New site design

[evadnoob]

me too, disappointed

I've been using cyclingnews.com as my main source of information about the cycling world for as long as I can remember(maybe ten years or more?). When I logged in today to see the new site, I was extremely disappointed.

I liked the simple design of the old site, very easy to use, not overly commercial(learn a few things from google people, simple is better and it works). I too think the new site looks like a copy of so many other sites out there. Even this forum is a canned forum, not very creative.

I'll be looking for a new site, unless the old one comes back.

-Dave

 

[zyxwvu]

Any chance of running a poll perhaps?

1. Love the new site; man, you guys are whingers.
2. The new site is ok; I'll put up with it and see how it goes.
3. What were the editors thinking? This sucks
4. DNS change immediately! http://www.cyclingnews.com <--> autobus.cyclingnews.com

Here you go:


Poll: New site design
*Love the new site.
*I'll give it a try.
*What were the editors thinking?
*Bring back the old site.


Poll results:

 

[Greg Johnson]

All,

A quick update following on from Daniel's earlier one.

News editions - This functionality is now working and we're updating the latest news items into their bulletins.

Visited link colours - I've been working on this with the development team and I'm assured what we've been working on will be deployed to the live website by the end of the British business day.

But for now, I must sleep!

Thanks
Greg Johnson

 

[hazychris]

Mobile users

Sorry to be negative, but the new website is just not mobile friendly, the links are too deep to make browsing easy or cheap, and the page, though pretty, is just too big (~750k) each time, especially when you need to hit the "back" button far too often.

I'm not a luddite or change-averse (in fact just the opposite), but this is not an improvement.

I cannot see me using this site any more when out and about because of these reasons.

 

[miti-one]

New web site - NOT GOOD!

Boy why is it so difficult to get to the results for a particular stage? The button for stage results only takes you to the brief summary not the results listing who finished at what times for the stage and then the final results. Definitely the "New Look" leaves a lot to be desired. Remember Simplicity is the key here. Make it easier to navigate not harder. Maybe the button Stage Report/Results/Overall Standings should be separated so we can easily get to the results listing. When you click it you go to the brief summary and get no results or standings. When you click on the stages button you still only get the brief summary. Extreme frustration here!!!!! The only way to get to the results is by entering from the races and results page. BUGS! BUGS! BUGS

 

[Luz Ardiden]

New site

Please, please, please, please (please), bring the old site back. This new version looks like my son designed it (he's two). Maybe the main input was from Dave Harmon/Dave Duffield/Sean Kelly? (I listen to Eurosport on mute.) The only thing that would negatively impact this site now is pictures of cats...

 

[Wasilij]

Photos in race reports

I haven't found any other means of contacting the editors on the newly designed website, so I'll take this opportunity.
The new look is quite fresh, if only because I'm as yet unaccustomed to it. But I must say that a new look was not among my desiderata concerning Cycling News - which I've been consulting more than once daily for years, even in the off season.
My specific question at the moment is: Have you eliminated the PHOTOS in your RACE REPORTS, or are they so deeply buried that I simply haven't been able to unearth them yet?
In general - keep up the good work, and thanks for it!
Wasilij R.

 

[Animal]

I don't think there's much point in doing a web 1.0 (well, you have jQuery, so web 1.5) redesign at this stage in the development of web technologies.

Go the whole hog, and move to web 2.0.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/ for an example of accessible, no Flash, user-customizable, Ajax-delivered content.

I know you don't have the resources of the Beeb, but a lot of that is possible with the modern Javascript libraries and a bit of hacking.

I use this at work: http://extjs.com/ and it's awesome for creating dynamic, Ajax-delivered applications. It's skinnable if you understand Photoshop and CSS, so you can make it look more web-pagey and less applicationey.

 

[Mogwai_]

I don't find the maps of the stages anymore. Like for example the maps of the Tour De Suisse. The only maps I can find are from previous stages.

Got the same problem with the Tour De France.

 

[SlowBikeRacer]

Toooo Many Columns

I vote for the old design...

3 Columns on the Ariticles is a bad design.
Max at 2 - Left Content - Right Ads. Loose the middle column. The articles have way to much wrapping now.
Put the links column as a row at the top or bottom of the column.

New Results Format is just plain BAD. Old style - 1 line per rider - Was much easier to read. New style looks like Velonews. For results I would always go to CyclingNews.com since I could read them. Not anymore...

 

[tomlang]

Not happy about the redeisgn

Until yesterday, i visited cyclingnews about 5 times a day. It "was my favorite cycling "news" site. It was simple and well organized. I'm busy and don't have time, nor do I want to browse around and. In short, I hate the new site. In my early morning group ride, several riders commented on how much they hate it. Why not give us a choice? http://www.cyclingnews.com and http://www.cyclingnews.com/new

 

[stefan]

Animal - every block on the website is in-fact ajax-loaded, unless it's already in memcache. You will see this sometimes, if you stumble on a page not already fully cached.

 

[jsbikers]

Where's my profiles

Been a loyal reader for over 10 yrs. Now I can't figure out how to get the stage maps and profiles. Tried Tour de Suisse and Tour de France - nothing. Would appreciate some advice. The old site format was comfy and familiar. Hope you haven't chucked the maps and profiles. TdF coming soon.

 

[Cant Climb]

Long long long time fan of cyclingnews here.....and a member of many other cycling forums.

I have to say the new site is an absolute train wreck.

The old site was dialed. Easy to navigate. I liked how all the disclpines mixed on the front page. I thought it showed unity and respect for all of cycling.

I'll say it again a different way. The new site is horrid.

 

[stefan]

Been a loyal reader for over 10 yrs. Now I can't figure out how to get the stage maps and profiles. Tried Tour de Suisse and Tour de France - nothing. Would appreciate some advice. The old site format was comfy and familiar. Hope you haven't chucked the maps and profiles. TdF coming soon.

Maps and profiles will appear shortly.

 

[drichi2009]

Glad to see the redesign for "us." It would be all peachy if I had nothing else to do but play around to try to figure out where everything went. Oh, and love the flash garbage. Generally I block that slowloading stuff (and I am on high speed connection) as I will here, but then again, there'll be nothing left.

Just what exactly is improved? Why is it easier to use? I used to be able to tell the news in a glance, find the tech stuff---all of this in a second or two. Are we back to the 90s and the "dwell time" theory?

Why fix what wasn't broken? Were there complaints from the folks you "improved" the site for? Or was really for Cyclingnews and nobody else?

 

[Daniel Benson]

News editions are now working:

Latest Edition
First Edition

Thanks for your patience.

Daniel

 

[Animal]

Animal - every block on the website is in-fact ajax-loaded, unless it's already in memcache. You will see this sometimes, if you stumble on a page not already fully cached.

Woudl you explain that if you are a CN webdev?

Because Firebug's console is reporting no XHRs.

The whole page is replaced whenever I navigate.

 

[bozboz]

What a waste....

The new design of CN is a total waste. We don't like any 'new' item. The homepage looks muddy, inconvenient arranged, not easy to navigate. The main colour (purple) is ugly (but that's a matter of taste ofcourse).
The layout of the 'Results' sections of the races is terrible: extra 'clicking' to see all results, the alternating grey/white design a disaster.
We agree with the vast majority of respondents: give us the old CN back!
CN was our favourite cycling website for many many years, but not anymore!
R.I.P.

 

[titan_90]

News editions are now working:

Latest Edition
First Edition

Thanks for your patience.

Daniel

Guys you are not listening. It's time you admit that the new design was a bad idea and bring back the old design or you will lose massive readership. We don't want you guys to get the new site working we want the old site back period

 

[stefan]

Woudl you explain that if you are a CN webdev?

Because Firebug's console is reporting no XHRs.

The whole page is replaced whenever I navigate.

It goes something like this:

1. Request comes in. If all available components are available in memcache, return ready-made page as a whole. It will appear to be served as a single, flat page. This is the case you (hopefully) will only ever see. Thus, no trace of ajax visible either to user (you) or the server == good resource use, and bang-4-buck, and will hopefully allow us to keep up with the traffic demands without having BBC's hardware budget.

2. If some components are missing from the cache, display what components are available as "flat", and place a request for the missing bits in a queue to be fetched, rendered, and placed in memcache. Load missing pieces using ajax to fill in the gaps. If you hang around on the site, you will probably come across this eventually. It's pretty

3. If *all* components of a page are missing from the cache, you will see a brief note whilst the page is being constructed and cached before it snaps into place.

What we (deliberately) don't do is use ajax loading for inline loading where we don't absolutely need it, as it would kill us even on a moderate CN day.

The (much loved) old CN was simply a very large set of flat HTML files. Fast, but difficult to maintain, and without any semantic structure to the data.

 

[Rosedale]

I Don´t Like It Either

I do not like the new site. As one who often catches up on news late, I dislike the spoilers. I liked the ability to identify which day news applied to.
Sorry, I have to look for another site for my cycling news. Anyone know a good site with far less American news and more European news?

 

[stefan]

I do not like the new site. As one who often catches up on news late, I dislike the spoilers. I liked the ability to identify which day news applied to.

One question for you - on other news sites (BBC, CNN etc) would you expect them to keep the breaking news off the front page to enable people not to see spoilers?

News stories are now correctly grouped into two editions per day, as you can see.

 

[titan_90]

One question for you - on other news sites (BBC, CNN etc) would you expect them to keep the breaking news off the front page to enable people not to see spoilers?

News stories are now correctly grouped into two editions per day, as you can see.

But this is not BBC or CNN. The reason everyone loved cyclingnews was because of the simple design, no spoilers and easy navigation. Personally the reason I came here was for the news editions, if I wanted to read several different news articles I could go to any other news site but cyclingnews was different and that is what made it special. But you guys decided to put a bullet into it, thanks.

 

[SuperA]

Stage Four Tour de Suisse Race Results?

Have you changed your business model as well as the website? I thought for sure there was a race being contested in Switzerland and a stage was scheduled for today. But alas, when once upon a time I could count on timely results postings - provisional or final - I seem to be blinded by the shiny new site bling and just can't seem to find today's results.