New site design

[Barnaby]

Train wreck. Sorry

 

[jbeyer]

"mistakes" with the new site

I'm sorry to say it, but I really abhor some aspects of the new design.

The fact that previously visited links are now the same color as unvisited links makes it very difficult to distinguish which content has already been viewed.

Why are results and photos now separate from the main writeup?

Why on a page such as (http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/9th-nature-valley-grand-prix-ne/stages/stage-5) is only two paragraphs shown when the whole story is much longer?

It was much easier on the eye previously to see links to race results as 'Full Results, Photos and Report'. Now the eye has to parse the headlines to find the desired stage.

I hate to sound patronizing, but did you preview this site to any public readers before releasing it?

Are you planning on moving away from the format where news would be compiled into one or two batches per day? I thought that format was great.

Maybe I am the odd one of the lot, but I REALLY despise the new design.

I appreciate that cyclingnews is always trying to improve on their product, but I am majorly bummed by the latest changes.

 

[awesometown]

I get it, but I agree with all the negative posts

Look, I get it.. its hard for you guys to make money or increase ad revenue on your website. So one day all of the editors and publishers decided "lets get more out of our page view count, so we can charge/make more money off ads."

So what happened? You had to figure out away to monetize every bit of information you had. And with that I guess its mission accomplished, right? Like the redesign of velonews.com you have spread your stories and race results as thin as possible.... giving you a reason to charge more while slowing down the speed at which people navigate your website (or in terms of your media kit "uping the time spent on site per user").

Now unlike velonews you guys have about 10 times as much information on hand. You've managed to make it more confusing and ruin one of the easiest to navigate websites on the internet.

Why do I need a cutesy headline for every stage race result? Am I more likely to click on your average Tour De Suisse stage result because it no longer just says "full results and report?" Hardly, since you spoil it right in the headline. It serves more to confuse and annoy than offer me an enhanced user experience.

And you should probably tell your staff its not wise to come on the message board and deride your audience when they aren't happy with your site. Probably not the best P.R. move.

good lord.

 

[rovven7]

Firstly, congrats on the new website. Don't wanna sound negative, so I'll just ask my two simple questions:

1. I wanna see the profile of the tomorrow stage of the Tour de Suisse.

2. I wanna see a full calendar, in order to have access to past results easily.

With the old website, it was easy. Now how on earth do i do those things?

 

[LugHugger]

my 2 pence.....i hate it. as others have said, if i wanted to read bikeradar, i would. i understand that you are vertically integrating the group's media front end but what's the point if the front end that you are modelling on is horrible?

please do something about this quickly. this is supposed to be a news forum not a consumer site. get rid of the right hand third column. keep the top feature window if you like and retain the left 'race' and centre 'news' columns as widened left and right columns only.

get rid of the rest of the dross. please!

 

[ryanharne]

Drop down menus cause frequent crashes. Mac + Safari. Firefox ok.

I felt it worth mentioning that the drop down menus cause continuous crashes for all of the Macs I have attempted to access the site from. Safari has been the browser.

Also just tried it in Firefox and the same menus worked fine.

I haven't spent enough time otherwise messing about to see if there were any other bits that generated crashes, but certainly menus.

Aesthetically, I much preferred the previous site. The additional graphic and spatial complexity of this site is starting to become borderline velonews, where it takes forever to get all of their little scripts & flash & gifs running.

 

[jbeyer]

Will the archive at http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/ be kept up to date?

I would implore the editors to allow users to have the opportunity to view all content in the old format.

 

[cghebert]

I have to chime in with many others to voice my dislike of the new design. In fact, I registered just to post about it.

In the past I loved cyclingnews' clean design and how I could easily find whatever I was looking for.

I appreciate the new navigation tools, but the main page is too cluttered and confusing. With all the pictures it is very difficult to locate what you are looking for. Also, why are there two "News" sections? The "Features" section is really buried at the bottom of the page now.

I also agree with the person who disliked the fact that the stage or race winner is now listed in the headline, instead of just "Full Results and Report" Nothing is worse than accidentally seeing the winner for a race you haven't watched yet.

I do like the new riders and team section though.

 

[donbarr]

New Website Design

Excellent job.

Some print is very light and difficult to read. Please consider using bold or darker letters.

Thank you

 

[ElChingon]

I think the webmaster might of gotten some complaints in the past but there were never compliments to the site, well I know I sent a couple compliments along the way. With just the complaints to worry about they totally ignored the majority reading and enjoying the site. The number of people who only joined the forum to complain about the new format should be a key note to those who changed it that its not a good thing.

I wonder where those few complainers are now?

Lose of information is a bad thing as that was CN's bread and butter, having the information not losing it.

 

[ElChingon]

Excellent job.

Some print is very light and difficult to read. Please consider using bold or darker letters.

Thank you

Hit "Control +" on your keyboard brotha, no code is needed for that.

 

[Christian Schneider]

Velo News

Stuck on Velo News' wheel...first they revamp their site and now Cycling News follows!
The ease of getting real info on the old Cycling news was unmatched by any other web site chasing the peloton. New site is about as user-friendly as PEZ Cycling, which suffers from the editor's corny ideas of what cycling is, lets hope you don't start posting silly 'daily distractions'.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

I liked the old layout better. Everything we got used to for years now changed. I can't even find the full results for races anymore

 

[coldass]

Hate the new site. BIG disaster.

SLOW to load - why the annoying flash in my face (I wondered what was up in loading and actually clicked to Velonews first while I waited for the junk to load).
If I wanted to visit Bikeradar everyday - I would have.
Lost the simplistic news page style that defined Cyclingnews - shame.

Time will tell but I can see myself spending more time elsewhere now and looking for a new home page as something new emerges. The new site will not be it - it is just another boring clone web page. And I have been a daily Cyclingnews reader for over 10-years adapting to the new style would be hard enough - but even if I did the load speed will kill me away.

I guess all things die in time. Tech wreck!

RIP.



Edit. The grey fading flicking flash box must go. It DOMINATES taking real estate from the main game and is SO annoying. Make it a static summary aka Velonews - at least. Ahhhh.....

 

[adithorp]

What is it about "New and Improved" that makes me think "Altered and ruined"?

The new look is slow and clunky. It's not just my connection; At work it won't load properly at all. The pictures, headlines and text all overlap.

I've been a reader for 10 years or more but I won't be any longer if this is how it's going to be. Pages opened quiker back when I first started to read it than it does today. I don't want fancy banners. I'm not interested in animated headlines. I want news and results...and I want it easy to find!

Does anybody know of a good site for cycling news?

adi

 

[blowdoors]

More isn't always better!

I know it is tempting to want all the bells and whistles but, that doesn't necessarily make the site better. The great thing about cycling news was the fact that you could go there for information. The way the site is set up now you can no longer find the profiles of stages for current races, the winner of races is highlighted (what's the point of watching the race later if you know the results), the lay out of the current latest news has actually less news content and more flash (no pun intended) than before. I can no longer tell if the news is recent or something that I have already read. I know you at cycling news are trying to gain new readers but must we dumb down everything in society.

I hope you at cycling news listen to your followers. PLEASE RETURN THE SITE TO THE WAY IT WAS BEFORE. MORE SUBSTANCE LESS KITSCHY CRAP!

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

I felt it worth mentioning that the drop down menus cause continuous crashes for all of the Macs I have attempted to access the site from. Safari has been the browser.

I haven't had any problems with my Mac and Firefox. My Mac laptop has Safari, I will try it out.

Susan

 

[turtle13]

Do not want!

So far I am not pleased with anything.

The flash deal on the front page - greyed out, changing images, whatever, don't need tricks, just the headlines or daily/latest news.

I do not want to see spoilers for race info. I have always liked being able to see the live report, stage details (where did they go?) and other information about races without seeing results, just in case I want to see TV/video first.

The race overviews are either incomplete b/c you haven't moved data or totally suck now. i.e. go to a home page for a race, mouse over stages and see a crappy menu drop down with wrapping text, click on a stage and get nothing but the cities and distance, no profiles, maps, etc.

I definitely do not want to have to click on a like to "see more for a whole article. Why not just show an article in its entirety? I would much rather click on links to see results, overall standings, etc. like before instead of having to click on more or other links for every little bit of information.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

lets hope you don't start posting silly 'daily distractions'.

LOL, a lot of women work for CN, I can only imagine our reaction if that suggestion was made!

Susan

 

[imp167]

I am a long term daily reader and just joined the forum to register my disappointment. The new header over the past couple of weeks looked a step in the right direction but in lightening up the site you have gone too far. I dislike the new look but not because it is 'new' - I have used BikeRadar for years - to me the design looks cluttered and unprofessional.

Most cycling images are not suited to the square photos: if you need proof look at all that awkward cropping on the Tech Section on the front page. Square thumbnails only works easily with the head shots after that you begin to struggle.

Your text untidily fails to line up or create blocks: it exceeds the depth of the square thumbnails on Race Results but on the News column the text is lost in white space. Headline word-counts sometimes exceed the sub-headings. And why is the date and time of posting so prominent? Surely only breaking news needs it.

In articles, the text columns are too narrow and as such are excessively ragged on the right. The line spacing is too great a consequence of mis-selecting a sans serif for that 'clean modern look'.

The flash rotation at the top is too quick and should definitely stop after a couple of loops. Rapid repetition can create the impression you have been on the site too long.

I am not overly concerned about layout though and certainly will not boycott the site because of it. But, please do not become content-lite as well!

The daily news section was spot-on essential reading - here's all the news, you decide what is important and what is worth reading in full. No mis-leading eye-catching headlines or large intrusive ads. Simple broadsheet depth not tabloid pizzazz is what I want! The website design should be quiet and let the thorough professional journalism speak for itself.

 

[cnreader]

That's it...

Cyclingnews.com differentiated itself by being text-driven, very informative, easy to navigate and having high emphasis on functionality rather than design.

Now with your new layout in place, all those characteristics are in the thrown in the trash and you now blend in very well with Velonews, PZ News and mainstream in general.

Who needs background images when I'm looking for race results? Who needs flashy, colorful ads when I just want to find some information? Who needs italic, shaded, fancy lettering when I'm trying to just "read"?

Sorry, but you just lost another fan of your site.

 

[Toaster]

speechless....the orig. design was, yes, simple but was very efficient to get quick information. No need for much "flashy" stuff just give me the"digest" of what's going on in Pro cycling.
I know everything new takes time to adapt but this right now lost my interest and look like the mainstream stuff.
OH well..just call it BIKE RADAR Version 2.0

 

[coldass]

A year to give us Bikeradar.... Quote:

"We spent close to a year working on a strategy to make those dreams a reality and now we’re proud to unveil the all-new Cyclingnews.com."

How funny....

 

[Rouleur]

Cyclingnews editorial guys, I think you have not understood the main selling point of your site. Simple to use with the information at your finger tips and easy to read and navigate. Just like Wikipedia, you had a simple uncluttered layout and were easy to use, that's why it worked.

What do you have now to differeniate yourselves from Velonews, Eurosport.com etc. Not much.

Please oh please, bring back the old layout or at very least a half-way house between the old design and the new!

 

[JOCKEYWILSON]

I assume you've adopted the bike radar format? That is not a good thing. The old site was great in so far as you could read all the news on one page. You did not have to navigate about.

The simplicity of the old site was it's beauty. People seem to confuse complex functionality and multiple menus with design flair. Think about the design classics of the modern era they are classics because of their simplicity.

I'm afraid it's far from being a triumph.

ps: I only registered to post this message such is my disappointment.