twitter feeds and even most of the forum feeds don't interest me so the farther down the page they are, the better. I also don't believe I have ever read one of the "White Papers and Resources" and would put that further down the page if you have it at all. Maybe switch "White Papers" with Featured Topics so that you have Articles, News and Topics near the top. I imagine that is what most people come to Tom's for anyway.

I still would like to see you reduce the height of the header at the top. Surely you can figure out a way to make it smaller. Basically the logo, the main tabs and a search bar with login. Do we really need all the mobile, RSS, subscribe to newsletter, twitter and facebook stuff at the top? Things like Tom's Guide, Tom's Games, etc. could also be a tab with links on that page to all of Tom's other sites. They just don't need to be the very first thing on the page every time I go to the site.

Last thought - Is it possible if this is being done in CSS to simply have a couple of choices kind of like you are doing currently with Old, Beta 1 and Beta 2? That way, everyone gets the layout they like and could save their own preference. If you wanted to get fancy, you could even create some sort of mashup editor that would allow each of us to design our own layout and save it as a template. Probably a pipe dream but it wouldn't be that hard to at least do the multiple layout CSS choice idea.

Thanks and keep up the good work.

 

[drwho1]

The latest version of our Tom's Hardware homepage is set to be visible in preview later this week and includes some of the feedback our users have given us after the previous iteration. We encourage everyone to review the latest design (once available) and post your feedback, comments and critiques of the new page to this thread. Bear in mind that not all feedback from the last feedback thread has been integrated yet into the design, and we will be releasing another version within 2 weeks. Please remember to keep your feedback comments clear, constructive and detailed.

Thanks!

I still like the "old" version much better.
don't understand why shuffle things around and called "new".

 

[motamedn]

The latest version of our Tom's Hardware homepage is set to be visible in preview later this week and includes some of the feedback our users have given us after the previous iteration. We encourage everyone to review the latest design (once available) and post your feedback, comments and critiques of the new page to this thread. Bear in mind that not all feedback from the last feedback thread has been integrated yet into the design, and we will be releasing another version within 2 weeks. Please remember to keep your feedback comments clear, constructive and detailed.

Thanks!

This is a huge improvement over the Beta 1. It makes great use of space. The one change I would suggest is to move the band of 6 latest articles at the top of the page lower. The information that draws people back repeatedly is the news, guides, reviews, etc. That band is not an efficient use of space and makes scroll down to get to the meat of TH. Either move it shrink it or discard it--otherwise well done!

 

[ChiefTexas_82]

Not bad... Not bad at all...

 

[mb230kc]

this version is better than the original beta (not so busy) but you still have not added the torque report to this new version

 

[manicm]

For the love of God, please make News links open in a new tab. It's bloody annoying to do this manually.

 

[striker410]

I like it much better. However, @dormantreign has the best layout i've seen. It's got it all right there!

The other thing I notice is beta2 loads much faster than beta1. Might just be me.

I like the live forum feed. However, it's not actually "live".

 

[LordConrad]

The current page works just fine. Unless you're planning a major overhaul (graphics as well as layout), then just leave it alone.

 

[camroncamera]

If I am to make one suggestion, can we please have the latest news section in the middle of the page? As in switch it with the column on the left.

+1, That is where my eye wants to go. Also, widen the headline columns a bit in this area.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

LOVE the live feed!

 

[R6ex]

First impression was, "Where did everything go?!"

I prefer the old webpage as it contains all the major subsections and its latest titles. I can simply scroll down and look for info without having to click & wait. Sure, the new webpage looks cleaner & neater, but at the expense of losing all the information, I'd rather not.

Good effort, anyway! 😉

 

[micr0be]

i love the layout that dormantrein put together in his last post. good job man

 

[Horhe]

+1000 for dormantreign's last design.

The three main reasons I visit Tom's Hardware are Latest Articles, Latest News and Forum Feed in this order. dormantreign's last design is exactly what I want to see.

Good job dormantreign!