
TechCrunch redesign is terrible - abeaclark
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/13/welcome-to-the-new-techcrunch/
======
chasingthewind
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
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
"scrolljacking"

I couldn't agree more.

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abeaclark
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.

~~~
thatswrong0
> * 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
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!

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ng-user
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.

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fenwick67
Don't scroll down too far or the article will disappear, FYI (yikes).

~~~
ogig
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!

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ogig
Woa, that's some title editorializing.

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hprotagonist
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
Their rss posts used to include images, now it's just text, cut in the middle
of the word.

~~~
hprotagonist
the lack of images doesn't really bother me; trimming the text is a serious
nuisance.

~~~
flardinois
I think we fixed this. Try again.

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justboxing
Someone care to list things that they find terrible?

( Not trolling, really curious about bad UI design that aren't readily
apparent to me. )

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BjoernKW
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.

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Yhippa
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.

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

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lnx01
Can you elaborate a bit on why you think it's terrible?

~~~
Bartweiss
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.

