The New Tom's Hardware Homepage Re-Design

[yman69]

Have to agree with Cryoburner. The new web page is an annoying white page with HUGE text everywhere. I prefer the older webpage with the sections labels in red. Much easier to discern.

 

[weberdarren97]

I spent time trying to like this. I want a refund.

 

[Dooger]

I'm agreeing with everyone else, I'm having a hard time liking the new design also. I liked having images on the latest reviews, made it easier and faster to quickly skip articles I wasn't interested in.

 

[wpcoe]

Not a fan of the new design. To me this felt like change for the sake of change. Except that now since the news title text is positively monstrous you get a lot less news now than with the "old" design.

Have to agree with Cryoburner. The new web page is an annoying white page with HUGE text everywhere. I prefer the older webpage with the sections labels in red. Much easier to discern.

I spent time trying to like this. I want a refund.

I'm agreeing with everyone else, I'm having a hard time liking the new design also. I liked having images on the latest reviews, made it easier and faster to quickly skip articles I wasn't interested in.

Absolutely agree with these comments. Totally unworkable for someone who wants to scan headline titles and read topics of interest. In addition to the needlessly large font and white space, read topics no longer appear in a different color.

The most positive slant I can put on it is to agree that it is "change simply for the sake of change," but really I feel it's yet another example of being so very out of touch with their users and "we know best what you want, and here it is" a la Microsoft.

I will continue to visit via the UK web site, but once you "improve" it to match the US site, I'll no longer be visiting.

 

[somebodyspecial]

Just about to leave until they return to old site. "horrible abomination"

I would actually have CAPPED the quote...LOL. Worst site design I've seen in ages. Just fire the guy who came up with it. The site is almost unusable. I take that back as I'm only in here to see if there is some kind of fix for whatever is wrong (LOL, the entire design I guess is WRONG). It's like you tried to make me mad...ROFL.

 

[dudio]

Hello everyone,
I'm really liking the clean look it presents both on desktop and mobile.

I do have a few minor complaints, neither of which are actually stopping me from using the site.

1) On desktop, hovering over the words Product Reviews drops down categories. However, hovering over the word Forum does not. Screenshots are at the bottom of this reply.

2) The sandwich menu appears quickly on my phone, but it takes a few seconds before the links actually do anything when I tap them. I don't know if this is a widespread issue or if it's just from my phone being old.

I hate the new design, and see what you see.
I used to bookmark the homepage, but it is useless to me (I'm most interested in the Forums anyways) and bookmarked this instead:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/all.html

 

[somebodyspecial]

Looks just like JackNaylorPE, but with some of the pics. I'll note it looks much better in chrome, but I hate that browser and refuse to use it for toms. If you can't fix JackNaylorPE's image to look like the 2nd image in weberdarren97's post (heck just reverse whatever you did to last month), I'll be coming here maybe once a year instead of once a day. Which would land you right about where I've put Anandtech since the Geforce 660ti review (IIRC).

 

[somebodyspecial]

Thought it might be nosquint++ (set to 140 globally for web nothing for font), but dropping it to normal 100% changes nothing from JackNaylorPE's image. This is horrible and I'm done trying to fix your site for you. Firefox64 here also and it would seem you've designed this for chrome and forgot firefox still exists.

I'll admit I think firefox dies at v57 (when they chuck all addons...ROFL, morons), but it's still here for now and maybe they'll wake up and realize telling everyone to rewrite their code is how you kill your product especially when you top that with making it look exactly like chrome. Mozilla seems to not understand why I use their browser (it's not chrome). Tomshardware seems to not understand why I come to the front page. Change for the sake of change is stupid. You've win8/win10'd your site...LOL. Both of these OS's slowed me down from win7 (and way down from xp...LOL), which I'd think is the opposite of the very idea of an OS redesign. If you're not making me FASTER, you're wasting my time (and money) 😉

Also for those that don't like the shopsavvy crap, just adblock it. Still doesn't fix the site but at least you get some space back at the top Is sending me to anandtech relevant? Toptenreviews? Did purch buy anandtech/laptopmag etc?

 

[tech4]

I have been repeatedly clearing my cookies and using incognito mode to avoid the new site design but it appears that is no longer an option. With the new layout my news page is cluttered with too much other stuff and images that I do not need previews of, I just need a list of article links to choose from. Comparing the old with the new, previously when I went to tomshardware.com, most of the page was filled with news articles, now I can see 4, after selecting see all, I can see 3 with preview images. The rest of the page is wasted space.

The new layout may be good for some but it is a horrible experience for me. I strongly suggest a filter or preference option for "classic" or "simple" view for those of us who prefer the old layout.

Goals for the new site:
1) Main page more memorable : Memorable, making me no longer want to visit site.
2) To make the site easier to navigate : Having only 3 useful things to click on instead of 30 and filling the rest with noise.

 

[xeonight]

I just started getting the new front page, and I would best describe it as a "horrible abomination". It's practically unusable at the most common resolutions. The "Latest Articles" section extends over halfway down the page and there's large amounts of whitespace, while the oversized text extends to multiple lines, making it difficult to read. Without scrolling, only a few of the "Latest News" or "From Our Community" entries are visible, instead of the sizable lists that would normally have been in view, along with only two of the "Latest Reviews". Plus, even if you scroll, the amount of content on the front page has been greatly reduced, and you have to click tiny arrows that jump around vertically each time they are clicked to see more. If the goal was to "make the site easier to navigate", then I would say that this redesign is a resounding failure.

For fun, I also tested it at 720p, to see whether it might respond appropriately to lower resolutions...

Well, I guess that could be considered "memorable" as in "That site that is nothing but a Latest Article section." There's not even any indication that the other parts of the front page exist unless you scroll first. And the text is massive. It's like the new front page was designed for 1440p and higher resolutions, while ignoring the fact that around 95% of people still have a vertical desktop resolution of 1080 pixels or below. The design needs to be made more responsive to people's screen resolutions. At the very least, the giant "Latest Article" section needs to be scaled down appropriately at lower resolutions, along with the text size.

+1 (if i could just do more than 1...)

The 2 main reasons i come to TH are the fact that the "Recent News" second used to be EASILY READABLE like i could see probably 15 to 20 articles on just the front page, each single line, no fluff/filler, and the recent forum posts on the right was easy to use also, i could offer help (if i can) just by a quick read from the front page...

But this new design...... what was the thought?? "Let's make everything bigger, have less NEWS articles on the front page, less REVIEWS, less RECENT FORUM POSTS" ?????? because that's the only way i can think of to get from what WAS WORKING JUST FINE to this new balloon'd up thing you have now...
it also took me a bit longer than normal to FIND THE SEARCH BOX (lol ikr)

My hope right now: someone with STYLISH addon experience please go to www.tomshardware.co.uk copy ALL the CSS and make a style for the .com version, i would even probably PAY for that...

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

The 2 main reasons i come to TH are the fact that the "Recent News" second used to be EASILY READABLE like i could see probably 15 to 20 articles on just the front page, each single line, no fluff/filler, and the recent forum posts on the right was easy to use also, i could offer help (if i can) just by a quick read from the front page...

But this new design...... what was the thought?? "Let's make everything bigger, have less NEWS articles on the front page, less REVIEWS, less RECENT FORUM POSTS" ?????? because that's the only way i can think of to get from what WAS WORKING JUST FINE to this new balloon'd up thing you have now...

Agreed. I loved the information density that the former homepage had. I could easily see the list of 10+ current articles/news, and the featured articles were a bit larger on the top or the right side. I didn't have to try to click another page, unless I had missed the previous day(s) news/articles.

This redesign is much, much worse.

 

[weberdarren97]

Can we go back to the old design please?

 

[DornyeiJ]

I've just seen the new homepage on tomshardware.com. Fortunatelly tomshardwate.co.uk is not on the new design yet.
Please make the new design optional. I cannot stand it. I read your site a really long time ago almost 20 years and would like to do so but pls don't mess it up.

Annoyances:
Do not put in videos into the articles and news - really bad.
Do not put in popups what ask for newsletter. Ask one time remember and forget about it.

Thanks and continue the great work what you have done up until now.

 

[NikoKiko]

Something went wrong with the new design. I'm seeing the same thing as "JackNaylorPE"
I don't know if this is by design or error but it's bad. Also no images at all on page.
https://imgur.com/a/N1SiC

 

[Jsimenhoff]

Something went wrong with the new design. I'm seeing the same thing as "JackNaylorPE"
I don't know if this is by design or error but it's bad. Also no images at all on page.
https://imgur.com/a/N1SiC

Please read my responses to JackNaylorPE. You need to turn off your cookie/adblocker for the correct viewing experience.

 

[Graybush]

I have some great news!

Thanks to all of the feedback you've given in the last month, our teams are going to refine the new design! Please expect changes to the front page that shows much of the feedback has been integrated into the new design. Keep it coming everyone : )

 

[dudio]

Much better.. I edited my bookmark back to the main page. Thanks

 

[mwryder55]

What has been changed in the last 24 hours? I use the Opera browser and suddenly the page seems to be having a seizure whenever I navigate on it. It seems to be loading a lot more data than it used to, I am seeing loading messages for up to a minute after changing the page.

 

[weberdarren97]

What has been changed in the last 24 hours? I use the Opera browser and suddenly the page seems to be having a seizure whenever I navigate on it. It seems to be loading a lot more data than it used to, I am seeing loading messages for up to a minute after changing the page.

Same here, I'm pulling almost 200Mb/s on my desktop with Google Chrome and, although the page looks to be displaying everything, the little blue loading icon on the top left corner just keeps spinning like it's trying to load more.

 

[10tacle]

No problems here using two different types of browsers on different PCs (Firefox and Slimjet).

 

[geofelt]

As a mouse user, I do not much like the change.
Bigger selection options might be good for those on mobile devices and fat fingers, but not for me.

It seems to me like there is a good argument for giving the user a choice about which design is better.
You will get good statistics if you give users a choice.

 

[mwryder55]

No problems here using two different types of browsers on different PCs (Firefox and Slimjet).

Are you using any ad-blocking extensions? I am wondering if maybe some of the problem is the site trying to get around ad-blockers.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

In Firefox 1080p, I'm getting the giant article pictures again, enough space for about 8 Latest News articles, and the right hand side has been completely monopolized by one-and-a-half Latest Reviews. The forum sidebar with recent posts is now two pages down on the left side. The only way anything looks remotely logical is if I extend my window to 3/4 the width of the screen. Which leaves the maximum possible amount of space that is useless for actually displaying a second window. If I display it full screen, I get blank borders filling 1/8 the screen on either side.

 

[10tacle]

No problems here using two different types of browsers on different PCs (Firefox and Slimjet).

Are you using any ad-blocking extensions? I am wondering if maybe some of the problem is the site trying to get around ad-blockers.

I am (Adblock Plus) when I visit on an old Core 2 Duo laptop because the ads/videos slows it down too much. However, when I'm on a faster laptop or PC, I have ABP disabled.I notice no difference in viewing between the two other than seeing ads when using the computers that I white listed Tom's Hardware from blocking ads (I fully support ads on Tom's for helping their revenue in any way - so long as it doesn't interfere with my user performance and experience navigating around).

 

[mwryder55]

I don't seem to have the same problems with "vanilla" Firefox so the problem may be with Opera not liking something. The site works once it calms down but when I first go to it the font size keeps changing and everything keeps shifting around for up to a minute.