4 ms·

Redesign.techcrunch.com

54 points by justhw 15y ago

Urgo 15y ago
Haha I love it. It feels like I've been transported back into the bbs era. They need to fix the whole text over picture, or lack there of thing though.
- jamesteow 15y ago
  "They need to fix the whole text over picture, or lack there of thing though." It's pretty deliberate though. Reminds me of a magazine.
- mtkd 15y ago
  That was the only bit I liked - I've seen it somewhere else recently - one of the fashion sites I think - I love it - rest of the page I'm not so sure about - but I wouldn't like to be judged on one of our early mocks.
eam 15y ago
Will this be the new design for TC? I hope note because the header section is pretty ugly.
- apgwoz 15y ago
  Not just the header section, but individual titles on articles feel really scrunched.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
Please tell me this is a very early iteration that wasn't meant for public consumption yet.
Zakuzaa 15y ago
Broken on ipad.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jigs_up 15y ago
I like how the header changes as you scroll down.
twog 15y ago
If TC actually rolls out this design, I think it will be as frowned upon as Gizmodos terrible redesign.
jarin 15y ago
MineCrunch :)
- dscape 15y ago
  Funny!
edtechre 15y ago
Good thing TechCrunch isn't worth reading anymore, or I'd actually be upset.
- TamDenholm 15y ago
  http://thestartupfoundry.com/ http://thestartupfoundry.com/ is what i replaced my TC feed with.
  - rokhayakebe 15y ago
    And they are already starting to go the TC way. http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/06/13/tsf-is-looking-for-funded-startups-to-cover-will-you-tell-me-about-yours/ http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/06/13/tsf-is-looking-for-f...
timdorr 15y ago
Done by Code and Theory, the same group that redesigned Engadget: http://www.codeandtheory.com/#/work/featured/Engadget-Redesign/ http://www.codeandtheory.com/#/work/featured/Engadget-Redesi... Given that TC is also an AOL property and the date on the most recent article is June 3rd, that would seem to suggest this is relatively recent. But god damn is it ugly as sin.
zengr 15y ago
Does it really matter? No RSS consumers here?
- formicin 15y ago
  I'm reading on RSS and only click through it when there is an embedded Youtube video.
trafficlight 15y ago
And it's down now. Did anybody snag a screenshot?
- ukdm 15y ago
  http://i.imgur.com/Tyfmp.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Tyfmp.jpg
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - trafficlight 15y ago
    Ugh. I'm glad I missed it.
sfgfdhgfdshdhhd 15y ago
And just like that it's gone...
jsdalton 15y ago
Somebody should grab a screenshot who still has the page open. Looks like they might have taken it down...
- melvinram 15y ago
  Urgo posted it a bit lower http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2650731 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2650731
  - Urgo 15y ago
    Posted a video of it too so you can see the scrolling in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A
ljf 15y ago
I quite like it.
fuzionmonkey 15y ago
And they took it down. Usability didn't look great. But at least they made the page load faster. Techcrunch is horrible because it takes ages to load. They really need to optimize it.
- ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
  They NEED to get rid of all the little facebook and twitter widgets. I have the widget block plugin on Chrome and TechCrunch is finally fast because I block all those share buttons. About a year ago I think, we techcrunch commenters checked the actual size of the site and the front page was 9 MB !!! We complained and complained and months later it went down to 4 MB. Today it's at 2 MB. How they managed to stuff 7MB of worthless javascript and code and button images, I don't know. But the good news it's MUCH faster than before. Unfortunately, I lost interest and moved on. My reason was this: What's the point of absorbing all that information everyday from sites when I'm not investing what I know into doing something. If you want to seriously get your startup off the ground, for me at least, the right thing to do was to quit TechCrunch, quit Mashable, quit Reddit, and severely limit HN, and actually start getting something done. I'm a much happier peaceful and productive person without the "latest news and opinions" being beamed into my head every few minutes. Mark Zuckerberg is wrong, information overload is real, information addiction is even worse, and once you are free of it, you don't ever want to go back. edit: On one hand the widgets do bring in traffic but the sluggishness of the site might cancel that out.
Urgo 15y ago
Took a bunch of screenshots & a video to show what happens as you scroll down since its offline now. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1712.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1712.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_001.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_001.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_002.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_002.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1714.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1714.png
- DuqE 15y ago
  Sure looks ugly, I hope that was a joke. Navigation doesn't look to easy.
benologist 15y ago
Looks pretty awful judging by the screenshots people posted. Other than the mountain of 3rd party crap they use that bogs their site down ridiculously I don't think there's much wrong with the design of TC.
jasonadriaan 15y ago
Looks like 8-bit green vomit
estenh 15y ago
I like the basic use of space and layout, but the graphics are pretty crap. Bet that'll change though.
whalesalad 15y ago
Hmm. Am I the only person who actually likes it? I mean, to me it looks very incomplete but I really like the design concept with the pixel art and pixel gradients everywhere. The site as it is right now looks like dogshit to me, so this is pretty refreshing. Engadget looks marvelous as well. I'd like to give these guys the benefit of the doubt and assume it's a work in progress.
- jamesteow 15y ago
  Agreed. I also loved their work on Daily Beast and Vogue. Hard to make some real design statements on content sites.
- citricsquid 15y ago
  I like the idea of it, but something feels wrong about the implementation, something about how it feels, can't put my finger on it though. I think it's potentially how they've taken the idea slightly too far, the text doesn't feel the focus enough (from the small amount I've seen) Also the lack of adverts is proof it's a very early idea/prototype, proper design includes careful positioning of adverts for effective advertising and none ruining a users experience, they would never just dump adverts in after, so we can assume this is just a basic idea of what they want the site to look like.
- ja2ke 15y ago
  I love it. The slightly-too-intensely overlapping elements and colors are outrageous in a way that really appeals to me. TechCrunch gets accused of being a brash loud thing, and its fun to see them basically scream that to the mountaintops with the way they present themselves visually. I also like that it harkens back to the aesthetics of earlier net culture publications (well, to Wired). Seeing text overlaid with bright big blocky backgrounds on top of photos with huge comedy swaths of pixel coloring everywhere brings me back in a very positive way.
mbesto 15y ago
In principle the purpose of design is to provide a particular product with utility. Judging from the screenshots below, this provides no real more usability or better user experience. Reminds me of Gawker redesign; can't wait for the fail.
jcfrei 15y ago
I actually like it. after all it's just a blog - you gotta try really hard to mess up it's UI/UX (and in that case the usability). Gawker I reckon has put a tremendous effort into it. The new look just seems classier with the pixelated logo, althought the one thing they really gotta fix is their page loading time.
sirwanqutbi 15y ago
seems to be down right now.
nchlswu 15y ago
Layout and usability is vanilla and noting too special. I'm guessing this coincides with larger rebranding effort? I think the only thing that's turning people off is the intensity of the green in the graphics. With full picture content and ads, it looks like a design that's easily tolerable. I personally think the text over picture isn't suited for a blog platform unless it's restricted to big feature articles. I don't read TC that much - do they even have content like that?
laconian 15y ago
I hope they stick with conventional URI syntax and don't go all hashbang-crazy like certain other websites have done.
phlux 15y ago
Will the redesign include a spell check/editor review loop for their story submissions? I doubt it. Until their content is clean - I care not for the graphic designer they hire.
joeybaker 15y ago
hmm… there's no ads shown. The design will look really different once the ads are placed.
koichi 15y ago
Look out behind you! It's a Creeper!
skyo 15y ago
This is ugly, but at least it's not Gizmodo.

54 points by justhw 15y ago

Urgo 15y ago

Haha I love it. It feels like I've been transported back into the bbs era. They need to fix the whole text over picture, or lack there of thing though.

jamesteow 15y ago
"They need to fix the whole text over picture, or lack there of thing though." It's pretty deliberate though. Reminds me of a magazine.
mtkd 15y ago
That was the only bit I liked - I've seen it somewhere else recently - one of the fashion sites I think - I love it - rest of the page I'm not so sure about - but I wouldn't like to be judged on one of our early mocks.

eam 15y ago

Will this be the new design for TC? I hope note because the header section is pretty ugly.

apgwoz 15y ago
Not just the header section, but individual titles on articles feel really scrunched.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

Please tell me this is a very early iteration that wasn't meant for public consumption yet.

Zakuzaa 15y ago

Broken on ipad.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jigs_up 15y ago

I like how the header changes as you scroll down.

twog 15y ago

If TC actually rolls out this design, I think it will be as frowned upon as Gizmodos terrible redesign.

jarin 15y ago

MineCrunch :)

dscape 15y ago
Funny!

edtechre 15y ago

Good thing TechCrunch isn't worth reading anymore, or I'd actually be upset.

TamDenholm 15y ago
http://thestartupfoundry.com/ http://thestartupfoundry.com/ is what i replaced my TC feed with.
- rokhayakebe 15y ago
  And they are already starting to go the TC way. http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/06/13/tsf-is-looking-for-funded-startups-to-cover-will-you-tell-me-about-yours/ http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/06/13/tsf-is-looking-for-f...

timdorr 15y ago

Done by Code and Theory, the same group that redesigned Engadget: http://www.codeandtheory.com/#/work/featured/Engadget-Redesign/ http://www.codeandtheory.com/#/work/featured/Engadget-Redesi... Given that TC is also an AOL property and the date on the most recent article is June 3rd, that would seem to suggest this is relatively recent. But god damn is it ugly as sin.

zengr 15y ago

Does it really matter? No RSS consumers here?

formicin 15y ago
I'm reading on RSS and only click through it when there is an embedded Youtube video.

trafficlight 15y ago

And it's down now. Did anybody snag a screenshot?

ukdm 15y ago
http://i.imgur.com/Tyfmp.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Tyfmp.jpg
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- trafficlight 15y ago
  Ugh. I'm glad I missed it.

sfgfdhgfdshdhhd 15y ago

And just like that it's gone...

jsdalton 15y ago

Somebody should grab a screenshot who still has the page open. Looks like they might have taken it down...

melvinram 15y ago
Urgo posted it a bit lower http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2650731 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2650731
- Urgo 15y ago
  Posted a video of it too so you can see the scrolling in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A

ljf 15y ago

I quite like it.

fuzionmonkey 15y ago

And they took it down. Usability didn't look great. But at least they made the page load faster. Techcrunch is horrible because it takes ages to load. They really need to optimize it.

ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
They NEED to get rid of all the little facebook and twitter widgets. I have the widget block plugin on Chrome and TechCrunch is finally fast because I block all those share buttons. About a year ago I think, we techcrunch commenters checked the actual size of the site and the front page was 9 MB !!! We complained and complained and months later it went down to 4 MB. Today it's at 2 MB. How they managed to stuff 7MB of worthless javascript and code and button images, I don't know. But the good news it's MUCH faster than before. Unfortunately, I lost interest and moved on. My reason was this: What's the point of absorbing all that information everyday from sites when I'm not investing what I know into doing something. If you want to seriously get your startup off the ground, for me at least, the right thing to do was to quit TechCrunch, quit Mashable, quit Reddit, and severely limit HN, and actually start getting something done. I'm a much happier peaceful and productive person without the "latest news and opinions" being beamed into my head every few minutes. Mark Zuckerberg is wrong, information overload is real, information addiction is even worse, and once you are free of it, you don't ever want to go back. edit: On one hand the widgets do bring in traffic but the sluggishness of the site might cancel that out.

Urgo 15y ago

Took a bunch of screenshots & a video to show what happens as you scroll down since its offline now. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBZ8P7lm0A http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1712.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1712.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_001.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_001.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_002.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1713_002.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1714.png http://socialblade.com/c/2011-06-13_1714.png

DuqE 15y ago
Sure looks ugly, I hope that was a joke. Navigation doesn't look to easy.

benologist 15y ago

Looks pretty awful judging by the screenshots people posted. Other than the mountain of 3rd party crap they use that bogs their site down ridiculously I don't think there's much wrong with the design of TC.

jasonadriaan 15y ago

Looks like 8-bit green vomit

estenh 15y ago

I like the basic use of space and layout, but the graphics are pretty crap. Bet that'll change though.

whalesalad 15y ago

Hmm. Am I the only person who actually likes it? I mean, to me it looks very incomplete but I really like the design concept with the pixel art and pixel gradients everywhere. The site as it is right now looks like dogshit to me, so this is pretty refreshing. Engadget looks marvelous as well. I'd like to give these guys the benefit of the doubt and assume it's a work in progress.

jamesteow 15y ago
Agreed. I also loved their work on Daily Beast and Vogue. Hard to make some real design statements on content sites.
citricsquid 15y ago
I like the idea of it, but something feels wrong about the implementation, something about how it feels, can't put my finger on it though. I think it's potentially how they've taken the idea slightly too far, the text doesn't feel the focus enough (from the small amount I've seen) Also the lack of adverts is proof it's a very early idea/prototype, proper design includes careful positioning of adverts for effective advertising and none ruining a users experience, they would never just dump adverts in after, so we can assume this is just a basic idea of what they want the site to look like.
ja2ke 15y ago
I love it. The slightly-too-intensely overlapping elements and colors are outrageous in a way that really appeals to me. TechCrunch gets accused of being a brash loud thing, and its fun to see them basically scream that to the mountaintops with the way they present themselves visually. I also like that it harkens back to the aesthetics of earlier net culture publications (well, to Wired). Seeing text overlaid with bright big blocky backgrounds on top of photos with huge comedy swaths of pixel coloring everywhere brings me back in a very positive way.

mbesto 15y ago

In principle the purpose of design is to provide a particular product with utility. Judging from the screenshots below, this provides no real more usability or better user experience. Reminds me of Gawker redesign; can't wait for the fail.

jcfrei 15y ago

I actually like it. after all it's just a blog - you gotta try really hard to mess up it's UI/UX (and in that case the usability). Gawker I reckon has put a tremendous effort into it. The new look just seems classier with the pixelated logo, althought the one thing they really gotta fix is their page loading time.

sirwanqutbi 15y ago

seems to be down right now.

nchlswu 15y ago

Layout and usability is vanilla and noting too special. I'm guessing this coincides with larger rebranding effort? I think the only thing that's turning people off is the intensity of the green in the graphics. With full picture content and ads, it looks like a design that's easily tolerable. I personally think the text over picture isn't suited for a blog platform unless it's restricted to big feature articles. I don't read TC that much - do they even have content like that?

laconian 15y ago

I hope they stick with conventional URI syntax and don't go all hashbang-crazy like certain other websites have done.

phlux 15y ago

Will the redesign include a spell check/editor review loop for their story submissions? I doubt it. Until their content is clean - I care not for the graphic designer they hire.

joeybaker 15y ago

hmm… there's no ads shown. The design will look really different once the ads are placed.

koichi 15y ago

Look out behind you! It's a Creeper!

skyo 15y ago

This is ugly, but at least it's not Gizmodo.