New site design

[lechia]

The bad...and some good.

I agree. The spoilers are awful. Even in the past I often had to shrink the size of my browser window to hide the side panels which often have pictures of the winner of a race/stage and/or some kind of one sentence title. Like some of the other readers here, I usually watch the races when I come home from work, which means at least 6 hours after the race is finished and often later than that. I'd often log in during the race to look at the race profile. Now that's impossible.

Some of the anger you see here is probably due to the drastic change itself. It's hard to get used to something so completely different.

However, there are some good things about the site. For example, I like the menu at the top which allows me to easily find whatever topic/section I'm looking for. In the past it was sometimes hard to find that Q&A section, etc. However, I still haven't found an easy way to get to the diaries.

I also like the new team profile pages, although they're not complete yet.

 

[stefan]

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.

Cyclingnews is in the news business - it's even in the name!

However, if you want the editions they're still there, just as before:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/editions/latest-edition-cycling-news-tuesday-june-16-2009

 

[Animal]

Ah well, at least the various layout elements are well tagged with IDs or classes, and I can tweak userContent.css to hide the guff I don't want to see, eg:

#minibanner1_container, #minibanner2_container, #minibanner3_container, #minibanner4_container, #minibanner5_container, #minibanner6_container, #minibanner7_container, #mpu_container {
    display:none !important;
}

 

[stefan]

However, there are some good things about the site. For example, I like the menu at the top which allows me to easily find whatever topic/section I'm looking for. In the past it was sometimes hard to find that Q&A section, etc. However, I still haven't found an easy way to get to the diaries.

I also like the new team profile pages, although they're not complete yet.

Diaries are now called blogs:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs

 

[wow this looks like bike radar]

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

+1
(my message was to short with just +1 so i put this drivel here)

 

[stefan]

Ah well, at least the various layout elements are well tagged with IDs or classes, and I can tweak userContent.css to hide the guff I don't want to see, eg:

We aim to please..

 

[Animal]

I think a major part of the gripes could be overcome by moving the "News Editions" div to above the "News" div.

The idea of "where is the whole block of latest news" has been a constant on CN for a while.

How I work CN is I usually just check if there's a unvisited news link at the top of the page, and if not, go away. That's all I usually have time for.

 

[titan_90]

Cyclingnews is in the news business - it's even in the name!

However, if you want the editions they're still there, just as before:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/editions/latest-edition-cycling-news-tuesday-june-16-2009

You guys just don't get do you? You had something special here and have mutilated it into a bikeradar clone. If I liked bikeradar I would go to that site. But as many other people have stated they find that site abhorrent.

RIP cyclingnews, nothing lasts forever.

 

[Quantum]

Quantum

This is not good. Bring back pure info, especially complete results. Previous format much better. It's like the new Coca Cola; big mistake!

 

[ElChingon]

I think a major part of the gripes could be overcome by moving the "News Editions" div to above the "News" div.

The idea of "where is the whole block of latest news" has been a constant on CN for a while.

How I work CN is I usually just check if there's a unvisited news link at the top of the page, and if not, go away. That's all I usually have time for.

Like you said in one of your previous posts as in working in web dev., they didn't test anything other than maybe the ad hook-ins. They said they've been working on it for a year yet they never had the site up to view and click to test the biggest web dev. mistake. Then to swap it it un-tested, yet another mistake, untested for real use, testing in house is crap as you know what to click on. Leave it to real world testing to find the holes that are there. Now they want us to test it for them... sorry I don't think I want to test a site the providers didn't care to test themselves or will listen to us anyway. Let them figure it out themselves.

 

[stefan]

You guys just don't get do you? You had something special here and have mutilated it into a bikeradar clone. If I liked bikeradar I would go to that site. But as many other people have stated they find that site abhorrent.

RIP cyclingnews, nothing lasts forever.

I'll quite happily respond to technical queries and specifics, and anything constructive, but I don't feel I have anything meaningful to contribute to matters of taste and preference - it becomes too shouty too quickly, and curdles my karma.

 

[miles ahead]

Turning Sanctuary of substance into Labyrinth of fragments

No doubt, June 15-16th will be an all time high as to new CN Forum registrations.

Strange that the CN staff should have to spend more than a year of “significant research” copying the design of Bike Radar in order to provoke this sudden and massive surge of activity from – until now – silent old faithful readers.
At the same time – Thanks CN for dragging your feet, thus giving us at least that last year unscathed!
Perhaps not until now do we fully realize that for so long we were a blessed species inhabiting a sanctuary of substance, reliability, and functional simplicity.

Already a year ago (more?) I sensed an omnious smell when it was announced that Fortune Publishing (known for turning Mags into superficially flashing adlickers) was going to buy CyclingNews.
I found myself wise and caring when quickly sending a mail asking Please Keep the oldfashioned, fast, and smart-working layout.
I was quite surprised and much reliefed when the staff turned out to be that responsive to a lone voice: not the slightest trace of change; same good old CN day in, day out, month after month.

Then recently came premonitions, then disaster. And here we are, longing for free vistas on the site. Instead of Claustrophobia, Bells, Whistles, and Chaos (everything is relative).

If you have something to tell, if there is substance, then there is a point telling it using black text on white background. You may then hear what is being said – much better than when everything around turns flashing, hiding, moving, clicking. I don´t think CN readers want to enter LasVegas or Tivoli to get their information. Most of us are capable of reading. Black text on white paper without fancy fonts. Clear, simple, less tiring, and more cost effective, with no pointless engulfing of bandwidth and speed either.

A reason so many websites (and Magazines!) turn into playgrounds for “designers” may be that those layout artists never themselves use the sites etc of their creation. They are hired to add some vivid colour, mostly much too literally.
And those who hire them don´t themselves use their sites either (or read the Mags etc).
They count clicks!
Make it cumbersome enough for users to find the information they desire, and your ad-profits will increase with each user´s click. Let the users work for our money!
Until they feel it´s one click too many, one turn too many in a pointless labyrinth of fragments.
With CN users, who have beend spoiled since time immemorial with the simple life of functional minimalism, that one too many suddenly has turned many too many.

Most of the editors writing for the site probably are quite innocent, having had little real influence on today´s change. Some have been pushed forward to hype it (“exciting news based on feedback from thousands of users” !).
Now the real feedback is rolling in. And it is devastating and unanimous.
The enforced click increase based on the new sitefragmentation may be quite shortlived. Many former of us hardcore users may soon turn into deserters and the clicking will fade. For those who own the site this will be the only feedback they understand. Much more effective as such than what is voiced in this Forum.

Still the Forum, though hardly a very original idea, is a nice addition. Especially on a day like this.

 

[titan_90]

I'll quite happily respond to technical queries and specifics, and anything constructive, but I don't feel I have anything meaningful to contribute to matters of taste and preference - it becomes too shouty too quickly, and curdles my karma.

"matters of taste and preference" are what bring people to your site not cool tight code. It's plain and simple if people don't like the look of a website they will not go to that website.

 

[Returnofthewolf]

I just realized you guys are not going to concede this change is a MASSIVE blunder. All good things......

Ciao.

 

[wow this looks like bike radar]

I'll quite happily respond to technical queries and specifics, and anything constructive, but I don't feel I have anything meaningful to contribute to matters of taste and preference - it becomes too shouty too quickly, and curdles my karma.

i understand you are only answering techy questions &
we are giving constructive advise & asking questions you just choose to ignore it.
how do you think our karma is if you keep on ignoring the majority?

 

[jasonzhang]

Disappointed

Maybe it's just a matter of taste and preferrence but I'm very disappointed - ok by the taste and preferrence.

 

[stefan]

No doubt, June 15-16th will be an all time high as to new CN Forum registrations.

Strange that the CN staff should have to spend more than a year of “significant research” copying the design of Bike Radar in order to provoke this sudden and massive surge of activity from – until now – silent old faithful readers.
At the same time – Thanks CN for dragging your feet, thus giving us at least that last year unscathed!
Perhaps not until now do we fully realize that for so long we were a blessed species inhabiting a sanctuary of substance, reliability, and functional simplicity.

Already a year ago (more?) I sensed an omnious smell when it was announced that Fortune Publishing (known for turning Mags into superficially flashing adlickers) was going to buy CyclingNews.
I found myself wise and caring when quickly sending a mail asking Please Keep the oldfashioned, fast, and smart-working layout.
I was quite surprised and much reliefed when the staff turned out to be that responsive to a lone voice: not the slightest trace of change; same good old CN day in, day out, month after month.

Then recently came premonitions, then disaster. And here we are, longing for free vistas on the site. Instead of Claustrophobia, Bells, Whistles, and Chaos (everything is relative).

If you have something to tell, if there is substance, then there is a point telling it using black text on white background. You may then hear what is being said – much better than when everything around turns flashing, hiding, moving, clicking. I don´t think CN readers want to enter LasVegas or Tivoli to get their information. Most of us are capable of reading. Black text on white paper without fancy fonts. Clear, simple, less tiring, and more cost effective, with no pointless engulfing of bandwidth and speed either.

A reason so many websites (and Magazines!) turn into playgrounds for “designers” may be that those layout artists never themselves use the sites etc of their creation. They are hired to add some vivid colour, mostly much too literally.
And those who hire them don´t themselves use their sites either (or read the Mags etc).
They count clicks!
Make it cumbersome enough for users to find the information they desire, and your ad-profits will increase with each user´s click. Let the users work for our money!
Until they feel it´s one click too many, one turn too many in a pointless labyrinth of fragments.
With CN users, who have beend spoiled since time immemorial with the simple life of functional minimalism, that one too many suddenly has turned many too many.

Most of the editors writing for the site probably are quite innocent, having had little real influence on today´s change. Some have been pushed forward to hype it (“exciting news based on feedback from thousands of users” !).
Now the real feedback is rolling in. And it is devastating and unanimous.
The enforced click increase based on the new sitefragmentation may be quite shortlived. Many former of us hardcore users may soon turn into deserters and the clicking will fade. For those who own the site this will be the only feedback they understand. Much more effective as such than what is voiced in this Forum.

Still the Forum, though hardly a very original idea, is a nice addition. Especially on a day like this.

Hi there Miles Ahead,

well, at least you like the forum!

If you think that the site was built to maximise clicks through devious, undehand tactics, you are mistaken. But no, we make no excuses for being a commercial outfit. The ads you so despise pay for the excellent, knowledgeable writers, the servers around the world, the 24-7 upkeep of infrastructure etc. Professionally conducted usability reviews of the old CN were too devastating to be publishable - you (I guess, safely in the knowledge that I'm right) have used CN for best part of its lifespan, and have learned to operate it efficiently despite its quirks. For a new fan to the sport, and the site, the old one was baffling at best, and completely incomprehensible at worst. Yes, naturally we still want to appeal to the die-hards who have been with CN from day 1. We equally want to appeal to newcomers who aren't familiar with CN, but passionate about cycling.

Crucially, we also need to be able to maintain and support the site. We need to be able to make changes to it to be able to keep up to date with the world of cycling, moving faster and faster. The old CN codebase and also design (or lack of design) made this more and more difficult, costly, and time-consuming.

Does the new CN look like BikeRadar? A blind man can see that it does, and of course this was deliberate. Although it may not be to your taste, or preference, or allow you to operate it in the same way as before, it allows us to have a more consistent style across our bike websites. We realised from day 1 of this project that people having used the site for many, many years, and used to its old-fashioned ways, would prefer to see it unchanged, but for the reasons above, this wasn't an option available to us.

I cross my fingers and hope that the old guard will choose to stay, but I respect your right to vote with your - eeeh, clicks. However, the content will still be written by the same talented bunch that wrote for us last week. Also - it's still only day 2! A website is a living thing (should be, at least), and this one in particular will undergo rapid changes over the next many, many months.

Give us a chance.

Stefan, head of technical, Future Publishing, avid biker and race fan.

 

[XasTandem]

I've been a daily reader of this site since it was Bill's Cycling News (and that's quite some time ago!). To get easy access to race reports from events all over the world and COMPLETE results, I'm willing to put up with a lot. I was even willing to put up with Bill's ravings about obscure Australian political issues because he made it easy for me to access the cycling info I wanted.

But when you take away easy access to the things I want, I am no longer interested - no matter how slick and modern you make things.

This redesign was clearly launched long before it was ready. Things I want to see are either gone or far to hard too find to be worth the search. Maybe this will improve. We'll see.

Meanwhile, thanks to the person who suggested http://www.cyclesportnews.com/aus/

I'll be going there for my cycling news until this site makes it worth my time to return.

 

[Alexanderrios]

Awful

The new design is absolutely awful. It takes forever to load, and where is the live coverage? The results are not posted in a simple format anymore, and that was one of the great features of this site. There is way too much on here, and its actually 'less' user friendly. I can't even bring up the stage details on my computer!
I never thought it would come to this, but I guess I'll be checking in with VELO NEWS from here on in..
Very, very dissapointed..

 

[titan_90]

Hi there Miles Ahead,

well, at least you like the forum!

If you think that the site was built to maximise clicks through devious, undehand tactics, you are mistaken. But no, we make no excuses for being a commercial outfit. The ads you so despise pay for the excellent, knowledgeable writers, the servers around the world, the 24-7 upkeep of infrastructure etc. Professionally conducted usability reviews of the old CN were too devastating to be publishable - you (I guess, safely in the knowledge that I'm right) have used CN for best part of its lifespan, and have learned to operate it efficiently despite its quirks. For a new fan to the sport, and the site, the old one was baffling at best, and completely incomprehensible at worst. Yes, naturally we still want to appeal to the die-hards who have been with CN from day 1. We equally want to appeal to newcomers who aren't familiar with CN, but passionate about cycling.

Crucially, we also need to be able to maintain and support the site. We need to be able to make changes to it to be able to keep up to date with the world of cycling, moving faster and faster. The old CN codebase and also design (or lack of design) made this more and more difficult, costly, and time-consuming.

Does the new CN look like BikeRadar? A blind man can see that it does, and of course this was deliberate. Although it may not be to your taste, or preference, or allow you to operate it in the same way as before, it allows us to have a more consistent style across our bike websites. We realised from day 1 of this project that people having used the site for many, many years, and used to its old-fashioned ways, would prefer to see it unchanged, but for the reasons above, this wasn't an option available to us.

I cross my fingers and hope that the old guard will choose to stay, but I respect your right to vote with your - eeeh, clicks. However, the content will still be written by the same talented bunch that wrote for us last week. Also - it's still only day 2! A website is a living thing (should be, at least), and this one in particular will undergo rapid changes over the next many, many months.

Give us a chance.

Stefan, head of technical, Future Publishing, avid biker and race fan.

Well you are not going to have to worry about that for to long and you can cross your fingers all you like, but you guys just killed cyclingnews.com if you don't bring back the old site or at least the majority of the design elements that made the site such a hit. Remember we warned you.

 

[RubyProject]

Spoilers All Over The Place!

I've always checked your site several times each day, and loved the fact that you did not post any race results in your daily news headings. If I wanted to see a race start list, or results from previous stages of a race, it was no problem to check your site.

But I see that you now post Spoiler Headlines for every single race every day.

You might want to remember that most of your readers are not living in the same time zones as the European peloton. I live in the US and cannot watch any races until the evenings. This means that, because your new design blares out the winner of every race, every day, I cannot check your site for any reason without you spoiling me about the winners.

Not liking this aspect of your redesign at all, and I'm sorry that I won't be checking your site as often as before....

 

[stefan]

"matters of taste and preference" are what bring people to your site not cool tight code. It's plain and simple if people don't like the look of a website they will not go to that website.

Content, rather than looks, is what brings people to a website, in my experience.

 

[Mr.DNA]

Content, rather than looks, is what brings people to a website, in my experience.

I agree, and if they can't easily find the content they will look elsewhere.

And the spoilers must go!

 

[stefan]

i understand you are only answering techy questions &
we are giving constructive advise & asking questions you just choose to ignore it.
how do you think our karma is if you keep on ignoring the majority?

I've tried to be as forthcoming as I possibly can when answering questions on here. I skip the provocative, repetitive, or the ones I've responded to elsewhere.

We're not ignoring anyone. We're listening intently, I assure you, both technical, editorial and design.

 

[stefan]

I agree, and if they can't easily find the content they will look elsewhere.

And the spoilers must go!

You're right. After the TdF we'll take stock of traffic figures, and see what the difference in popularity will be.

Spoilers - I believe I covered that bit in another post.