New site design: Post all feedback here

[sam]

On design issues, my 2d: lots of empty space seems pointless but not harmful, but have some logic/consistency about what type of content is where: do race results (passing themselves off as reports, see below) really belong in "Don't Miss"?
Huge "Today on Cyclingnews" top item would be helpful if it contains the newest info today, but it doesn't, so it will simply become a part of the page I place in my blind spot.

But most importantly, and more as an editorial than page layout issue, please be honest: if you don't have a report on a race, but merely a list of top ten finishers, don't put up a link marked "report".

Frustrated users will soon be ex-users: false links and no useful clues as to where to find information will make frustrated users.

Hi Armchair cyclist,

Where is this report - could you paste me a URL so I can see what you are referring to.

Thanks

 

[TheGame]

Cosmo Catalono has even chimed in on the new design at 2:02

"Endless bumbling click-mazes"

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Hi Armchair cyclist,

Where is this report - could you paste me a URL so I can see what you are referring to.

Thanks

That's the point: there is no report although the front page promises one (for Sud Ardeche, Drome, and Lugano) under the Races tab.

 

[sam]

"Endless bumbling click-mazes"

It's a good quote, That bug will be fixed on Monday and also yes they are lower on the homepage but can also be found at the top of this page - http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/ - if you need less "Endless bumbling click-mazes".

 

[sam]

That's the point: there is no report although the front page promises one (for Sud Ardeche, Drome, and Lugano) under the Races tab.

That is, I agree confusing...

I see that http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/classic-sud-ardche-souvenir-francis-delpech-2015/results is referred to a "report" and takes you directly to a page headed "Report" but under a well hidden secondary header "race results" then it just lists the results...

 

[Wallace]

So Strade Bianchi is now a week away and on your website there isn't any mention of it. Go to cycling stage.com (which is where I'm going now to get my pro cycling news) and you'll immediately get the history, the route and the start list--all that stuff CN used to have. The new design doesn't need just a few more tweaks. It needs to be scrapped. Remember the name of your site: "Cycling News"? That's the stuff your new design sucks at. It's kind of important.

 

[Potomac]

I do really miss the old design .when I joined in '09 it was like a NEWS gazette..a lot of info but neatly accorded into columns..like a newspaper.
It was very readable...

like this..
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com

The linked page is packed with information. That's the kind of site you tell your friends about...."Go here for a great cycling web site!" and they go to it and tell their friends etc and a brand is built.

This new site is the kind of site you ask your friends "Well, what site would you suggest?"

 

[TheGame]

Oh lord, the rss still uses feedburner

Ok, guys, seriously. the RSS on CN has pretty much never ever worked. Some android rss readers could just about read the data but 9 times out of 10 when clicking a link in rss you just got an advert and pretty much nothing else. (you got continue to article - but that never worked)

we know that google and co want to kill of rss but many still use it, and i have more than 30 cycling news sites in my rss from from L'equipe to velonews.

of course i dont have CN because, well its never worked properly, and good god, feedburner was shut down about 3 years ago

Did nobody check this before putting an rss icon up

as for the rest, will admit, looks great on my tablet for when i just want to quickly catch up with news, but on desktop, just appalling, its basically a site built on mobile optimisation with desktop users as an afterthought. Its dressed up as "being responsive" but its not really.. true responsiveness is based on numerous browser widths, panels adapting and moving depending on resolution.. this seems like just a couple of variants based on if it detects mobile or desktop.

 

[sam]

Oh lord, the rss still uses feedburner

Ok, guys, seriously. the RSS on CN has pretty much never ever worked. Some android rss readers could just about read the data but 9 times out of 10 when clicking a link in rss you just got an advert and pretty much nothing else. (you got continue to article - but that never worked)

we know that google and co want to kill of rss but many still use it, and i have more than 30 cycling news sites in my rss from from L'equipe to velonews.

of course i dont have CN because, well its never worked properly, and good god, feedburner was shut down about 3 years ago

Did nobody check this before putting an rss icon up

as for the rest, will admit, looks great on my tablet for when i just want to quickly catch up with news, but on desktop, just appalling, its basically a site built on mobile optimisation with desktop users as an afterthought. Its dressed up as "being responsive" but its not really.. true responsiveness is based on numerous browser widths, panels adapting and moving depending on resolution.. this seems like just a couple of variants based on if it detects mobile or desktop.

Hi TheGame,

When Future gave us the sites the RSS feeds didn't function for a number of reasons,

- The feed didn't update as it wasn't picking new stories/posts from the site - this was the first thing that was fixed.
- The redirect that pushed all clicks from the RSS feed to an advert and then off to the site failed to work, this has been removed, clicking a story takes you direct to cyclingnews.

I am now confident that it's functioning how it should and its monitored hourly by one of our backend systems to ensure its updating as it should be.

We use feedburner as that's what Future gave to us during the migration - we didn't just want to 'change it' as we have a large number of active subscribers but we are looking for a better distribution platform and will be moving away when that is found.

 

[bonnyc]

Hi there,

So the new design has been live now for several days, and we've been getting a lot of feedback about it. We're not surprised the feedback has been mixed as its such a big change, and there is a lot for readers to consider. We have had a strong positive reaction to it though which Jeff has already mentioned. But we know its not perfect, and we have a lot of ideas for how we can improve it over time.

Before we fully launched we did run AB testing for a considerable amount of time, and we also ran usability testing with users, updating the design accordingly. We'll continue to gather feedback and make updates, and work with the audience to make the site better. The site is always going to be evolving, and we will do our best to balance all our audience needs with what we can technically supply.

If you would like to discus any specific issues about the redesign, please use our feedback form to contact me. I read every form submission, and personally reply to as many as I can (this has been lower recently because I have had hundreds to process). Each time we get an issue that is a bug, I raise it with our tester to follow up. Other issues, I follow up myself.

Thank you for all your feedback so far - we do appreciate it, and we use it to help us plan what we are going to work on.

If you would like to give us some specific feedback ratings about the new design, you can do in this survey: bit.ly/1G0M67s. We're using this to help us prioritise what to amend next.

- Bonny

 

[PeterB]

When is it time to accept that not every article must have its own picture, especially if the page would be much easier to read and navigate without so many of them?

Maybe if this picture (or rather just its top half) is selected to promote Strade Bianche? EDIT: SB picture changed to Gerrans photo from some Austrialian sport of the year ceremony? Seriously, who selects these images? There are thousands of beautiful images of Tuscany countryside, and many iconic SB-specific images, so I do not understand the selection. Don't you have rights to use those photo banks or?

Or this one for Le Samyn? Sagan at least has some connection to SB, but Team Sky does not even start in Le Samyn...

Or if you find this one used on several occasions?

 

[gregghoush]

Before we fully launched we did run AB testing for a considerable amount of time, and we also ran usability testing with users, updating the design accordingly. We'll continue to gather feedback and make updates, and work with the audience to make the site better. The site is always going to be evolving, and we will do our best to balance all our audience needs with what we can technically supply.

The A/B testing for "a considerable amount of time", and usability testing with ACTUAL users, is hard to believe. This is not meant to sound rude. But I would visit the site sometimes 4-5 times a day. For years. Not once did I ever get anything like this new site, in any sort of A/B test. Never did I get asked to test the usability of the new design. I am guessing none of the other people on this thread who used the website every day, and usually multiple times a day, saw any A/B testing either.

If any actual users of the site had seen this new design, there would have been posts here complaining about it. Did the company hire a usability testing firm? One that has its own user base to pull from? Because I can't imagine a world where the usability testing of the desktop version of this site was actually done by real CyclingNews.com users.

As for the results being mixed. Is that in private feedback? In public its only mixed if you consider 1 positive for every 10 negatives "mixed".

I still hold some hope that the new team here can do something about it, but the new design needs to have so many "little tweaks" and "fixes" that it will be 90% new again before it is usable. It is just that bad. This thread is full of the reasons why, so they don't need to be rehashed here.

 

[timmers]

Hi there,

So the new design has been live now for several days, and we've been getting a lot of feedback about it. We're not surprised the feedback has been mixed as its such a big change, and there is a lot for readers to consider. We have had a strong positive reaction to it though which Jeff has already mentioned. But we know its not perfect, and we have a lot of ideas for how we can improve it over time.

Before we fully launched we did run AB testing for a considerable amount of time, and we also ran usability testing with users, updating the design accordingly. We'll continue to gather feedback and make updates, and work with the audience to make the site better. The site is always going to be evolving, and we will do our best to balance all our audience needs with what we can technically supply.

If you would like to discus any specific issues about the redesign, please use our feedback form to contact me. I read every form submission, and personally reply to as many as I can (this has been lower recently because I have had hundreds to process). Each time we get an issue that is a bug, I raise it with our tester to follow up. Other issues, I follow up myself.

Thank you for all your feedback so far - we do appreciate it, and we use it to help us plan what we are going to work on.

If you would like to give us some specific feedback ratings about the new design, you can do in this survey: bit.ly/1G0M67s. We're using this to help us prioritise what to amend next.

- Bonny

Unfortunately the problems are identified in this post.

You are not prepared to accept that the new design is flawed and a major mistake. Where has this strong positive reception been given as it is certainly not here!

Now we have to use a feedback form or full out a survey!

I come to this site as I want to get the latest and most informative cycling news in one place. The new site makes this very difficult.

 

[Pete]

The A/B testing for "a considerable amount of time", and usability testing with ACTUAL users, is hard to believe. This is not meant to sound rude. But I would visit the site sometimes 4-5 times a day. For years. Not once did I ever get anything like this new site, in any sort of A/B test. Never did I get asked to test the usability of the new design. I am guessing none of the other people on this thread who used the website every day, and usually multiple times a day, saw any A/B testing either.

If any actual users of the site had seen this new design, there would have been posts here complaining about it. Did the company hire a usability testing firm? One that has its own user base to pull from? Because I can't imagine a world where the usability testing of the desktop version of this site was actually done by real CyclingNews.com users.

As for the results being mixed. Is that in private feedback? In public its only mixed if you consider 1 positive for every 10 negatives "mixed".

I still hold some hope that the new team here can do something about it, but the new design needs to have so many "little tweaks" and "fixes" that it will be 90% new again before it is usable. It is just that bad. This thread is full of the reasons why, so they don't need to be rehashed here.

The A/B split test was not done with a specific external user base. A percentage of actual Cyclingnews.com traffic was randomly / automatically assigned to the new design during the test period, and there was a call-to-action for them to provide feedback. If you never saw the new design, you just didn't fall into that random allocation, but I'm sorry that you didn't get the chance to give feedback if you would have been keen to do so. Random A/B testing helps to get a broader group of users to give feedback. The only group of users that was specifically given the new design were the mobile users.

Also, yes - we are receiving additional feedback via emails and survey forms, and it does contain a fair share of positive comments. The Cyclingnews.com user base communicates with us and uses the site in many different ways. Though they may not be forum posters, we've received feedback from users that find the new layout has improved the way that they use the site. That doesn't mean we're ignoring the negative comments here, however. It's that balancing act of improving things for some users without negatively affecting the experience for other users that this design seems to have missed the mark on.

You are not prepared to accept that the new design is flawed and a major mistake.

We are absolutely prepared to accept problems with the new design, and are already doing so. Being a new team is currently feeling like a great opportunity to come at the problems from as unbiased a viewpoint as possible. It's almost as new to us as it is to you, and we're eager to make it better. That being said, it'll be an iterative process because we want to get it right. The new design won't suddenly disappear overnight and be replaced with something else entirely, but expect to see changes being tested and implemented over time.

 

[PeterB]

The Cyclingnews.com user base communicates with us and uses the site in many different ways. Though they may not be forum posters, we've received feedback from users that find the new layout has improved the way that they use the site.

Fair enough, I am just wondering what exactly this "other use" means that they are able to benefit from the new layout. Maybe we just need to be taught how we can adapt our use of the site to see those benefits as well?

Or from another perspective: what type of use you target to accomodate with your site? Maybe I am wrong assuming that people wishing to conveniently access latest news and race information are your target audience...

 

[Pete]

I guess it's largely to do with how people are used to viewing content online.

A lot of the forum feedback has mentioned preferring minimal images (if any), and lists of headlines with a small font size in a very simple layout. That's what those users find easier to read, and they've been doing so for a long time.

On the other hand, some users might be used to looking at content on sites with images, larger text etc, as it's not an uncommon design style for content-driven sites. To those users, the new layout might be just as easy to browse as the old site was for others, because that's just what they're used to.

Web trends have changed a lot over the years. Depending on what sites you commonly visit, and how long you've been visiting them, your opinion on what makes a site easy to navigate will be shaped by that to some degree. Some people would find the 1998 layout more difficult to browse, simply because it's not the kind of layout they're familiar with. They'd be expecting (consciously or subconsciously) certain UI features and standards that wouldn't be there.

That's largely conjecture on my part, as I've only seen some of the user feedback. But having worked on other sites in the past, where a certain group of people will say "make it look like Facebook!", or another group of people will say "make it look like this site I visit every day!", it's a fairly common scenario. That's why significant redesigns will, invariably, make some of your users extremely unhappy. In one sense it's unavoidable, but that doesn't mean you can't try to strike a better balance, and try to regain the trust of those users by listening to their feedback and making improvements, which is exactly what we want to do now with Cyclingnews.com.

 

[TheGame]

The main problem with teh whole thing seems to be that the developers have tried to force CN into the "immediate layout" rather than adapting and flowing the immediate layout around CN.

what works for bikeradar or golfworld or knitting monthly, isnt going to work for cycling news because of the vast differences in the way the sites operate.

if you look at a couple of the sites that have been rebranded succesfully (and this is a rebrand not a re-design - its immediate forcing their branding over an existing site), golfmagic, bikeradar, both have actually been done very well.

but both of those sites (and in fact most immediate sites in general), are what i would call occasional update sites, in that they have maybe 2 or 3, sometimes 4 new articles a day. So there is much less information to deal with and organise.

Cycling news is "news" site, with multple articles every day, multiple races each day, results, team information, its a totally different beast to bikeradar, golfmagic or the rest and trying to present the information simply doesnt work.

and thats before you even get into the design issues.

compare the front pages of those three, two look good, one is a mess.

why do two look great and one looks a mess, i think its because of the sheer volume of articles added to cn each day, means it needs to be treated very differently to the others, and i dont think the devs have quite got to grips with that.

 

[TheGame]

I guess it's largely to do with how people are used to viewing content online.

A lot of the forum feedback has mentioned preferring minimal images (if any), and lists of headlines with a small font size in a very simple layout. That's what those users find easier to read, and they've been doing so for a long time.

On the other hand, some users might be used to looking at content on sites with images, larger text etc, as it's not an uncommon design style for content-driven sites. To those users, the new layout might be just as easy to browse as the old site was for others, because that's just what they're used to..

I think the differences on how people use or expect to use are directly related to desktop viewers v mobile viewers.

Viewers on tablet, ipad etc are used to a certain way of presentation, and yes, on tablet my expectation is image driven (easier to click and image than text), simple crisp layout etc, and i will admit as ive said before, on tablet the new layout looks REALLY REALLY good.

However, desktop viewers are used to, and expect a totally different experience. There are many sites that have clearly focussed themselves to tablet users, where on visiting you are now hit in the face by a huge banner ad, and massive unweildy fonts, that are offputting for desktop users. Sites where they have focussed on the mobile experience but forgotten that in desktops it looks pants.

Its very difficult to get a one size fits all website, a site that looks great on desktop as well as mobile, which is why most of the top sites dont try and do it, they have completely dedicated css for each, and true responsive shifting of panels, columns, menus.

A great example is the races section..

Last year..

Five races, all well presented, all easy to access the various things you needed with a relatively small onscreen footprint

This year

2 races in the same space, with totally irrelvant images

im not sure how the latter can be considered an improvement

 

[Pete]

The main problem with teh whole thing seems to be that the developers have tried to force CN into the "immediate layout" rather than adapting and flowing the immediate layout around CN.

... its immediate forcing their branding over an existing site

I think it's really important to clear up this misconception. The redesign is not a result of the change to Immediate Media. The new Cyclingnews.com layout was designed and built at Future, the previous publisher. It was received as part of the acquisition, and the plan was already in place to release the new design. We as the new development team had a responsibility to complete the launch, which is why it went ahead after the brand had moved to Immediate. Though we did try and make improvements before the final switchover, ultimately we were releasing what had been developed by the previous development team. Please don't take this as a sign that Immediate is somehow ruining Cyclingnews.com - if anything, the reverse is true. The new team here is much better positioned to improve upon what's been released.

 

[mewmewmew13]

It seems that long time posters are being driven away in hordes.
not much else to say..

 

[blutto]

It seems that long time posters are being driven away in hordes.
not much else to say..

...so where should the hordes migrate to....as in, which other site would give us the up-to-date race information that brought us here in the first place....

Cheers

 

[TheGame]

...so where should the hordes migrate to....as in, which other site would give us the up-to-date race information that brought us here in the first place....

Cheers

same as always, race reports are available on many well known cycling sites the Neal Roger and Shane Stokes sites for instance, full results available on well known cycling stats sites.

personally i use a single page that has aggregated feeds from all the main cycling websites, in about four languages.

 

[bonnyc]

We really appreciate the feedback we're getting about the new design, both here on the forum and on our feedback form, and the new design feedback survey. As a team we're going through all the issues that have been raised, and prioritising things to change and update based on what our readers want.

Since we launched the site on mobile back in December, and then the desktop site last month, we've been steadily making updates and improvements based on reader feedback. We're really excited about how the site is going to evolve over the coming weeks and months as our team gets to properly work on it.

While our team did not design the site or build it, we're confident we are going to make massive improvements to where it is now. We know its frustrating for some readers at the moment because there are issues we need to resolve, but I hope those of you that are frustrated understand we are working really hard to fix these issues as fast as we can.

Please continue to share your feedback with us - we rely on it when it comes to us prioritising updates.

Thank you

- Bonny

 

[B_Ugli]

I think that there is a lot to be said for the old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

There was nothing wrong with the old CN so why change it.

There seems to be a tendency in todays world to fix things for the sake of it and to add features because they can be added rather than because they are of any meaningful use to the consumer. Microsoft fell into this trap and Apple (I believe) are rapidly going down the same route.

Don't get me wrong innovation etc is great but it has to be to improve/enhance the users experience.

To me putting a site out that is incomplete/unfinished/work in progress is a bad bad move and just switches people off. Anyone with an ounce of marketing experience will tell you that. It just looks unprofessional.

I don't know who is pulling the strings at CN but it all seems very confused and is guaranteed to have people switching to other sites in droves.

A real shame as going back a couple of years CN was an easy to navigate website with good content. It just seems to be losing its way on both the interface and content side.

 

[cityride23]

While our team did not design the site or build it, we're confident we are going to make massive improvements to where it is now. We know its frustrating for some readers at the moment because there are issues we need to resolve, but I hope those of you that are frustrated understand we are working really hard to fix these issues as fast as we can.

Generic outsourcing? Sounds like it, given that a one size fits all 'design' template was used, I checked some of the other sites from this company and they are all the same design/layout.

Since it's not my job to spend my time fixing a failed layout/design, for free, I have to find other sites that don't insult me as a user this badly.

The fact that anyone has to explain to the site operators why presenting basiclaly no usable information per screen scoll on a news site that offered easily the best at a glance cycling overview anywhere to me shows there is a fundamental problem with the people tasked with trying to deal with this mess, the concepts are so simple, it's not about 'being used to something', it's about this site FAILING TO DELIVER cycling news efficiently. If this is too complicated to get across, then there is no real hope of this site getting fixed any time soon. I realize there is a problem with bruised egos etc that don't want to admit that this is a messed up rollout.

The notion that real a/b testing was done with this is a joke, a total and complete joke, I've been engaged for a while now doing serious a/b testing and there's no way it was done here in any real way, and if it was done, it ws done badly.

Since all I'm going to see here from the admins is defensive reactions, and claims to be reading feedback, which this forum thread is filled with, and which is unambiguously pointing in one direction, I have to assume that the people who are grappling with this mess internally can't fix it beyond small tweaks here and there.

If this project was outsourced, then that's all I need to know.

with this said, it is true you will hopefully make massive improvements on the site, and I'll check back now and then to see if simple usability concepts have sunk in and been implemented, since at this point there is basically no usable information per screen view of scroll compared to the old layout, it's true that really you can only get better, it being unusable at this point.

All the comments I read here are spot on, it's your job as admins to read them and note the content, not ours to then go to some feedback form. There's nothing hard to understand in the comments here unless you have some type of misplaced ego type attachment to this this current failed layout. And why would you have that? It's useless, a generic drop in that doesn't seem to have really had any thought put into it.

Definitely time to find a good cycling news site, apparently cyclingnews.com is confused and thinks it is something other than a cycling news site, what? I can't say, but I am saddened, like others here, this was the site I pointed people to who wanted cycling news, for the odd reason that it delivered cycling news in a really really good way. Now it's just a mess, and no longer is a cycling news site. Maybe change the domain name to something else then just redirect the old domain to the new one that better fits whatever it is supposed to be.

Sad, I really liked this site, it was my by far favorite cycling site, easy to follow the races during the season, at a glance overviews of things like, you know, cycling news. Maybe it's time to get someone on the dev team that actually likes reading about cycling news.