New Homepage Feedback Round 2

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jpishgar

jpishgar

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Jan 5, 2010
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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!
 
the new look is not very good, less mobile compatibility (and don't bring up the mobile site, it offers too little content compared to the full site to be useful)

the new layout also displays less content while taking more space.

on top of that everything is reversed, removing the autopilot ability of us to simply head to the site, direct our eyes to a specific spot and open all of the new articles and begin reading

if you want a good layout, there was one before the current one where we had the old GPU charts that allowed you to visually compare GPU and CPU performance, instead of the excel style view without the visual graphs.

bring back the old charts layout which made it easier to compare videocards and also provide better at a glance comparisons for both experienced and novice users alike.

instead of working further on the new layout, try working on bringing back one of the features of the old chart, add both the current comparison and also the filter feature which keeps this look
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/Gamer-Index,2673.html

but allows you to filter out the cards that you are not interested in. the old UI allowed this, why doesn't the new one allow this
 
There seems to be much more structure to the new layout, which is good. Someone decided to make most things align nicely. I think that the Featured Topics should perhaps switch places with the Vendor Voice section though. It's not very featured when it's sitting out of the way :)

The revised forum feed makes a whole lot more sense now too. I no longer get the impression that nobody wants my opinion if there are already replies. The twitter feed is also in a seemingly less prominent position which I think befits its importance compared to "real" content.
 
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.
 
This is much better than the last iteration.

You still don't need that "Follow Us" section at the bottom of the page. It's probably the last thing people see, and those who actually want to "follow" will use the icons at the top.

I also think that side ad should be outside the margins of the main page as a slim vertical one. Featured Topics and Charts (or just topics) would be a much better use of that space.
I still think Charts should be higher on the page, not sure where. I'm pretty sure people care more about charts than a Twitter feed.
 
Definitely an improvement from v1.0. I still like being able to see all of the article subsections on the old homepage.

I agree with mayankle that the forum section should be denser with more threads/area, maybe something closer to the 'old' news section. I would also suggest the option to switch that from the most current to the most active threads.
 
Like the others have stated, a definite improvement in the new page's structure. One thing that I personally liked about the "old" home page that I miss in "beta 2" is the lists of articles based on categories. I understand that many would find it just too cluttered with all those articles there as they are on the "old" page so perhaps some form of modularity could be introduced? Just a thought :)

One thing I am not liking on "beta 2" however, is the clickable side ads. I use an adblocker but turned it off to see the "normal" layout of the page and I really don't like those style of ads. Something non-clickable that is not overly obstrusive (for example not using a black image next to the white/light grey of TH and no ads that have an alternating flash of pink and bright green in a checkboard pattern lol)

Still, it's a step in the right direction and keep up the good work TH guys 😀
 
beta 2 is a little better, but why not just make these small changes to beta 2 to make it even better :)

did a mockup of a slightly different look

kgq1E.jpg
 


Nice mockup :) But an ad format is missing there unfortunately.
 
It just looks like the same elements have been re-arranged. From an aesthetic standpoint it is no different than the original. Sorry, I just don't see the point.
 
Again i didn't like. I have a quick moch up to show you as well. Its right to the point and everything most of us read is there.



http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/10/toms.png/

Hopefully the links work. But as i said its simple and straight forward.

 
1. MUCH better than the 1st beta. It now has flow and structure and highlights the important stories that Tom's wants its readers to see, with the exception of the "Featured Articles" section, which if you change anything on this Beta, you should placed above the ad and "whitepapers" section, dropping them down lower.

2. I was going to criticize the lack of categories (Storage, Graphics, etc) stories until I found the drop down box located next to "Latest Articles". I just didn't notice that it was there or what it did at first. I think making it more obvious that it contains a drop down of other article types OR (and my preference) making some of links or clickable list (horizontal probably would work best) that dynamically changes the stories display by category might work better. Basically make it so that a reader can change to another category with ONE click rather than the currently needed TWO (click to drop down, click to select). That said, I am coming to like the idea of the Latest Stories section that can be changed (with ONE click) by categories.

3. I like the two alternate layouts by razor512 and dormantreign. As for Razor's lack of an ad box (a necessary evil I know) there is enough white space that it could be placed under the Vendor Stories and above the Twitter feed (which I could care less about, placing it lower is better in my opinion). I also agree with tecmo34's suggestion to switch dormantreign's placement of the charts and Latest Articles.

4. I love browsing the forum topics that are in the Forum Live Feed, but rarely comb through the forum itself. Therefore I tend to agree with the other comments that the new Forum Live Feed needs to be denser/contain more topics/questions per page.

5. I appreciate that Tom's is actually getting user feedback on a site redesign. Too many times websites will drop a radical (or even not radical) redesign on its users/readers and say live with it, we paid for it.
 
i like razors remake a lot. personally, i feel that the forum threads and twitter bs should be at the bottom so that they don't clutter the main area. yeah, the more i look at it, i could be happy with razor's setup. one thing though- is tom's dropping the linkage to the Torque Report? that's really one of my favs on the site. i wouldn't mind seeing it enlarged.

here's something to consider, and i don't really know how difficult it would be able to do. MSN has a personalized My MSN page, where users can select modules to display on their homepage and also set their position. i like it a lot as it allows me to put the important stuff right where i want it.
 
Still don't like it. I come to Tom's for the News, which is the first thing I look for, it should be where the " latest article" section is in R2.
 
For those of us running adblock or the like their is an awkward void on the right side of the page.

I agree that vendor voice needs to get swapped with featured articles, the vendor voice articles shouldnt be next to the news bits as they are really promotion for the company.

Either get rid of the live forum feed or make it live and make its name sound right, live forum feed seems better to me than forum live feed. The newest thing i see on it right now is 10 hours old, so thats pretty far from live.
 



This is fantastic. I really disliked the 1st beta but the 2nd beta is a substantial jump in organization. The TH page has always been kinda cluttered but good organization goes a long way. This mockup is even better and I really hope TH takes notice.
 
I think second beta is much better than first beta, and I think second beta is better than the original as well. I still don't feel like this site is as aesthetically pleasing as it could be, though. Probably just needs a little bit of color to help differentiate the different sections.
 


I hope they use what is being discussed here as well. I goto toms hardware like 10 or more times a day and didn't want them to screw the new update up. Felt like i should comment and let them know what i think.

I used to goto theinquirer.net more then here but they really goofed up the design on that site and i go there like 1 time every few days. Really sad. I think that was the reason i started coming here so often. Anywho keep on posting guys, i actually like what i did with the moch up, the design on the profile thing could use a work over but i ain't getting paid to do a really good moch up. I just wanted to point the designers in what i think is the right path. There are loads of places you can place ads to pay for the site. I don't see them though thanks to ad-block. But they do have to pay the bills.

DTR
 
the more i use the new beta 1 and beta 2 the more i love the original .... my 2 cents is keep the transition simple, leave the old style layout intact however remove all categories other than "feature" and "news feed" and spread them using the new beta 2 bar slider underneath the standard layout.

. _ ---
. _ ---
. _ ---
[<___>]

hope my drawing makes any sense.
 
Better but still much worse then the old style.

Id change the news part back to the old font size as the font being bigger actually seems to make it more annoying to look through. I dont get to see as many news links on the page when it loads and the main reasons I go to this site is news links and articles. Articles becoming a row at the top is nice and I like that about the new page, but you are screwing up the news section making the font so large and requiring so much scrolling.

I would take the forum section and cut the width in half and place it as a middle column where Toms guide and Vendors Voice is now, then id place Toms Guide and VV as the right column. So a 3 column layout with News (in a font small enough to get at least 20 storys viewed without scolling), Forum, and Toms G + VV. Then Below those 3 id do Featured Topics, Twitter, and Charts.

Or just leave the site the way it is now. It is really really good.

 
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