New site design

[Crikey]

message to Greg Johnson

Just wanted to let you know that, despite my disappointment with the new site, I think you're doing a fine job responding to the criticism. Whether or not folks are eventually satisfied with the site, you've responded professionally, and courteously, and thoughtfully. Way to go...

 

[The Colnago Kid]

An unprecedented user response - ignore at your (commercial) peril

I've taken a few days to get to know the new site and have read most of the (now over 800) posts of CN's loyal and extremely frustrated users.

I've been designing, developing and producing websites for 14 years (including some very large, high profile redevelopments) and I'm seriously staggered at the attitude the cyclingnews team have taken to both their users and the user experience of this site. Most of your users don't really care what the site looks like - knock yourself out, make it as web 2.0 as you like. But they do care about the experience they have in using your site. And it beggars belief that the issue of 'spoilers' didn't come up in user testing. You did do user testing, didn't you?

As a long time user I would visit the site 2 to 3 times day, every day, and view anywhere between 20 to 80 pages a day (many of them images in the race reports) - that's a lot of advertising inventory from one user alone. And this is the kind of user behaviour your web analytics should be telling you was far from uncommon. Yet it is a behaviour that is no longer possible on your new site.

The issue of spoilers and the position espoused by Daniel Benson is preposterous - especially from a commercial perspective. Firstly, because of the huge number of users you will lose as a result of fundamentally changing a user experience that is a deal breaker for so many - meaning page views and the corresponding advertising inventory is lost. Secondly, your home page bounce rate - which at a guess was maybe as low as 20% (brilliant) is going to climb significantly (maybe as high as 70 or 80% which is very bad) because users no longer need to follow a link to get the result - it has been 'spoiled'. But it is not just one page view and the corresponding advert inventory you will lose; in the case of users like me, it is 10s of page views burned. I can't believe you would seriously be prepared to torch so much potential revenue.

Here are a few predictions for cyclingnews.com over the next few months if the fundamental issues like the spoilers, live reports and image galleries aren't remedied asap.

1. Instead of having your biggest month ever in July as you might rightly have expected too - you are going to have your worst July (and quietest TDF) for a number of years.

2. Your unique browsers for July will take a significant hit.

3. Your pages per visit will slump; as will the time spent per page.

4. The inventory you promised your advertisers in special packages for the TDF will not be there. You will under deliver and this will cost you money.

5. You will gradually build your unique browser numbers back-up as you attract some of the 'new audiences' you've talked about - but this may take as long as a year perhaps more. But your pages per visit and your total page views will never recover.

Bon chance, cyclingnews. You've been a wonderful friend for years now. But unless you can fix some of the things that were never broken in the first place, I suspect, like many others, I will drift away.

 

[VeloGirl]

Hello, I have been reading every one of these posts since 11:30am EDT (I was working, too. Kind of). As a matter of fact, I am a programmer for a GUI application that is used by more than 10,000 internal customers, every one of whom needs to access information quickly, without thinking.

I say that, because I can easily see both sides to this story. As an IT geek whose main objective it to deliver quality, user friendly content while delivering the agreed upon requirements of both the business (customer) and IT (the people who know that performance, maintainability and being easily updateable - all while upholding the business's (customer's) SLA's (Service Level Agreement, ei. page load times, retrieval times, etc) is essential. And, as a cycling geek who read cyclingnews as her #1 cycling news source. I touch on just 1 argument for each side below, followed by several dislikes and their respective suggestions/solutions.

1) Upgrading how you store and retrieve data is not only an excellent reason for a back-end redesign, but an absolute necessity for the amount of information you have on this website. Moving from 1 million flat HTML pages (WOW!) to a database is a no-brainer. Database/Data Warehouses are extremely effective at adding data, creating new data and most importantly - retrieving data. Great job! You will be able to make this site's information more robust while being able to easily maintain and add new data!
(My company just spent the last 5 years converting from an antiquated mainframe with GUI face plate applications to a .NET C# Internet application that utilizes databases for data storage and retrieval. The first phase was just elevated to Production this week). I get the effort, blood, sweat and tears. Really - I do.

2) The back-end is different than the front end (UI, or User Interface). I agree on both of the following points: a... new readers to websites like shiny, sparkly, "Flash-y" things, and b...old, long time readers to cyclingnews loved the no-nonsense format and delivery of the old site.
My personal opinion is that the UI format should be somewhere in between the old and the new.

A. I like Flash as much as the next, especially pictures and videos. But, I feel, it is very easy to over-do Flash.
Suggestion: maybe change the shape of the Flash carousel. Make it the width of the page, but make it shorter. This would be your "header" and the new shape would make it less distracting. Right now, as I am reviewing the carousel - I keep glancing down to see the headline links. VG update: this actually looks recently changed! It is now more lean and thin, rather than stubby. I like it better. It's not as overwhelming. Or maybe you didn't change anything and I have just been staring at that page for too long.

B. The general font is "smooshed" and "washed" on the home page.
Suggestion: My suggestions on color would be this...Section titles should be green or a darkish blue. Under each section title, the links to individual headline stories and race link should be bold black. They can be un-bolded once visited.
You can add color elsewhere now that you have a darker, muted color theme for the important stuff.
My suggestion on font would be Ariel. Although I am biased as this is my favorite general purpose font. I code in this font I like it so much.

C. Organization: a little cluttered right now. My eyes don't stay on one section that long before they start looking at other sections.
Suggestion: more defines sections. Although I think the suggested color scheme may help this immensely. The current color scheme really has a "washed" effect.

D. Live Coverage report. There is not "latest" or automatic refresh. What I liked about the old Live coverage was my choice to hit latest and get automatic updates - OR I could click on the individual "Next" link and read through the pages on my own until I caught up with the "latest". Very nice feature. Also, can you put the links back on the bottom? The user needs to scroll up to click to the next page.

I do want to say that I really do appreciate the effort and dedication you guys pour into this site. It is by far the best cycling news site out there.
Your passion is obvious and unquestionable.
I also empathize with the issue of needing to follow the requirements of those making the decisions and realizing that the final end user didn't share in the joy of the proposed vision or the end result.

One more thing - while I pointed out that the Business actually is the customer, keep in mind that often the Business thinks about the collective end user - not always the individual user. I say this because they often do not place themselves in front of their computer and envision what the individual user experiences. So, while spoilers in the stage result title links may seem like a great "news" kind of thing to for people seeking news, they are not such a great idea for the individual cycling fan coming to the site to uncover the days peloton news at their leisure.

You guys are doing a great job. Your public reactions have been, overall, professional and calm. I have snapped for waaaayyy less.
Don't give up on us! We are as passionate as you are!!

VeloGirl

 

[cgould]

Fix it Now

Please return what was such a good thing. I too have started looking elsewhere. In the end my loss will be your loss, CN.

 

[lewdan]

Disappointed

I realise the guys and girls at CN are just trying to 'modernise' the site and sell more advertising space, but I'm very disappointed with the outcome and I think they've gone about it the wrong way. There are some basic usability follies done here (you should read Jacob Neilson's site on designing usable websites http://www.useit.com/ or get a user centred design company to review this and test it with actual users- maybe run a beta site in parallel.

The previews of all of the articles used to be very handy to skim through, the search doesn't work properly (many 404s- errors, not Zipps! in the links) and I can't seem to get to the historical race results page- I know it's here somewhere, it's just impossible to find!

I think most cyclists would agree that the best part of the old site was the efficiency of navigating it- Cyclists are all about efficiency and often appreciate function over form. The new site looks great, it's just a ****** to get around, I'm going to Velonews...

 

[geoffharris]

I don't like the new site either

During significant races, I used to log on to Cyclingnews several times a day for updates and when possible followed race coverage live. Even between major events, I'd log on to Cyclingnews at least one time per day. In addition to using Cyclingnews to get race results, news and tech reviews, I also used the advertizing links to find and research various products, leading to numerous purchases, from components to bicycles. I have been a Cyclingnews fan since 2002.

However, given the recent redesign, count me out as a regular visitor. The layout is terrible. While I'm all for change to improve a product and I realize that change always takes some getting used to, I think this represents a big step backwards.

My guess is that your advertizers will feel the same way when they see the drop in traffic to the site.

 

[180mmCrank]

My favourite quote so far... from http://www.dailypeloton.com/

There aren't any live tickers up yet. The old ones haven't yet been incorporated in. I will do today's Suisse live report, so that will be the first one.

But I have to admit I have no idea where you will find it!

Susan

Not exactly inspiring confidence.

My 2 cents - I really feel for the guys Daniel, Greg et al. I imagine they were really excited about upgrading the site, generating new revenue to provide a more robust service to their loyal fan base. All with best intentions. I think they got some pretty bad advice / direction.

I am not sure it's really an option to go back. I imagine the site will go on and some of us will adapt and new folk will join. Others will find other sites that better meet their speciifc needs. The site will I am sure continue to improve as bugs are ironed out - but it will never be what it was.

I am fairly philosophical about all this - after all I used to read cycling weekly the paper comic long before the world wide wait was a twinkle in mr berners-lee's eye. New types of media will emerge...

But feels like the end of an era (another era! each time one of those ends I feel older and older!)

 

[chakradiva]

I concur

I have just spent ten minutes registering - a practical lifetime on the web, just so I can take the time to tell you THE NEW DESIGN IS WRONG!

Dudes, the old site worked so well - it was my first place to go to for results and news - now I don't know what the ###### is going on.
I have one look and think this is too hard and then go to velonews. Just thought you ought to know - strange btw that you don't have a contact address.

 

[dmay-nyc]

what did you do?

Your old site site was near perfect. I perused it every night. Now it's all over the place. I'm sure alot of effort went into the new site, but as far as I can tell you crashed out. Sorry. Kights out.

 

[dmay-nyc]

oops

Lights out!

 

[Fiftygig]

Send a message to CN with just a few easy clicks...

(1) Check the CN front page once a few days before the TdF. If the spoilers are gone, return for the TdF.

(2) If they are not removed, do not check CN at all during the TdF.

(3) In the case of (2) check CN once more by the end of the TdF. If spoilers not removed by then, say bye bye for good.

(4) In the case of (3) Join the daily peloton or equivalent forum instead (and no, I am not affiliated to DP or any other commercial website.)

BTW: Thanks to all those people who have written in with some great alternatives to CN. It has helped ease my depression slightly over the loss of the old site.

 

[laziali]

Gutted by new site design

I have been a loyal daily follower of CN for about the last decade. It WAS the best site going around. So much so, I didn't even look at other sites. The reason I stopped buying old media (ie cycling magazines) was CN had a better offering. Now you have an offering that suffers from at least the following MAJOR defects (and, to be frank, I can't be bothered battling the new site so I am sure there are many other defects):

1. I can't navigate the site. It's not intuitive. Remember when BMW brought out I-Drive which was the most counter-intuitive system imaginable? Well, I just transitioned to Mercedes. Haven't gone back to BMW and won't. Silly decision by them lost a lifetime customer. Think about that.

2. There are ads blocking everything. That doesn't make me want to buy the advertised product. On the contrary, it just makes me want to get off your site asap.

3. I look at the race results and I now have to scroll through much more vertical depth. More effort for me. Not good.

4. You have both news links AND consolidated news bulletins. Why have both??? It just confuses things.

So, where to from here? I need my daily procycling fix, but I just can't be bothered with your site. So, I guess I'll be looking at your competitors.

There is, of course, a better solution. You could take on the feedback of the many thousands of negative posts on this site (not to mention LA, Levi and Taylor Phinney) and go back to the old "style". Note, old style - I don't care tuppence for the technical achitecture underlying it, just what it is like for a reader to use. You have a short window before I, and judging from the posts, many others will be gone. Don't blow it - for everyone's sake.

 

[pedrospeeps]

oy.. i used to use wordstar..

but then i also sat there for hours typing programs into the zx81's touch sensitve keyboard, saved them to tape 12 times just in case and then found they didnt work anyway.. not quiete as bad as the cat nudging the rampack and crashing the comp just as youd finished..

do you know in 1981, 1 gb of memory for the zx81 would have cost 3 million quid and filled a phone box..

hows that for off topic..

for your own security though, upgrade from ie6 to opera or firefox.. :/

Hi Dimspace

I know I am a bit off topic, but I was just feeling so hopeless...then I just read VelGirl and I have hope these turkeys will finally get it. There might be hope especially if they can get some real design people to sort the mess out, back down of spoilers, re-do the website and save the ship.

Talking of ships I am a Holman from Topsham..you being in Exeter you would know the Holman's

Back to topic: All this traffic must not go un-noticed by the CEO of Future. They must know after a week that this was a gigantic mess up and needs to be addressed, so I guess we might be making progress. Thanks for all your post. I have read every one, I just hope the big wigs at Future are reading the best of the crop...those people that can really help them through this make or break time.

 

[hulkgogan]

... new readers to websites like shiny, sparkly, "Flash-y" things, and b...old, long time readers to cyclingnews loved the no-nonsense format and delivery of the old site.
VeloGirl

Here's some advise so you don't make the same mistake as these kids. Don't assume anything about the design preferences of the user based on whether they are new or not. It's a flawed argument to assume because I'm new I like crappy design.

The essential question is not whether the customer is old or new. The essential question is what type of customer is this website for, what's our market share of that segment and how can design improve the user experience for that market so I can maximise the penetration?

This website was the hardcore cycling news website. As such, a fit for purpose design probably has some pretty hardcore characteristics: information density, quick navigation, efficiency of access over ease of understanding - in other words, the power user UI.

The flaw that these guys have made is assuming that they can capture more than one demographic, and in doing so have screwed their core demographic. A risky strategy especially for the web where generalists tend to get killed.

The other flaw was the release was a disaster, hehehe.

 

[yourwelcome]

Never mind, it's not worth it.

 

[rhubroma]

You spend way to much friggen time on the computer man to have thought all that stuff up first and then wrote it second. It's just a cycling website. For all those folks who have spent so much time and emotional energy in this endevour, that is scrutinizing the new website, because you ahve been destroyed by it: perhaps you should reevaluate what's truly important in life. Cause CN isn't or if it is, you've got major friggin problems...

 

[ecfoam]

devastated!

i've never posted a thread in my life, but i just couldn't let this one
go unspoken. this new site SUCKS BALLS! the old one RULED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i've visited your site multiple times a day for years. it was simply the easiest
and best cycling site PERIOD! now it sucks balls!
this morning i had hoped to log on and have the old site(best site ever) re appear... only to be broken hearted, smashed, devastated, destroyed, that the new one(worst site ever) still remained. damn this site!!! please o cycling web gods bring the old site back.
BRING IT BACK! DAMMIT!!!!!!!! DONT modernize it, either!!! it was perfect!
if this new one continues- i'm over it. Done! through! Finished...good by my love!!!

 

[Francisco Avila Velasco]

horrible web-site; wrong choice

I absolutely agree with others in concluding this website is a step back. It's chaotic, slow and does not invite or encourage to visit it. Ab****ely convinced the number of clicks on your website will go down. Of course changes are needed in time but this was the wrong moment and certainly the wrong type of website.

 

[nelso123]

too Hard for non techheads

original site was far more user friendly,this new version is way too time consuming from a view point and to use when trying to navigate around,a big PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK TO HOW IT WAS,check out Pez cycle site way easier,,Nelso

 

[Greg Johnson]

Just curious how many people believe that the features we liked so much about the "old" CN will somehow be re-instated here, and how many believe they are gone for good. The editorial staff have said contradictory things about this...some have said that this is a release that will be improved based on reader feedback, others have indicated that cherished features of the old CN won't be brought back. What's the truth? There's been a lot of talk from the editorial staff about how well-considered a change this is, but it looks like all they did was port over CN headlines to fit the Bike Radar web model. Presumably a single web code for two websites is less costly to maintain...and Future Publishing already had the Bike Radar model available, so that's what we get. If anyone at the parent company would publicly commit to using the reader feedback here to recreate the features that have gone missing, I'm sure we'd all be patient and stop whinging, but to date such a commitment has been noticeably absent. Anyone on the editorial staff care to comment?

Crikey, I'm happy to clear up any comments you feel might be a contradiction from our staff. Unfortunately the theory about BikeRadar and Cyclingnews isn't correct - while they share some similarities visually at the front end, Cyclingnews was built from a clean sheet of paper, so to speak. BR has no results/race engine to begin with, doesn't publish editions of news etc. - so CN is a from scratch job. Even the back ends of both websites are completely different.

You also mentioned naming dates for changes - this is something we will not be doing. We're working through each issue one at a time, ensuring we get them done as fast as possible but equally ensuring all the elements are there before it goes live. For instance the revised race sections aren't up yet as I asked for them to have the same level of detail as the old website before we roll it across.

Oh, and thanks for your kind words in a later post. Good to know there's one less garden stake with my name on it out there

The new way is horrible. When is the two column, less white space idea going to be commented on?

When I have an answer.

i agree. it also looks like some features have been deleted - start lists, for example. perhaps most glaringly, maps. a major race like the Suisse and no maps!

This has previously been addressed - but I understand if you've decided not to read the 83 pages of comments here or various other threads. The intent is to have all the same race section content as the previous website - we've got some technical issues with things like maps, while we're still perfecting the startlist/race results engine. It shouldn't be too long before these are running.

You must get a PR firm to start to field these questions, you normal staff are not qualified to answer anything. If nothing is going to happen, say so, it would be better to have the sad news now. If you keep this forum going by this time next week I am sure you will have reached 75,000 hits...99% negative. That's going to be a PR nightmare.

We've informed you of the things that won't be changing and those that we're working on. Any other changes that haven't been covered that you'd like considered, please feel free to make a post or e-mail redesign@cyclingnews.com about. We're keen on reading more feedback and new suggestions.

I do find your idea of hiring a PR firm odd. I have done what I can to respond to any sensible suggestion, been honest in telling you the things that we cannot change up front, pushed for changes based off feedback and updated the readers via this forum as those changes happen. Yet, you'd rather us hire a PR company to manage perception - which, lets be honest, is all they do (now a good time to say hi to all my PR friends?) - by feeding you a bunch of waffle?

Some of the decisions made aren't popular, I get that, but we've called a spade a spade, told you what we can do based off the feedback and you've already seen changes - and will continue to over coming weeks - based on that.

I just re-read the first 40 post to remind myself what this was all about. In the beginning all was well, we were all full of hope and the staff were nice, now after 800 plus posts the staff are nasty and there is NO HOPE.

If I have been nasty at any point, please draw the matter to my attention via a private message and I'll personally contact the related person to apologise.

Cheers
Greg Johnson

 

[Get-the-max]

Give me those maps and profiles !

Time to ease up I think. Site is looking a lot better now things have been compressed, TdS has full race report and a full readable results section. I need those maps tho ! Once they're back and the archive is there then that's cool for me. Nice work.

 

[laziali]

Looks like people are voting with their feet (so to speak). Here is the last month's daily reach stats from Alexa:

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&r=1m&u=cyclingnews.com&

Editor, your readership is responding to your current stance that there are things you won't be changing.

 

[lucybears]

Time to ease up I think. Site is looking a lot better now things have been compressed, TdS has full race report and a full readable results section. I need those maps tho ! Once they're back and the archive is there then that's cool for me. Nice work.

have you looked at their startlist ?
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/73rd-tour-de-suisse-2009-upt/start-list

 

[Bimbadeen]

New Site

This is my first entry to the forum, so please forgive me if I sound like a moaning old f**t.
I dont see the point in changing something that aint broke. The present site is no easier to navigate than the old one, plus the results seem to be a lot slower arriving in the results column, photos dont seem to appear so readily available to view.
So lets face it CN not one of you most successful enterprises. I look forward to a return to the good old days when CN was a fount of international cycling information and not a plaything for some website wally.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

I can see the full results are back. That's a major improvement to me. It's one of the reasons why I always visited Cyclingnews as one of the first sites after a race