44 Comments
Dear readers,
OK. We hear you. This new site was an experiment, and it’s going to keep evolving. Meanwhile, here’s our logic: we designed for ease of use and a more streamlined look, making sure that important information and navigational tools were all up high and easy to find. Shifting all the permanent features over to one side makes it simpler for readers to find the information they need, allowing Bwog newbies and infrequent visitors to locate everything without having to scroll around for it.
But we meant it when we said we wanted to hear your thoughts, and trust us, we’re listening. If you’d like to help, use this thread to give us specific feedback on elements of the site, and we’ll see what we can do.
We trashed Facebook for a reason, but unlike M. Zuck, we don’t have a Silicon Valley office and a $900 million buyout offer from Yahoo. So don’t take us off your favorites bar yet.
Yours,
Bwog Staff
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44 Comments
@Anonymous don’t be STUBBORN. Come on BOWG! You know what to do after more than 40 comments of people complaning. Just go back to the old design and accept your failure in trying to “make things better.”
@Please just go back to what you had! It was much more “streamlined” than this. Everything is jagged, jumbled, and hard on the eyes.
@test test
@font The new font is much better, way easier to read. But grey, yellow, and dark grey still??? Make it go away. And that logo is sooooo ugly!
@ccsc SUPPORT THE CONTENT
NOT THE REDESIGN
@you sir are a genius
@Why is everyone saying Bwog’s not listening? The point of this post and that site staff comment within it is that they are. Hopefully it will just take a couple of days for them to respond.
@bah I’ve seen many a website go through similar changes. stubborn pride will force them to keep this redesign. they’d rather keep their false sense of dignity than embarass themselves by retracting. sadly it means the end of bwog.
@also please go back to a white background. not being racist or anything, it’s so much easier reading black-on-white than black-on-grey. and it looks cleaner too.
@hmm am i going crazy, or is there a faint drawing of a man in the background of the “in print” section on the right? it’s kinda weird and the way the background color also seems to change is distressing.
i don’t really see why it was necessary for bwog to change for the sake of changing. dont fix what isnt broke.
@you're not crazy thats a faded background of the most recent b&w cover.
suggestions:
Bring back tri-column. Put print content and administrative stuff on the left (contact us, masthead, about, policy, etc.). put bwog content on the right like before. events on top, followed by RECENT COMMENTS (I cannot stress how much I want this.) and then archive stuff.
also reduce the logo. its WAAAY too big on a 1024×768 native screen, even with the browser maxed to screen. tricolumn would eliminate that ugly band of grey on the right of my screen too.
@rp Bwog, can we agree that you were created to provide a service to the Columbia community? And as such, it seems only fair that the community get a say in Bwog, which has been established. Why not set up a poll or something to survey Bwog readers and ask them if they prefer the original site, the current one, or perhaps something new is needed but this isn’t it. Maybe wait a few days, let people check this out, then set up the poll. I always have liked popular opinion
@the best part is that you used the “we hear you quote”. genius. but, unlike zuckerberg, you should actually listen to your readers.
here is my general problem with websites and the internet, in that they are represent modernity in all its ugliness. tear down the old, build something new and aesthetically gaudy, something brilliant yet incomplete and in the final results failing.
the old bwog was perfect and compact and something i really liked. this redesign, like boredatbutler, cucommunity, and the spec’s before it, just lack the innocence of the original.
i know you guys try, and i know i couldn’t make either site, but please, revert back to my old friend.
@Shira Also… no “search bwog” feature? That was really helpful back when it existed.
@rp Honestly, that’s a lame response Bwog. “We don’t have 900 million dollar buyout offers.” So if Yahoo did want to buy you out, would that suddenly impose upon you the obligation of actually listening to the feedback you solicited? Or at the least, would it keep you from being a hypocrite and avoiding the same actions you criticized Facebook/Zuckerberg of committing?
@apparently that would make a difference to them.
losers. you belong to columbia. if we hate this place, we can stop reading/writing/listening/caring, though I wonder if you ever would notice that anyone outside your clique ever did.
@Anonymous Hate it.
Not pretty. Ugly. Cold.
@Anonymous All this backpedaling on a redesign, apologizing over doing something that you thought would make life easier … it sounds as if you have a case of ZUCKERBERG’s REVENGE. Now, will you not cower in fear of the mighty facebook?
@Anonymous btw, the email to bwog link is broken
@daniella I like it.
small design opinions:
1. nix that grey bar right above the banner. ew.
2. is “our favorite comments” really more important than “events”?
3. that watermarked graphic is beyond ugly. embed a thumbnail, or get rid of it altogether.
just what I think.
@don't be a pussy.
support the new website.
@one thing that would really help:
After you are reading comments and wish to go back to the main content page, it should take you back to the exact spot where you clicked on to go to comments.
having to re-scroll is annoying.
@Zach vS Actually, that should be happening — it’s not something within our control. Some versions of Firefox have a bug that can cause this behavior. If you haven’t yet, upgrading Firefox to version 1.5 will often make this problem go away.
Everyone else, thanks for your feedback. We’re working on it.
@scrolling I don’t use firefox, and the new site does the same thing to me. When you click on comments it takes you to the top of that post, not to the comments. This is not a firefox problem.
Also, that huge new logo takes up so much space that you can barely see any content. The point of the site is the posts, but now they are downplayed in favor of a huge black box, which seems irrational. I agree that the color scheme is hideous (go back to white/black/blue), the right gray bar is ridiculous, and the logo is ugly. The best looking blogs have very simple layouts so that the focus is on the content, and you’re putting the focus on some poorly-executed design elements. Dumb move, bwog.
@the problem is that this just looks like any other blogger. i think the old page had a lot more character and I MISS THE BUBBLES DAMNIT. please change it back. you can always change featues without chaing the layout. please bring back the old layout
@joe who the hell had the brilliant idea for this new color scheme? and what did you do to the old logo?
When most people do a total re-design of a site, they offer both options to users for a while until they have streamlined the new site. Then they switch.
Come on guys, we expect better.
@cka Can you at least center the content, so it isnt all the way on the left when I have a wider browser window open.
Also, bring back the old logo.
@ctr Fully subscribe to #15. Anyone listening?
@Cal I like it. Small screen and non-max browser window = I don’t have any problem with the tiny sliver of grey on the far right. I think the tan sidebar could stand to be skinnier and the blue, black, and burgundy against it is a weird color scheme. All in all it’s awright.
@lee c. this is horrible. just inexcusably bad. just revert back to what you had before and we’ll forget you made the pointless decision to let this happen.
@Anonymous I liked it before when the News was at the top right; now the news is not amongst the first things you see when you navigate to the site, users don’t necessarily always have motivation to scroll down.
Same goes for the bwogroll, it dissapears to obscurity at the bottom of the right frame.
Utilize space! there is no reason, aesthetic or practical to not use 1/3 of the screen.
@Shira I think it’s easier to locate important information if it’s spaced over both edges of the page. This way, one has to scroll down to see things that would have been closer to the top of the page in the old design. This redesign just really doesn’t do it for me.
@Anonymous Bwog, I’m boycotting you due to your redesign. That means I won’t submit, post, or read. Have a good night.
@oh, tao This should concern Bwog because…?
@Question Why Tao thinks that being an ridiculous asshole adds to his cache? Boycotting is fine — but maybe he should realize that going out of his way to alienate does nothing more than, well, alienate.
Good riddance.
@well I like the redesign, personally. Not perfect, but pretty darn good. Good work guys.
@DHI Reformat deez nuts.
@Naysayer The side-heavy point has already been beaten to death, but I’ll bring it up again. Also, the text is a bit small. Color scheme is a bit dreary- grey and taupe with black and royal blue just lacks the zing the white background used to give the page. New Logo < Old Logo.
@Anonymous I’m not going to ask you to make it wider, I’m going to beg you! My neck hurts after I leave this site. What’s the purpose of the “enormous empty space on the right?” [—>] I hate it. The color scheme of the whole site is’t that bad. But the font is too small and once again I don’t see a purpose of smushing everything to the left. The logo is more of a blog logo. It’s more worldly and less Columbian. Therefore, no comment on the logo. How long are you guys going to stick to this new design. I don’t really like it. I can handle it for this semester. But that’s it.
@thanks for listening! i agree, having the content smushed into a tiny space all the way on the left is really awkward to read, especially with such a small font. There’s also a big area of wasted grey space on the right, which makes having the content smushed on the left all the more frustrating. i’m indifferent about the logo – the old one was prettier and more fun, this one is more serious, but whatever. thanks again for listening and caring!
@wider? I hate that argument that we all have higher resolutions and wider browsers. Yes, we do, but not all of us keep our browser window maximized. Wider is not always better.
@ugh The new logo is so ugly! please change it back to the pretty one with the bubbles. Also, speaking of ugly, the color scheme? come on guys. White background and black font. Is that so hard?
@agreed can we do something about the enormous amount of empty space on the right? everyone has wider browsers now, what’s the point of cramming everything in one side? gawker moved to a wider layout and it made things easier to read. also, please increase the font size. i am losing my eyesight. thank you for understanding.
@fix it The main content looks so weird pushed all the way over into the skinny bar on the left. I think the sidebar should move to the left and the content area should be considerably larger.