

Internet Archive: What’s new with v2 - castell
https://blog.archive.org/2015/02/12/whats-new-with-v2/

======
anc84
> We have a lot of long-time users of the site, and we know that any major
> changes will cause them to have to relearn where things are and how to
> accomplish the things they already know how to do on v1. This kind of major
> change can be very annoying, so we’re working hard to make sure you only
> need to relearn things once.

Criticism by long-term members is not purely a matter of confusion. I highly
dislike the change from a "tabular" and highly text-based design to the image
centric infinite-scroll one we got now. Showing cover images of random unknown
music makes no sense in my opinion, there is nothing to recognise and music
does not show in images. The information density has been drastically reduced.
Things are reduced to icons and everywhere there are transitions.

If archive.org is trying to change its audience (and contributors) then it
might be a step into the right direction, but for me, the new design is a step
in the wrong one.

There definitely are discovery problems but I don't see how the new design
helps. It reminds me more of a random modern 10 second attention span site
than a well thought out interface to a vast archive.

~~~
gavinpc
I stumbled onto the new design about a month ago. I had mixed reactions to it,
one side of which was like yours: "Oh no, they're going to ruin it."

But then I found these amazing treasures that were so much better than what I
was looking for [0].

The Internet Archive is so priceless, so special, and so impossibly good, that
I have to trust the people who make it.

As long as they are "focused on how the site looks," there is nothing they
could do to ruin it. Yes, the changes are pointless for someone who was
already happy with it. But if they are able to bring more attention and
support this way, then more power to them. Their #1 job is to keep it alive,
and I'm sure this is motivated with that in mind.

And after all, they have an API.

[0]
[https://archive.org/stream/playseditedannot03shakuoft#page/1...](https://archive.org/stream/playseditedannot03shakuoft#page/176/mode/2up)

~~~
anc84
As someone who likes to share data sets via IA, their hiding of the plain list
of originally uploaded files behind a non-colored link that only gets
highlighted on mouse over made me furious many times. I don't want to have to
combine a simple "download my data there" with "then move the mouse there and
see how it is actually a link and oh by the way the actual files I meant to
link you to are available if you click that".

I totally understand their motivation and I think it is great to present the
potentially popular parts of the archives to the public in an "experience".
But it worsened my user experience and motivation as a contributor(!).

------
wotie5
I used to find the Internet Archive incredibly useful, sadly the new design
has completely ruined this. Before the site was nice and organized, now it's a
big mess that seems to be designed for smartphones. Infinite scrolling really
helps making the site completely chaotic and confusing.

However, even though the site is ruined for me now, I really want to thank
Internet Archive for all the years of enjoyment it has given me.

~~~
textfiles
Hi, it's Jason Scott. I work for the Internet Archive but I don't speak for
them, in this case.

So, first I'd like to make clear that none of the underlying collections or
data has moved anywhere. That is, all the items that are in a collection of,
say, newspapers or music performances are still there - the URLs are precisely
the same and were designed to be permanent. Nobody's shifting those around
here. Google searches work, and the site search works the same, using the same
criteria.

Next, in the results pages, which include those "tiles" and infinite scrolling
that is not to you taste, if you look in the upper right (next to the
"Results" number), there's an icon that changes from tile mode to "list" mode.
You can also turn on "details". That makes things into a list form, at least.
However, for the moment, infinite scroll will still be engaged. Also note you
can sort the list alphabetically, by creator, or by views.

After doing those two steps, is the problem at that point JUST the infinite
scroll? Is that what makes it a mess for you? Or is it a different set of
issues? I'm happy to hear it in this thread, but also, if you click the "beta"
button in the upper right, and write exactly what you'd like, I guarantee it's
read.

~~~
dmunoz
Thanks for pointing out the list and detailed views. I missed that when
looking this morning as was bummed because I can't stand the unaligned-boxes-
of-different-heights view that so many websites go for these days. Maybe I'm
just not used to it because I recoil from it every time, but it messes up my
read-from-left-to-right nature.

That said, two annoyances I just noticed with the list view (braindump style):

There is no header. I have no idea what the columns are. I can only guess, and
that is useless for e.g. the rightmost column here [0]. Mental thoughts as I
view it: It's just an icon? It's not clickable and doesn't appear to show
anything useful. The speakers change to blue when I have my mouse over them.
What does this mean? It's still not clickable... what is it doing?

Another problem related to not having a header: when I sort by e.g. views, the
views are not actually shown. Maybe I wanted to see that information as well
as having the rows sorted by the column.

Oh wait, I just noticed that there is a header there... but it's not clear
it's for the columns of the table underneath it. They're not aligned... and it
still doesn't explain what that column of icons is. But now I see that the
number of views is shown as the leftmost column. I guessed that it was some
sort of filesize initially (1.6B, 377.7M, etc.).

One last thing, I wish clicking the column in the header would toggle
ascending/descending sorting like almost every other table I've interacted
with. It's not clear at first that I need to go all the way over to the left
to toggle that behaviour.

[0] [https://archive.org/details/audio](https://archive.org/details/audio)

------
textfiles
Just to throw additional information into the mix:

* The design was the first major overhaul of the back and front ends of the site in roughly 15 years. * Introduced to the public in a very light was in October 31st, thousands of modifications/fixes have happened since then. * The V2 interface truly hit major audiences around the beginning of January. So it's been roughly 4 months, in which feedback has been huge, and read. * If you visit the changelog, [https://archive.org/CHANGELOG.txt](https://archive.org/CHANGELOG.txt) \- you can see the mass of changes that are occurring, nearly daily. * The site is nowhere near done.

~~~
mlinksva
Are there public source repositories such that one can see the mass of actual
changes occurring? Last time I looked I couldn't find anything corresponding
among [https://github.com/internetarchive](https://github.com/internetarchive)

------
TheLoneWolfling
I don't like it, at all.

I have yet to find an example of infinite scrolling being good, and this is no
exception.

And it's gone from being text-heavy to image-heavy.

If it's trying to become instagram, well, good for them I guess. But that's
not anything I'm interested in.

At least have a theme option to keep using the old interface. I suppose I'll
have to wait until someone comes out with a usable interface using the API, I
suppose.

------
sparaker
I really liked using archive.org back in the days when it was actively
indexing pages. I am happy to see the people behind it our working to improve
the user experience. Its a great idea one that goes unrecognized.

~~~
sp332
It does still index pages. You can see the results of the web crawler coming
in here:
[https://archive.org/details/webwidecrawl?sort=-publicdate](https://archive.org/details/webwidecrawl?sort=-publicdate)

------
jmhuret
I will use the new archive.org to see what the previous version of archive.org
looked like :)

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kimmel
I like the new look. I have been trying it out for the last week doing
searches and reading books. It feels cleaner than the old layout.

------
themoonbus
... why did I not know that this existed until this moment:

[https://archive.org/details/internetarcade&tab=collection](https://archive.org/details/internetarcade&tab=collection)

~~~
sp332
The collection of games has been there for a while (and I suppose it grows
over time), but the ability to play them in a browser is only a few months
old. In fact they're actively looking for more developers to improve the
speed.

 _It 's that time again.... I'm looking for a willing volunteer coder (C++
with some Javascript) awareness who wants to take a shot at JSMESS. We have a
strong theory that someone could look at the code and, essentially, fix the
speed problem (which would likely fix the sound). Are you out there, coding
hero?_ [https://twitter.com/textfiles](https://twitter.com/textfiles)

------
themoonbus
Overall, I enjoy the redesign, but one criticism... having the secondary nav
open above the primary nav bar is very strange. Any reason for this decision?

------
rwmj
No search of historical pages still.

~~~
textfiles
That turns out to be a huge, huge technical issue but I can't imagine a future
in which that doesn't happen.

------
bontoJR
Just tried 3-4 sites with no luck, alls giving back: "Got an HTTP 302 response
at crawl time"

Anyway, the new design is very nice!

~~~
sp332
I thought it would cache 302's and redirect you to the archived version of the
next page (if available).

