5 ms·

TechCrunch redesign is terrible

15 points by abeaclark 9y ago

fenwick67 9y ago
Don't scroll down too far or the article will disappear, FYI (yikes).
- ogig 9y ago
  I can see that meeting: - Stats show readers leave the site after reading an article... those dumb readers... - Ey! Let's give them more articles before they leave!
ogig 9y ago
Woa, that's some title editorializing.
- xiphias 9y ago
  I clicked because I was interested in how TechCrunch can write this about themselves....they haven't.
justboxing 9y ago
Someone care to list things that they find terrible? ( Not trolling, really curious about bad UI design that aren't readily apparent to me. )
lnx01 9y ago
Can you elaborate a bit on why you think it's terrible?
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  My first-glance reaction was "eh, they cleaned it up, looks fine". I'd like a slightly wider text column, but it's not a big deal. But the page interactivity is poisonously bad. - There's a share bar at the bottom which collapses distractingly on first scroll. - The share bar is hover-sensitive, and 'expands' by changing what's under your cursor from a menu icon to a Facebook share link. I'd call "change under cursor" a dark pattern, especially for a social share link. - The share menu icon looks like a "go to top of page" button, which lead me to click it accidentally. Even if you notice the hover event and scroll over to its new location, it animates as a button but does nothing! - There's an in-page 'X' to close back to the TechCrunch homepage, which is odd. And it's an overlay that scrolls downpage with you, which is annoying - especially since it sits on top of images. - It's got an animation on the X to show how far you've read, which is distracting and pointless. When you hit the article bottom, it does a dramatic and annoying transition to a checkmark. - If you scroll down too far, the page closes. It takes you back to the homepage. Scrolling moves within a page, and should always be reversible by scrolling back. Instead, they put a damn redirect on a scroll event! - And in 'dark patterns' territory, there's content below the bottom of the scroll event! You're actively baited into triggering a terrible mechanic I've never seen anywhere else.
Yhippa 9y ago
Mystery meat navigation all over the place. Inconsistent scrolling behavior on mobile. I do like that the articles are mostly uninterrupted text and legible. Edit: also don't like the variable pop-in from the top that goes away at some point while you're scrolling.
ng-user 9y ago
Viewing on a vertical browser is awful... there's two columns - one on the left-hand side about 60% of the view port which contains every little piece of content and the 40% remainder on the right-hand side is completely blank white space. I've got an adblocker enabled so perhaps the right-hand side is supposed to be littered with ads? Either way the readability factor has been thrown out the window, thankfully FireFox's reader view comes in handy again.
abeaclark 9y ago
Worst parts: * Scrolling to the end of an article jolts you back into the main feed. * Reading progress meter is too small and out of view. Should be able to feel the progress from peripheral vision. * Titles in list view are squished and difficult to read quickly. * Article preview text is almost always useless. If you insist on having something here, consider 3 highlight bullets. * Top-level navigation is now even more prominent on desktop when I venture a guess that less than 5% of users ever touch it.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  >Scrolling to the end of an article jolts you back into the main feed. That's absolutely insane! Who had this idea?
- thatswrong0 9y ago
  > * Scrolling to the end of an article jolts you back into the main feed. Yeah seriously, what on earth is this. What if I want to scroll back up and read some tidbit earlier in the article? Well, it actually _navigates_ you away, so you have to hit the back button - can't just scroll back to where you were, even though it doesn't seem like you navigated at all. It's fucking confusing and it takes control away from me that I have on literally every other website. And there's no indication that it's going to navigate you away besides a little check mark. Who the heck thought this was a good idea?
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    This is the first time I've ever been upset that a page loaded too fast, because a slow redirect at least would have showed me what happened. Instead, I spent several seconds absolutely baffled and unsure how to get to the article. Since no sane person would ever put a page redirect on a scroll event, I figured it had to be some kind of overlay!
  - singularity2001 9y ago
    just tried it. yes, W.T.H.?
- 9y ago
chasingthewind 9y ago
It doesn't appeal to me particularly on a first glance but I have a rule I call the "Slate.com Rule of Web Site Redesign". A few years ago I found that every time Slate did a redesign I absolutely despised it and felt they'd ruined everything. Then in a few weeks I'd get used to the new layouts and feel happy again. Then they'd redesign and I'd hate the new design and wish for the old (new) one back. So the rule is: "All redesigns will be hated in the short term and accepted in the long term." I have a feeling this one will be no different :)
- Erlangolem 9y ago
  I would generally agree, but this business of scrolling to the bottom and being navigated away I’m in no way going to get used to. I would modify your principle to cover aesthetics, but not key browser functionality. I’m going to get used to a new UI, new colors and design philosophies, but I never get used to scrolljacking, and some other anti-functional “features” on sites.
  - Tylast 9y ago
    "scrolljacking" I couldn't agree more.
BjoernKW 9y ago
Reading this on a mobile device at first I thought: “Why? It’s not that bad.” Then I scrolled down to the bottom and now I agree.
hprotagonist 9y ago
The joys of RSS readers: I basically don't know that a site has redesigned itself until they make a blog post about it or i have to click through because the RSS post is truncated.
- sashk 9y ago
  Their rss posts used to include images, now it's just text, cut in the middle of the word.
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    the lack of images doesn't really bother me; trimming the text is a serious nuisance.
    - flardinois 9y ago
      I think we fixed this. Try again.
orastor 9y ago
It really is a shame, I don't understand who this appeals to. Maybe it looks good on a mobile phone screen?

15 points by abeaclark 9y ago

fenwick67 9y ago

Don't scroll down too far or the article will disappear, FYI (yikes).

ogig 9y ago
I can see that meeting: - Stats show readers leave the site after reading an article... those dumb readers... - Ey! Let's give them more articles before they leave!

ogig 9y ago

Woa, that's some title editorializing.

xiphias 9y ago
I clicked because I was interested in how TechCrunch can write this about themselves....they haven't.

justboxing 9y ago

Someone care to list things that they find terrible? ( Not trolling, really curious about bad UI design that aren't readily apparent to me. )

lnx01 9y ago

Can you elaborate a bit on why you think it's terrible?

Bartweiss 9y ago
My first-glance reaction was "eh, they cleaned it up, looks fine". I'd like a slightly wider text column, but it's not a big deal. But the page interactivity is poisonously bad. - There's a share bar at the bottom which collapses distractingly on first scroll. - The share bar is hover-sensitive, and 'expands' by changing what's under your cursor from a menu icon to a Facebook share link. I'd call "change under cursor" a dark pattern, especially for a social share link. - The share menu icon looks like a "go to top of page" button, which lead me to click it accidentally. Even if you notice the hover event and scroll over to its new location, it animates as a button but does nothing! - There's an in-page 'X' to close back to the TechCrunch homepage, which is odd. And it's an overlay that scrolls downpage with you, which is annoying - especially since it sits on top of images. - It's got an animation on the X to show how far you've read, which is distracting and pointless. When you hit the article bottom, it does a dramatic and annoying transition to a checkmark. - If you scroll down too far, the page closes. It takes you back to the homepage. Scrolling moves within a page, and should always be reversible by scrolling back. Instead, they put a damn redirect on a scroll event! - And in 'dark patterns' territory, there's content below the bottom of the scroll event! You're actively baited into triggering a terrible mechanic I've never seen anywhere else.

Yhippa 9y ago

Mystery meat navigation all over the place. Inconsistent scrolling behavior on mobile. I do like that the articles are mostly uninterrupted text and legible. Edit: also don't like the variable pop-in from the top that goes away at some point while you're scrolling.

ng-user 9y ago

Viewing on a vertical browser is awful... there's two columns - one on the left-hand side about 60% of the view port which contains every little piece of content and the 40% remainder on the right-hand side is completely blank white space. I've got an adblocker enabled so perhaps the right-hand side is supposed to be littered with ads? Either way the readability factor has been thrown out the window, thankfully FireFox's reader view comes in handy again.

abeaclark 9y ago

Worst parts: * Scrolling to the end of an article jolts you back into the main feed. * Reading progress meter is too small and out of view. Should be able to feel the progress from peripheral vision. * Titles in list view are squished and difficult to read quickly. * Article preview text is almost always useless. If you insist on having something here, consider 3 highlight bullets. * Top-level navigation is now even more prominent on desktop when I venture a guess that less than 5% of users ever touch it.

TremendousJudge 9y ago
>Scrolling to the end of an article jolts you back into the main feed. That's absolutely insane! Who had this idea?
thatswrong0 9y ago
> * Scrolling to the end of an article jolts you back into the main feed. Yeah seriously, what on earth is this. What if I want to scroll back up and read some tidbit earlier in the article? Well, it actually _navigates_ you away, so you have to hit the back button - can't just scroll back to where you were, even though it doesn't seem like you navigated at all. It's fucking confusing and it takes control away from me that I have on literally every other website. And there's no indication that it's going to navigate you away besides a little check mark. Who the heck thought this was a good idea?
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  This is the first time I've ever been upset that a page loaded too fast, because a slow redirect at least would have showed me what happened. Instead, I spent several seconds absolutely baffled and unsure how to get to the article. Since no sane person would ever put a page redirect on a scroll event, I figured it had to be some kind of overlay!
- singularity2001 9y ago
  just tried it. yes, W.T.H.?
9y ago

chasingthewind 9y ago

It doesn't appeal to me particularly on a first glance but I have a rule I call the "Slate.com Rule of Web Site Redesign". A few years ago I found that every time Slate did a redesign I absolutely despised it and felt they'd ruined everything. Then in a few weeks I'd get used to the new layouts and feel happy again. Then they'd redesign and I'd hate the new design and wish for the old (new) one back. So the rule is: "All redesigns will be hated in the short term and accepted in the long term." I have a feeling this one will be no different :)

Erlangolem 9y ago
I would generally agree, but this business of scrolling to the bottom and being navigated away I’m in no way going to get used to. I would modify your principle to cover aesthetics, but not key browser functionality. I’m going to get used to a new UI, new colors and design philosophies, but I never get used to scrolljacking, and some other anti-functional “features” on sites.
- Tylast 9y ago
  "scrolljacking" I couldn't agree more.

BjoernKW 9y ago

Reading this on a mobile device at first I thought: “Why? It’s not that bad.” Then I scrolled down to the bottom and now I agree.

hprotagonist 9y ago

The joys of RSS readers: I basically don't know that a site has redesigned itself until they make a blog post about it or i have to click through because the RSS post is truncated.

sashk 9y ago
Their rss posts used to include images, now it's just text, cut in the middle of the word.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  the lack of images doesn't really bother me; trimming the text is a serious nuisance.
  - flardinois 9y ago
    I think we fixed this. Try again.

orastor 9y ago

It really is a shame, I don't understand who this appeals to. Maybe it looks good on a mobile phone screen?