Welcome to your new-look INQUIRER

I went and looked at the 'Other' site to the latest tales of the BOFH, and to my surprise their website looks a lot like this one. Shocka

Well I've given the new layout a week to sink in, the immediate reaction being "We fear change", well I'm English, would you expect anything different?

One week later I'm getting used to it, but I still prefer the old layout. The major problem I have been finding is I can no longer remember where I read a story. I have The Inq and The Rogister open in two tabs pretty much 24/7 in firefox, and now the colours are the same and the layouts the same, I just can't remember if I read a story on one site or the other! More than once I have gone to share a link to a story and spent several minutes digging through the site, only to find it's on the other one!

So Grrrrr @ you, and a happy new year!

The size of the text really isn't that bad...I'm using Firefox on a 1920x1080 monitor and the size is just fine for me. I've had absolutely no problem reading anything regardless of the high resolution.

a little more darkness for more contrast.

have a look to the register and please have the headlines side by side (horizontally on the same level) so that it doesnt look that unsorted and wicked

"The Inq is a fun tech tabloid that insults the industry, and that is purely why we love it! So Inq: Don't listen to your executive overlords! Fight back and return the old site! It's clear that your users hate the new one. I want my Inq back."

Exactly!

Ever since the Inq sold their soul to Incisive Media it's been going down the pan. I wouldn't be surprised if it was they who forced this "upgrade" of the Inq website, and used their own clueless web designers, who are just more parasites trying to justify their own existence.

Since the acquisition you seem to be trying to pretend that you're a serious tech journal or something. The Inq never has been a serious tech journal, never will be, and will only hurt itself trying to be. The Inq is a fun tech tabloid that insults the industry, and that is purely why we love it!

So Inq: Don't listen to your executive overlords! Fight back and return the old site! It's clear that your users hate the new one.

I want my Inq back.

Ever since the Inq sold their soul to Incisive Media it's been going down the pan. I wouldn't be surprised if it was they who forced this "upgrade" of the Inq website, and used their own clueless web designers, who are just more parasites trying to justify their own existence.

Since the acquisition you seem to be trying to pretend that you're a serious tech journal or something. The Inq never has been a serious tech journal, never will be, and will only hurt itself trying to be. The Inq is a fun tech tabloid that insults the industry, and that is purely why we love it!

So Inq: Don't listen to your executive overlords! Fight back and return the old site! It's clear that your users hate the new one.

I want my Inq back.

I think this is my last visit to Inquirer. Bye...

One thing Paul Forgot To Inform You, 414 7th st SE. Pauls' Resident Manager There. Not England, Except Paul Loves Short Wave Radio & has about 4 of 'EM, Packed Away in Basement, Pauls Just Door that Nobody Will answer when You Knock, Slip Payments Under Door, Only Leadership..
Not ALL Things At theINQ are As they Seem, of Course, Univesity of MINNESOTA Anit Actually Pupils Paradise, ethier. When They Die, They Change Colour. TS Drashek M.D.

I'd cobbled together a handy Greasemonkey script that beat the "week to date" page into a single column and now I've had to rewrite it!

Seriously, I'd've thought top of the list for the new site would have been too make those three columns line up neatly (dare I say it, like on The Reg).

Sorry to speak out what I feel about the new design: awful. Did you have it done by some geeks who never liked you, who wanted to settle an old bill? Don't see any gain anywhere, and the right half of the screen remains unused as before while the articles' font size is way too small. Maybe you did this to us readers so we are going to pay up for the classic(al) look? Might even be worth a thought. But I am broke for the time being, thanks to AMD's share price. The captchas seem to have some problem as well, as I always need several tries to send one of my rare comments in.

Problem with the new website:

* Too generic: just another IT/news website.

Why the old one worked:

* The simple layout did have retro / tabloid look which helped to brand the INQ. The editorial was in a style befitting to that of a tabloid and always tongue in cheek.

This new layout is just a mess. There is no "LATEST" headlines anymore, navigation process / conversion goals of this website are a jumbled mess at best. I assume the new layout was dreamt up by a team of designers with no thoughts or understanding of conversions and very little user feedback.

A jumbled mess at best, but the reality is a tragic shame frustrating your loyal readers.

What does the INQ have to say?

The old format was better because it was functional and promoted more discourse (i.e. the add comment and flame author link was DIRECTLY below the end of the article.) Now I have to scroll to the very bottom of the page just to post a comment. WHY? The related links below the article take up too much screen real estate and gets in the way of user feedback (which will drop your avg. number of site hits per user.) The usability in some respects may be better but it doesn't have to be at the expense of anything. Please, get to work right away on getting the usability right before people start getting in the habit of not using those formerly convenient features which, well, are not so convenient to use anymore.

after 3 years with inq, it is time to leave. why? the quality has gone down over the years and you know it. Then you signed up with google ads which made the inq to load slowly even on 8mbps bandwidth.

It got worse with more & more slowness when inq would try to load content from googlesydnication, doubleclick, blahblah and then the actual content comes in.

Now, this is the last straw. Its simply too slow, and its like reading the rogister now. I will occassionally see inq, but decided not check-in everyday pointlessly.

If the inq is not listening to its loyal readers, wats the point in staying, eh?

too rectangular. new features are nice, but you destroyed to flair of the old site. which was great!

You've got to be kidding. It looks bloody awful.

...We rest our case.

(Just put it back the way it was and we'll say nothing more about it.)

Try to avoid red colors.try get good designs for making a magazine site.Not looks like a commercial site.search option box was not styles.for buttons u can apply styles

RE:
"Thanks for all the comments. Working through them as fast as we can. Keep them coming. Some things were always supposed to be there just a bit slow to get going this morning. Pic of the day is back, visited link is sorted. Looking at most commented next as I thought that was odd to. The Inq team"

Much Much better! well done team!

I don't mind new design, but it broke RSS feeds. I'm using my phone to read INQ RSS news feed. With old design my only complaint was that RSS feed contained some images or links to the web counter/stats sites and the phone was trying to establish GPRS connection for every such item. Now with new design RSS article has only few words, basically not giving much more info than the header. Also it has "email this", "bookmark", "digg" and other things not really useful on the phone device. Not to mention the ad image twice the size of the screen of my device. So opening news items that does not give me much to read but instead asks me if I want to open GPRS connection (to load ads)... not good.

I can't find a way to read older news items, what the hell have you guys done to my beloved Inq? Seriously, use paging like every other blog on the planet, that way if I'm away from my PC for a week or two I can still catch up on the news.

And please fix the link colours!

kthanx

Perhaps I will experiment a bit. My URLs were angle-bracketed, maybe this thing is trying to offer some markup? How about a BR: br . Some i italics /i or b bold /b ? I bet those markup elements get mangled in the post, without actually achieving the desired effects. Doo dah...

Ahhh... I see we don't get to include URLs, despite (apparently) not having any markup language. Or maybe there is, I'm not going to experiment here. The two URLs I was trying to offer were: "www theinquirer net static aboutus", and "www theinquirer net search help percent20(url-encoded space) desk". Some Assembly Required. Hoping the low punctuation will get by the filter...

Heh, fireferret offering up previous CAPTCHA responses in the box. Nope, none of them are any use...

The "week to date" link is only offering two days worth of articles -- in fact only two more articles than the home page. Brand R's week-at-a-time page still works. (Of course their favicon still looks like a headless man running with a briefcase...) I also love this advice from the "About us" page <http: / : "For questions and problems relating to the site only, please email the help desk." It would be nifty if ``the help desk'' was a hot link or something. Hmm, let's try the internal search engine... I end up at <http: / looking at 6000 irrelevant links. Epic fail. This comment would look better with paragraph breaks... too bad they are Forbidden.

I felt this time I have to comment, I am every day regular reader, and what make the inquirer special is the content not how it looks like, the inquirer will be always my home page what ever how it looks like as the content stay the same full of the new rich news, nice comments and excellent articles.
The beauty is inside not how it looks like.
Keep the good job

Too much white space ... even though the previous site did not have seperations between stories, the overall look was not so blindingly white.

Functionaly, fine, but reminds me of a 4x5 index card with three words on it.

My comments from earlier still stand - it's all nothing special, but if your developers are kicking their heels wanting to do stuff...

- Can the "add comment to this article" link take you to an actual "add comment" form, and not all the comments you've just read with the addition of a form down the bottom?
- Any chance of including the Author's name with the article title and strap on the home page? Or, better still (and probably one step too far), any chance of filtering out articles written by authors that I loathe? Probably not, but I can usually tell by their headlines and regulate from this end...

The redo of the Inq is completely wrong.

I will delete my bookmark.

It was nice while it lasted Inq. Bye Bye.

Recurring now, on the first row of articles and all quick links. Bit rubbish really, innit. May have something to do with the tags thing being inordinately slow loading, does anyone use that nonsense?

This new look seems a bit too generic now, like all the other sites on the web.The old look had a kind of retro/tabloid look which stood out more, but the biggest disappointment is I can't tell which articles have already been read! Still read the INQ every morn though. Cheers

I just realised what's wring with the comments - they are Grey not Black. A small grey font on white background??? What were you thinking??? If you didn't want anyone reading the comments you could just disable them. I've had a bit more time with this new layout now and I hate it - it's like it's trying to look more modern but has done it in a really negative way. Too many designers going "ooh that looks nice - can you soften it up a bit more and make everything look a bit more faded ... lovely" without anyone thinking about the usability of it all. This site is just another IT new's/rumour site. I don't think the editorial content is anything special but I've appreciated it's relatively simple layout. If this new layout stays I'm not sure I will.

very disappointing. Looks like a washed out version of it's former self.

Thankfully my ad-blocking totally nulls your 'continue' ads (it's only from reading these comments that I found out they existed), but the new look is pants, it's worse than 'the Register' who updated their look a month or so - stop copying El Reg!!

You could go back to the old 'superior' look which would please the majority of your readers, or you could ignore them and stick with the pants look,...

The home page is horrible - the columns are so narrow you only get 3 - 4 words per line.

The article fonts are a bit smaller but I can handle it, but the comments font is way too small - I had to sit up and look closely to read them.

More ads, worse ads (javascript splash pages) and due to this javascript ad-shoving, broken link-visited flags.

Absolutely awful.. I used to disable adblock for thr Inq, because I want to support you guys. But since the new site came about I'm changing my mind.

Why change things that work? Fire the guy who's idea this was and bring back the old site!

And a comment about the poll: It seems skewed to me, deliberately or accidentally. You have one option for good, and two options for bad (Looks better with the monitor off = very bad, at least that's how I read it) but it still looks like "most" people said it's better, because some people said it looks much worse rather than just "worse".

All in all, a poor show indeed.

Completely failed first time accessed with Firefox 3. None of the links worked at all. Worked better having cleared the cache, but that's the kind of price you have to pay for being up with the kids I guess. Just to sort out those 20 validation errors now - why is it supposedly intelligent web designers are still churning out broken pages?

Thanks for the comments regarding the mobile site. The problem has been fixed now - we had a temporary feeds hiccup in the platform migration. Should all be working fine now. Can you let us know if you are still experiencing problems?

This also just says "It works!"

Given that sometime ago I seem to think we were advised to switch to this to get the UK (or more likely no-US) centric version its a pity that there's been such a fundamental failure on basic QA on the new "design" launch.

As for the design ... I still dislike it ... especially the way I'm getting grey gutters round white columns containing the text everywhere (n.b. I'm using firefox on solaris if thats relevant) - just looks ugly and to be has the impression that design has been done of IE and doesn't render correctly on other browsers.

Thanks for fixing the link colours.
Am changing my vote from 'worse' to 'better with the screen off'

(1)Old feed address doesn't work
(2)Yellow logo on main page results in 'invalid URL'

The part of the website that has website in it (as opposed to gray space) is too thin! I could fit 3.5 articles side by side on my laptop screen.

... The Reg and The Inq have been sharing each others looks for some time now.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030203004511/http://theregister.co.uk/

Is it just me or is the RSS feeder not working?!?

What's is this trendy new site and what did it do with the Enquirer?

I like it. It looks less '1996'.

The poll box should be pushed up higher on the page.

Who cares about ads when you have adblock? Anyways I Love the new look and feel. It comes as a shock to a long time inq fan.Keep up the good work guys...

First of all, Joe G. - That is farking hilARious!!! I, too, am a reader from the beginning - even as far back as El Reg's infancy. ~Can't get enough of that Mageek inspired snarkyness. The Inquirer is the first link in my favourites (li'l Brit tribute) menu and the page I visit most frequently. I got hooked on it partly because it used to be one of the only hardware related sites that posted new content on Sundays. I miss those days...

Now, please allow me to congratulate The Inq on your new design. I like it. It's fresh. It does, however, remind me a bit of the Reg's new look. Not to the point of distraction, though. It makes me a wee bit sad, though, because I feel like we are moving on with our lives after the breakup with Mad Mike . :-( Some relationships are just hard to get over...

Now onto my list of suggestions for the fine staff of my favorite rag:

1) Click-through ads? Oh, HELL NO!!! Please, Inq, a lot of times I use my HTC Hermes tethered (don't tell AT&T) on a non-3G network and these @%!$*^& ads make me just go somewhere else for the day (or days - depending on when I can get to a decent connection). Which brings me to my next point;

2) Load times. I've always liked the simplicity of the Inq and the fact that the article headlines load before most of the ads. On a slow connection that can be a make or break feature for me. Please do what you can to preserve this.

3) Page width. I see no reason why you brilliant bastards should not be able to make this a dynamic feature. As it is, the site looks a little anemic. There are plenty of dumb-shit sites out there that pull it off. I know you guys can swing it!

4) Article sort. I read my article headlines from left to right, top to bottom. If you guys can sort them this way (based on posting date/time) or at least in some logical order that would make for a more pleasing experience. Now, I do realize that you've kept this particular article/announcement near the top for good reason and I totally accept that - not a bad idea for earth-shattering news... :-D

5) Comment section. You must allow carriage returns in order to preserve readability and cadence. Now, I understand if you need a feature to remove excessive use of such to prevent abuse, but, this is basic punctuation and a necessary tool for expressing reader opinion. Also, please add a timestamp to the comments! Dates alone are not enough (just for reference, it is now 7:05 PM Louisiana time - 0105 Zulu). Comment #'s would be nice, too, but that's more of an indulgence if times are included.

6) Is it me or did the header color get more orange? I just got home from two weeks on an oil & gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico and haven't seen green in a while, but even the ads for other Inq features seem to be more red than the the home page. My style sense (almost non-existent) tells me that, instead of tomato, go with more of a blood or scarlet... whatever, I know I'm an idiot!

7) And FINALLY (I know), I like the new header and the placement of the links and pic-of-the-day. Just seems to make sense to me. For all of you guys/gals that say it makes the page too vertical, I've got two words for you: Home Key.

OK, that's about it. Oh, BTW, I used to pull my hair out over Ultie Tom (Drashek)'s postings too, but found that when they weren't there, I kind of missed them. Or at least I missed the opportunity to groan and swear at my monitor... but then the comments to Charlie's articles usually provide that when SteWiE's not around (Yes, I like Charlie and think he has done an outstanding job of calling out the punk-assed bastards in the industry and their lying, denying, rippin' off their own customer ways).

Keep up the good work Inq! And don't worry about spelling. Our old friend Fudo makes us all look like little bee champions!

Peace-out homies!

P.S. I know that it's been about an hour and there are probably at least thirty postings since I started typing - but that just goes to show you that you shouldn't type comments after drinking a 750ml of really good eggnog following two weeks of dryness (work, you know) and being up for 38 hours (I work nights offshore and just got home today - WOO-HOO!!!).

I Love the new look!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been following your website for 4 years now and I love all your articles and the new look complements the greatness of this tech news site!!! Keep up the good work ladies and gents!

The idiot who designed this was either a techie or pissed - not a lot of difference when think about it. Sorry but you're still miles behind the 'Register'. Oops.

Move the related articles to the side bar. It feels like it breaks up the article by separating it from its comments

sucks bitterly.
You have just become the ugly twin of the register. Shame on you

Seperate lines of text which may form different sentences or points of issue are now strung together, making comments harder to read.

It would help if you allowed carriage returns to stand as they were input.

'Just going out to the chemist's,' she says, and I thinks to myself 'since when does the chemist's need all fancy dress and makeup and smelling of dowdy perfume?' But I lets her go and two years later here I sit waiting for my pessaries. Do us a favor love, if all this fine dress is just to run off with the butcher down the hill then just TELL US! Don't go leading us on just so you've got a few bob in your pocket to buy a cider and a pack of fags with your new fellow.

It would break our heart. :(

-Joe

PS. Faithful reader since Mageek Day 1. Looks fine except for the visited article cue. Fix that and we'll buy you a pint next time we're in London.

WTF? Did I accidentally click The Register?

Looks good on Iceweasel 2...Keep up the god work!

Enlarged text overlaps when you "zoom" with Firefox 3. I'm using an HDTV as a monitor.

...and I'm sure that's the effect you guys were after.

...but as others have said a slightly larger font would be great!

Text is easier to read now. Don't mind the ad banner but I think you should make your busy title bar to half as high so I can see more headlines when the page loads. Thanks again for your helpful reporting and analysis.

Since there is all this change going on, could we have an iPhone formatted page? The comments now look too small on the iPhone even after you double tap the main text body to zoom in. I come to this site daily and always using my iPhone, I'm sure there are others that do too.

Not a rant on the look by any means, I like it, even if it does look like the Reg =D.

Looks A lot like the other plaice now

I like the new look it's not bad.

It's more "Mac" like sort-off.

Anyway can't you guys give us an option to choose between the new look or the classic look?

That would be great. Everyone to their taste.

Thx.

Well, new design and still not learned from previous errors:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theinquirer.net%2F&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0

Please stop ranting about internet problems while you are part of the problem?

...to mention the Other Plaice...

As for the redesign - 2/10, don't like it, prefer the old one - it had a charm of its' own.

i don't like it. you guys are analysts: not designers. (obviously)

I quite like the font and its size.

The Mobile/Mippin version of the site doesn't render completely on WM6/IE on my Motorola Q9m. All it displays is the header, the title, the by-line, and a link to "Read original story" - with no actual story. WTF? I'm all for re-designs, no matter how ugly they get (like this one) but never at the expense of content or functionality. You've lost both. I never view this site on a computer, only on my phone. Get it together.

Unfix width, please, or at least allow a widescreen width (like techreport or anandtech). I don't like fonts. Otherwise I like it is clean.

1. Make visited links have a different font.
2. Why is "Friction" on a line all by itself? That's just wasted screen space, i.e., it pushes the content downwards unnecessarily.
3. The new layout is neat and organized, but rather boring. Can't you use rounded buttons for the top menus, or something?

Any chance to have RSS improved instead of being downgraded? Pushing a short sentence and forcing us to go back to site to see it in all its bells and whistles is a pain in the pocket for mobile users.

My javascript skills are pretty minimal, but I managed to fix the Drashek-Comment-Blocker Firefox extension to work with the new design. I'm happy now. I have no other complaints.

For the first time ever, I feel like this website has a layout. Well done!

How about fixing link behaviour, by the way?

I mean, changing them to NOT open new tab when clicked. You know, my browser supports this 'new' cool thing, called 'tabbed browsing'. Whenever I DO want to open a link in a new tab, I have a context menu item and a mouse gesture which perfectly do that for me. When I just click a link, I expect it to open in THE SAME window.

So, would you be so kind an remove those darn "target=blank" tags? Thank you.

I like it. It shows that certain Joie de Vie that we have come to know and love from "L'Inq".

was your "new-look" designed by a blind man?
looks like the store brand version of theregister.co.uk
you get a free bowl of soup with this re-design?
how about an option to view the old version?

hate it.
sucks ass.
ugly.
total shite.

Just leave the bastard thing alone!

Every few years some uppity twit, wanting to
make his/her mark, thinks The Inq needs a refit.

It doesn't. Whoever it was, sack the f**ker
immediately.

There (was) no page on the internet more
readable and immediately accessible than
the bold & cheeky tabloid flyer that sprang
into life as soon you hit www.theinquirer.net

It's elegant simplicity and deft utilitarian
design has been the benchmark for years.
If it were hardware, it would have had a Blue
Plaque on it long before now ...and the c*nts
who have (again) tried to deface it would be in
jail.

test

Sans serif fonts are slightly more difficult to read. Hopefully visitors won't leave, though.

using theinq.com shows a blank page that says "It works!"

You guys better link that domain to your main page like you used to. Those extra 5 letters in inquirer really screw me up. I always mistype them.

oh god die tag clouds die. go back to 2005 from whence you came.

I thought it was "the other place." Now I think I might be at Tom's.

mmm beavering, sounds like fun :P

im liking it so far, and as long as there is the same amount of spelling mistakes, ill feel right at home :)

good job team.

Needs a font increase. I actually kind of like the Register-esque feel of the page, but with INQ content.

The annoying thing about the New (and Old) Inq is that the articles are not sorted by timestamp. You have a mix of Dec 10 articles, then some Dec 9 articles, then more Dec 10 articles. Pick a reading pattern (left-to-right, top-to-bottom) and _sort_ the articles by timestamp posted. It's not exactly rocket science.

In terms of the facelift, the much smaller fonts are a bit of a hassle when using a high-resolution screen. On a 19" LCD panel with low resolution (1680x1050), it looks okay. On a 21" hi-res (1600x1200) LCD, it looks miniscule.

I do like the clean new look. As with others I agree the font's a little smaller than I would like. More importantly, though, I feel the 60/40 split with the bar on the right hand-side is too much. 70/30 feels better - surely you're all about the news - not less than 2/3s about the news?!

Just as i'm entering the captcha below - could you perhaps emphasise that faded grey box?! Instinctively I wanted to enter it into the white box immediately to the right.

Other than that, I do like it.

However, please increase the font size slightly.

.... looks really odd there in the middle.

Yes you do look like Roger.

The good: a centered website! I do like the general style better...feels fresh.

The bad: like some others have said there's no a:visited CSS selector for news articles. Really this isn't difficult to program so it'd be *really* nice if you don't want to irk your readers.

The Ugly: 20 HTML errors in the W3C validator! Ca'mon people it's 2008! Fix the bugs, it's kiddy stuff. Feel free to shoot me an email if you guys get stuck on fixing any of it.

Overall...it's good just don't put your hands under your bums and all it a decade.

Looks nice, going to take some adjusting to though.

Add an anti-Drashek comment blocker and it's sorted!

Ok, this is my first post here, I have no ilussions that it will matter, but what the heck.

If your only goal was to make more room for ads, than it's ok.

In every other aspect, I like the old look better.

Font Size = too small
Ads = too many of them, can't read articles in peace
Layout = I like the left column approach
Image of the day placement = just silly

Your faithful reader.

WOT??

At first glance I thought I'd lost me marbles, or perhaps that the LSD experiments from the 80's were finally getting results but alas, I see that it is just "CH-CH-CH-CH- CHANGES!!!" LOL!!!

Looks like some of you guys need to get yourselves a new monitor.

The clicked links do change colour but the difference is subtle (blue to purple), which looks nicer than the old garish difference.

If you've got a crappy monitor (or eyesight) it may not be good enough to show the difference. It's not overly subtle, by the way, just a nice balance.

Stop changing things that look great!

Damn this site looks half empty.

Where's the option of changing the site face?

Yes, it seems to have copied their "new look" expertly.

Well done.

As part of the new facelift is anyone going to learn to spell?

I use 20 size font in Opera because I don't see well and now the lines of text cover each other up and it's very annoying. I prefer setting the font big over zooming in because zooming makes pages annoyingly wide.

The new look is fine, but there is one serious problem: the Drashek-Comment-Blocker Firefox extension no longer works. Is there anyone who can fix it? It has done a very good job of protecting my sanity for some time now, and I would hate to lose it.

*sigh* Can you PLEASE not take a leaf from The Register's book and use the full width of my browser? Or at least something like 80% of it?

Why do you and The Register _insist_ on fixed width pages?

Other than that. Nice and clean-looking... but... *sigh* Please, use more of the page.

Font size is a MUST to fix, I'm to old for fine print... and it might just be perception from the font change, but it looks complex.

Defiantly hard on the eyes.

I don't like it, its too cluttered.
No one ever uses the left side of the screen anyways.

With monitors trending towards widescreen it's silly to stack navigation elements up top. Now there are fewer articles visible without scrolling.

<insert

... I'll adapt [to the new look]. No big deal; take maybe three viewing sessions.

Lookin' good, Inq. ;)

the new site looks really slick. it was in need of a face lift. although it will take some getting used to. the old site had just the information you needed.

this one is like how they are changing around ebay and how they changed hotmail (lol, i use gmail, but my dad is fuming about hotmail's change!)

just a few words, tho:

"omg ads!"

cheers

Funny, I woke up in the morning and check the internet news on this site every time I have trouble keep my eye open until I saw new design and yeah, woke me more wide cause I thought I was on different website. Not bad, your design use horizon instead of vertical. Interesting.Maybe you should make it look like a glass like Vista or OSX. However I do like keep it simple not over do.

New look is less usable and harder to read, IMHO. Jacob Nielsen would not be happy with it. As others have said, and I agree with them:

* visited links are not visible anymore.
* fonts are smaller
* space for content is an small fraction of the whole screen.

I use an ad blocker, and well, there may be lots of ads in this version as I see several big empty squares labelled "Advertisement".

New look nas some virtues: it is new.

I like the changes you've made, now when I zoom the page I don't have to adjust the horizontal scrolling to center the text on the page. Nice and clean look too. It's always a hard thing to do when wanting to give a face lift to a website. The choices I've seen so far are great.

Nice try - now it looks like every other piece of rubbish on Web 2.0.

1 - Where's the pix of the day?
2 - The order of the articles is still 'whacked'. Are the articles added 'top to bottom'? Left to right? I can only tell by looking at the day of posting... and there seems to be no pattern to it.
3 - the type seems smaller. I need glasses now, will I need a magnifying glass for your next re-design?
4 - Why waste so much space on the sides of the page?

DUH - Nice try though. Good attempt.

One: Now You can complain directly about Ultee'. PAIN. Drashek can generate about same number of replys, yet whats point, when no one reads them?(Complaint Blocks Writer from Your Senses)
Next:This is Better Hardware thats spawns finer grain & More precise Serifs. Wheres' Orthodox Synagouge of London? Commodore must of sneaked INTEL Inside Machine, X58 is my guess.Those SPIES!
Mike, well, my losely packed bubble machine has corrupted Mike from: Started Rag myself. To: I started Rag. Wow,Its Spreading. Eye I Capt'n. Crunch Ye Numbers, Peoples its' entirely NEW World, today.Oh InHumanity of It ALL.
drashek

If It Works, Don't Fix It!

Previous comments said almost all about:

Visited links must have a different colour from the unvisited ones: "This is the most important feature on a news site"

The font is too small and hard to read

It is too RedGister, it has a lack of colour to differentiate the catch phrase from the menus.

In general it is a worse design than the previous one.

I like the old style better because there was more room for the first few lines of the article, enough to decipher what it was about.

Sucks!

the new design is not that bad, but the hard-coded fixed width columns are annoying as well as the huge fonts used for the text in the articles.

Why not use the same size font as is used for these comments?

With the big ass font being used for articles, they are not only more ugly but actually more difficult to read as well.

I assume you are the Rogister have kissed and made up then... You seem to be sharing page designs...

How sweet.

And thanks to you, I no longer need a 1400x1050 screen on my next laptop... If I pay for anything more than 800x600 I won't be able to read the stupidly small font on your site!

When the other plaice switched to its new style a few months ago I moved theInq to be in front of ElReg in my quick links toolbar in protest ... I've just reverse that now.

Basically what you've done is take all the bad bits about their style - loadsa white space, adverts everywhere (... well, thanks to adblock more white space :-) the now ubiquitous squashed lefthand column with info you want and irrelevant right hand column you don't need.

Hmm, ITExaminer is looker better than ever!

...to theregister. :D

Seems more structured and tidy now, but it will take a bit of time to get used to.
Mind you I don't like all of this empty space I'm seeing now.
I much prefer the old style, but hey so long as I still get my daily dose of sarcasm I'm content.

Seems very Joomla-like mayhap a bit of open sourcery going on?

Nope. Fire whichever idiot made this decision and go back to the old style. If it ain't broke... New Coke, anyone?

Remember what happened at Thom's?

While we're at it, fire the idiot that messed with iGoogle's tabs at the top...

This one really is harder to read. Less utility, more crap.

I have to agree with "old look", I liked the feel and fonts better before, but really, I dont really care as long as I get the same sarcasm in articles I'm happy. (and also Apple bashing is funny)

Oh yeah and now the page looks a bit empty on the sides and im only on a 19" TFT, dread to think how empty it would look on a 24" wide?

But I love you guys in any case. har har

Autoscale:
The article text being fixed at 550 pixels is irritating, I prefer to set my own page width thankyou.

Comments section:
I notice the carriage returns have been turned into spaces; this makes reading comments difficult; reading longer comments with lists will be unbearable. Why do some forums insist on doing this? It’s not like it costs bandwidth!!!!

I guess it is OK, but to me it looks like you are just making more room for ads. I had to go look after seeing the comments (have not been there in a long time).... it does look a lot like the Register without the ad bar in the middle of the articles on the main page.

i can get used to the new look, but the old look and font was more informal and it matched well with the style of writing of the INQ hacks.

Centralized sites are so much better on widescreen monitors - cheers guys!!

oki doki, changed my mind now stuff has been fixed, builders still on the job then ?? must be a new world record for fixing stuff (makes a refreshing change in this day and age) :O)

im using opera10 alpha too and everything (seems to) work im even using admuncher to no detrimental effect, well done peeps

I can't say that I care for the new look. It is much like the Register which I also don't really like. The old look made it much easier to pick out the new articles in a quick scan. Also I see there's a big problem since there is no visual cue that you've read an article. That's a big problem as many people have stated. It needs to be fixed as soon as possible. Preferably by going back to the old look and revisiting what design you want to change to.

It's not bad but:

-FIX VISITED LINKS
-PotD??? Where did it go and why?
-I want my own custom resolution, is it hard to implement? Im on 1680x1050 and just want a button which will store a tasty cookie on my machine which will stretch everything... which will make it look like there's no new articles, but still, i'd like it that way!

Thanks for all the comments. Working through them as fast as we can. Keep them coming. Some things were always supposed to be there just a bit slow to get going this morning. Pic of the day is back, visited link is sorted. Looking at most commented next as I thought that was odd to. The Inq team

What is the criteria for "Most commented" on first page? Id doesn't seem to work corectly.

Also, you should focus the form on "new comment".

I like it. Only suggestion would be to move the pic of the day, say, all the way to the right of the masthead. It just looks peculiar floating in the middle of it.

I've been visiting you guys for what feels like Donkeys years LOL!

Thanks for your excellent continued coverage of all things IT!!

Keep it up!!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all the Hacks and developers involved in this great site!

DLC

Thank you, thank you! Can I change my vote from "worse" to "better" now?

Please don't kick tradition in the balls, I wanna see which articles I've already visited.

If you have trouble viewing the page your standard mobile, have you tried mippin.com/theinquirer it is far clearer and designed specifically for your mobile

With the Inq front page in Firefix (XPh32) while the Blackberry ad is drawing the multicoloured arrows/race-track-of-life only, mouseover of the top row of three story title links fails to produce a link change in the mouse cursor and you cannot activate the link.

At other times in the ad animation cycle you can click the top three stories and also at any time you can click the other stories lower down the page.

Weird but true. Also applies to some other links in the vicinity if the ad in sub-pages but not all.

Too many unnecessary frames, and the no of ads seems to be increased as well...

What happened to the contrast with visited links? We need to be able to easily identify which links hav already been visited. Please fix!

Nice layout, looks just like the Rogister.
Will this mean a raise in quality of content too?
Perhaps you're saving proof reading for a new year's resolution?
*commences lack of breath holding*

Keep up the acceptable work, we love ya.

So the website uk.theinquirer.net now shows a simple page declaring "it works!". Well it doesn't.

If I connect via www.theinquirer.net then I can read the articles, eventually.
The new layout is not that bad (Although it is a bit reg-lite),but you seem to have decided that you know better than me how to display text on my screen, you've wasted half of my widescreen monitor with empty space and reduced the font-size making the rest hard to read.
Things don't work right in opera (i needed to fire up another browser to post this comment).
Most imprtant though you've made the whole site so slow.
If you can sort the speed thing out over the next few days then I may keep reading, but I can't be bothered reading this stuff if you make it this hard.

As with most am a Reg/Inq user - had shifted mainly to INQ more after the Reg 'devamp' and now you have copied them....
Change often good, and at first glance looks cleaner, but loss of visited link clarity, smaller fonts (my iPhone visits will drop as they did with Reg after change) just annoying little UI tweaks that show 2.0 design herd mentality (or some templates rather than weeks of effort!) seems to have take priority over usability...

Like all "Web 2.0" looks, it is much more difficult to read the new site than the old one. Why change that which is not broken?

... what? No Everywhere Girl??

... The Register in disguise!

The INQ now looks more like El Reg.

What does Mike think? (From his retirement home in India.)

Looks *too* much inspired by the register.

YUCK!

Generally nice, guys. As similar to the Reg's new look as the old one was to their old look. This is a good thing.
BUT Please Make Clicked-On Links A Different Colour.

Looks cleaner. Sidebar is far too large though, 40% is too much. I never cared much for the popular tags cloud.

Can we have more space for content and less for padding/adverts.

...comments, when posted, don't include paragraph breaks. Everything's run into one block paragraph. Please fix that! You wouldn't want your articles to have their line and paragraph breaks removed; please don't do it to us!

Hi guys,

Some thoughts on the new layout. It's OK, but:

1. I thought the Inq was all about editorial content - yet the sidebar now eats two columns out of five. It's not important enough to justify that amount of space, and it's a visual imposition.

2. I second the comments about visited links not changing colour. I'm trying to run a (consumer electronics) company here. I want to refresh the page, glance at it and see what I haven't read yet. I don't have time to read all the titles again and again, to spot what's new.

I think the re-design looks great - the old one was starting to look a bit long in the tooth. You do need to get the visited links working again and the picture of the day will be missed, but overall the new freshness is appreciated - good job.
To anyone still complaining about font size (I'm on a 15" at work and it's about right), it's a subjective choice - you do know you can change the font size using your browser - right?

If were in the know you'd actually be aware the the vast majority of people browsing the web are actually using a mobile device. Therefore, any higher a resolution and they would be making it EVEN harder for their regular "users" to read their site.

Do a little research before posting and you won't look such a fool!!

Please make visited article links a different colour from unvisited ones!

This is the most important feature on a news site!

I can't tell which messages I have already read and which I have not.

did you just copy the register or something?

Is it just me or does this look startlingly similar to the other plaice?? not that that's a complaint, just an observation :)

What is it with the fixed width page layout, a standard 17" or 19" 4:3 LCD monitor is 1280x1024, your standard 15.4" laptop screen res is atleast 1280x800 and often is a lot higher. even a cheap entre level 19" wide has a screen res of 1440x900, and the 22" wide at 1680x1050 is rapidly become the standard for desktop monitors, and you go and optimise your site for what 1024x768 at best, with a 550pixel wide primary text box, what the hell were you thinking, do you really think your average reader is still using a 15" 4:3 LCD or 17" CRT ?

I would take all the negative "picky" feedback as a positive guys! The initial reaction to change is to complain that you don't like it - this is down to the general "user" being comfortable with what they're used to.

My reaction is quite the opposite, however. The new layout now falls in line with more modern sites. The font size is average, I don't understand the complaints - I'm on a 1600x1200 display and even the smaller copy is the size of newspaper print.

Ads are annoying but they're a good source of income on a hugely popular site.

Good job fellas, it's a big change and a good one at that.

I went looking for an article trumpeting an anniversary of the site, and as such you were going back to a V1 layout for the day.

I *could* get used to it, if I had to, but I'm currently failing so see any benefits, and the article didn't point me towards any, so...

the "continue" ads were set up correctly by our US sales partners, you should only ever see these once per 24 hours, and we only have a very small campaign over a month. I've now looked into this and (hopefully) fixed the problem

Where is the top 10 links gone from the side? i tended just to use them!

Seriousally guys sack your web developers and QA team, shocking how this could go live

PLEASE fix it so that viewed links are a different colour.
Not particularly bothered by the layout change one way or the other. I would like to see the PoTD restored to the front page. I like the colour used for (hopefully soon only unread) links.

I dont like it!!

Dont like the fact you cant see visited links

Dont like the fact you removed the pic of the day (always made me laugh)

Dont like the fonts or size

Just dont like it, looks like a step backwads!

I doubt ill be using this website anymore

Seriously, did your focus group tell you it looked good? ..they lied

if it aint broke dont fix it.

I personally think the new site looks hideous.
Also please remember web not a piece of paper. Allow the user to format where possible.

Three words on a row. Maybe we will see 1 single word on a row and say ... "it's simple and better". Way hard to read the articles (even in short overwiev).

Did anyone else refresh the page about 3 times, thinking it was a formatting error? and then trie it under ie as well?

OMG guys!!! how the hell did you manage to make your website so complicated looking overnight!!

now, its similar to trying to find your way around facebook (just me on that one?).

Orate baz, this new fangled this is seriously a load of barry.

....another vote for making visited article links a different colour!

As someone else has commented, looks almost identical to The Register now, I would have thought over several months you could have come with something better than that.

As for ads, not seen any thanks to Firefox and ABP :)

Isn't it a long standing Internet convention that links that have already been opened are visibly different?
I thought this might have been basic web design stuff.
This is my only major gripe so far, as I look in on the Inq twice a day and it used to be easy to see what I've already read.

Minor quibbles:
- No pic-o-the-day! That was one of my little joys. What do you mean we have to search for it hidden somewhere? What a load of BS.
- Click through advertising. I haven't experienced this yet, but I don't doubt this is coming from some bean-counter demanding more revenue. You're going to have to stop it. It is like intrusive DRM in games, you are annoying your customers and eventually they are going to leave to another site that is less money grubbing than your owners.

Otherwise, I think the overhaul is fine.
Not convinced by the poll though. Seems more like "feature ticking" rather than making the site actually better. Web polls are usually of little worth IMO.
But then what do I know?

Please make visited article links a different colour from unvisited ones!

It looks nice but the fact that links no longer change colour after you've visited them is a big problem. It was an easy way to see which stories I had read and I am disappointed it's gone.

... it hasn't changed that much.

Paul Hales wrote.
"The INQ has has a facelift".

Nice to see the proof reading is still the same.

Again I like it.

does it really make a difference to have 3 blocks of Google ads on the same page? they really take up a lot of space and I'd think one block in a good spot (like right next to the headline) would work better.

I would like to say that the new design is refreshing, fonts looks so much nicer now on safari. My only complain is about those adverts the others mentioned, the ones you actually need to click continue, it's so annoying. Can you guys please get rid of it or at least make it pop up like once every 10 clicks?

.. and not cluttered.

Slightly Web 2.0 in feel, but is that a bad thing?

I like it.

Ads? What ads?

Just use firefox with adblock on it works wonders, no adverts ever again!

Yes, I'm with Rich on this "Continue to The Inquirer article" ads, IT IS STUPID AND ANOYING! Give them space next to the frames where it’s empty to advertise, not between pages.

Thanks in advance :)

There is no longer a visible difference between read and unread articles. I find this rather irritating.

I also feel the need to comment for my first time ever.. ads ftl!!!

I like the new layout,
Although a larger font might be smarter to use.

Keep the new layout, it looks more up to date.

I didn't have those banner ads Froggy here complained about but still i can relate to how annoying it can be.

Ok, I have never felt the need to comment on here, but I must voice my opinion. I can get used to the new layout, but those ads that make you click to continue are ridiculous. When using Chrome (haven't tested IE yet), it just brings up the advertisement again! It takes about 5 tries to get to an article. Even after clicking the button to post a comment it makes me do it all over again. I don't want to deal with them at all, not even the once the first time you normally see them like most lame websites that do that. For the love of god, drop it! The flash and banner adds that litter the articles already are more than enough!

Thank you for reading this, perhaps I can find it in my heart to forgive you guys if you go back to the old layout :)

The new Font is smaller, though our screen resolutions are getting larger = ?

Yes, my Opera 9.62 has page zooming, but why should I be forced to use it every time I go to The Inq?!!!

P.S. "Continue to The Inquirer article" ads are the most annoying of all.