I recommend everyone to add ideacodes's ehub to shortlist too.

Great job on the new look and feel. I quite prefer the white/red color scheme, and the empty space makes it feel very web 2.0.

Also, the addition of navigation by subject area across the top is a huge improvement for me and makes it a lot easier to quickly find content in targeted areas.

Keep up the good work!

Overall, I'm sorry to say that your old look was much better.

Cheers,

Adrian

Overall, its overstated and so far overrated.

Arial in a logo is nothing to brag about. It is, however, one of the more readable fonts displayed on screen- for copy.

The idea that RWW is short for Read Write Web is not true phonetically. Try saying the 2 and you'll see what I mean. So it does not have the advantage that say, CNN, has over it's full name. Read/Write is superior. And the slash is nothing to be ashamed about, it makes sense: you can't do both at the same time. It's read or write. As for successful examples of the slash in branding, see slashdot and slashfilm.

But going with abbreviation execution, the RWW is overstated in the arial logotype. The RWW letters are solid black on a white bg and more than double the size of the rest of the text in grey. The kerning is so bad I thought it was rendered by the browser until I noticed I couldn't select it- maybe it is. The black, red, and white is a lot of high contrast. Again, heavily overstated, both generally and in the abbreviation theme, which is not strong to begin with.

Moving out from the logo to navigation. Rounded and squared corners can fit together, but I don't think they do here. May be it's the seemingly arbitrary difference in padding height between the above and below nav. I would say pick round or squared and get be consistent with padding. Again, the hovers are overstated.. subtlety suggested. This high contrast is unnecessary. And then after all that high contrast hover, the 'tab' doesn't even show state after clicked! Referring to the below logo nav, and the above logo sends me away to another design.

Overall, overstated, a little sloppy and unfinished. Back to the drawing board to think this branding and ui through. Guessing that this may be the result of attempting to appease conflicting opinions through out the design process. Save opinions till the comp is fully fleshed out, then select one.. no mixing and matching.

If you want to modernize and go 2.0, then do it. Go with a softer color palette, mix in some MS Trebuchet, bump up your font sizes, sprinkle in some bigger buttons and spread on your ajax library: jquery, prototype.. or abstract the js altogether with ext.

I can't remember if you had a big ad at the top before but if it was it wasn't done to this degree of ugliness.

Having some more color on the site to make it easier for my eyes to focus on the content would be helpful.

Nhick
http://www.itrush.com

I'm a regular reader of R/W2 and I believe that it is one of the best web technology blogs out there. It's smart, sophisticated and well-written. If I read something on another similar blog, I know I can count on R/W2 to cover the same story with a lot more useful commentary and a whole better editing.

The new logo doesn't bring any of those thoughts or emotions unto my head. Don't get me wrong, I love the Yin-Yang button thingy--but for the sake of all that is typographically flattering, please change the typography for the main title. The kerning is a bit off, and frankly, the choice of type doesn't reflect the blog's personality well.

I also agree with Winston with the use of "RWW".. Personally, I love the slash in the former "name", and I'm keeping it in my RSS Reader. Don't expect me to change the title to RWW soon--cause frankly, I just doesn't work.

And finally, I hope you do something about the rest of your page. Sure you put a lot of effort over getting the header/top-part of the page right--with all the navigational goodness you could cramp into the 191pixels of the header div.. But you forgot about the rest of your page, like your footer (which deserves some attention--it's as bland as Arial.)

Hope to see more improvements.. And Hooray for R/W Web.. :P

The old design was warmer and more welcoming, this one feels cold and impersonal.

Sorry, but I really prefer the old design...

Also, I find the red overpowering and NOT great visual design that it is so much wider than the banner ad at the top.

There's other things I like but the logo/header distracts me from those.

But overall I love reading Read Write Web (with or without the slash) and congratulations with the redesign.

Overall, looks like a great upgrade - final query; would you be releasing this theme, perhaps in a neutral colour? I can see it being really nice for anyone looking to upgrade their site.

What I like is the details, like the transparent boxes when you enter your information in the comment section. Details make the difference.

Well Done

Nice work.

The formatting of the posts with image badge is really nice. I like it much more than many of the other blogs I read.

Also, where did those Snaps go they were helpful.

The logo is, um, not great at all.

OK, really, the logo is a complete turn off. It looks hokey.

The site is nothing to rave about - never really been a fan of Emily Chung's work. Not my taste.

As many have said here, the logo, is well not really a logo at all. It's a Yin/Yang symbol with over sized text along side.

The top red block, looks like the navigation was slapped on as an afterthought, and kinda gets lost. And as for that honking great big banner at the top *shudder*

A good site redesign recently was GigaOm, elegant, clean, fresh. This new design here is ... well not so nice - sorry Richard.

Also, what happened to the feeds? No longer does my browser auto-detect your feeds. Sorry, I really think this design has missed the fundamentals

I actually liked the old look and feel A LOT better than this. I'm sure part of it is just getting used to a new look, but I'm not sure about the logo (specifically the font part) at all.

I agree with most people who said that they didn't like the logo. It looks "weird", like something unfinished, or I don't know.
Then the site is a bit "too" white. There is some weird use of whitespace (the footer for instance) and looks "poor" overall. The tag cloud is nice, but lost in the middle of so many ads... I liked the old one better, even though there are some good ideas in this new design too (categories, popular posts...)
Sorry if this comment is not really constructive, I just "don't get" the new design...

PS. I do agree, the logo has to go.

Winston said: "Arial in a logo is nothing to brag about. It is, however, one of the more readable fonts displayed on screen- for copy."

RM: Sorry, that was my mistake - the Arial is the body text (which, as you pointed out Winston, is very good for copy). The logo in fact uses univers. I have corrected the post regarding that.

Winston said: "And the slash is nothing to be ashamed about, it makes sense: you can't do both at the same time."

RM: I never said I was ashamed of it, simply that for the branding it had its issues.

Winston then had some criticisms of the logo, which I noticed were repeated by nearly every commenter after. While I respect the fact that not everybody likes it, I stand by the design - which is deliberately bold and emphasizes the letters RWW. I explained why we went in this direction in the post.

Winston concluded that the logo is "heavily overstated, both generally and in the abbreviation theme, which is not strong to begin with."

RM: Well firstly I don't agree with his analysis of the "abbreviation theme" - it missed the point that it is all about the branding. Secondly what is overstated to some is bold and stands out to others. The latter is what we aimed for and personally I think it achieved that. But your mileage may vary, I guess.

Winston said: "Guessing that this may be the result of attempting to appease conflicting opinions through out the design process. Save opinions till the comp is fully fleshed out, then select one.. no mixing and matching."

RM: This is an extraordinary assumption to make. "Conflicting opinions"? There were none. Winston, up to this point your critique was valid. I didn't agree with a lot of it, but at least it didn't jump to conclusions like this.

Finally, Winston said: "If you want to modernize and go 2.0, then do it. Go with a softer color palette, mix in some MS Trebuchet, bump up your font sizes, sprinkle in some bigger buttons and spread on your ajax library: jquery, prototype.. or abstract the js altogether with ext."

Um, actually I *don't* want to "go 2.0". That is precisely the kind of cliched design we wanted to avoid! Instead we were after a clean, modern design.

Anyway, I appreciate your feedback Winston and I'm glad you're a regular reader. I respectfully disagree with much of what you said, but I'm glad you said it :-)

Dan (#20), ads are a necessary part of running a professional blog these days. Obviously it's a balancing act, but we never run offensive ads like popovers or anything distracting to the reading experience.

Johan (#27) said: "The old design was warmer and more welcoming, this one feels cold and impersonal."

RM: I'm not sure what you mean. Can you specify what was warm and welcome about the last design? Perhaps it was just the familiarity. I can tell you I've been looking at this new design for a few weeks now and it feels warm and personal to me now :-)

MikeB (#28) said: "where is the design? red colored bar across top. I'm blown. logo as said before is really really bad. sorry, this is not doing it for me, i hope it didn't take longer than 2 days to build it sure don't look like it."

RM: While I love to get feedback, comments like this frustrate me. MikeB, you completely miss the context of the whole design, there is no justification for your comments on the logo, and you were insulting to the professionals who created this. This reminds me of the comment on my diabetes post about how my doctor "was an idiot" and didn't diagnose me correctly. OK this comment is not as bad as that, but when you criticize something you have to remember that a) there is a reason and *context* for every decision that was made for this design; and b) these are professional and highly skilled designers you're talking about, and I myself have been in this blog publishing business for a number of years now. So the comment that "i hope it didn't take longer than 2 days to build it sure don't look like it" is disrespectful, ill-informed, and is overall not helpful at all.

PXLated (#30) said: "Ideacodes seems to have done some nice site redesigns for others so I presume the problem here was client intervention/meddling as RWW does not reflect their normal quality. There is nothing positive that can be said about that design -101, F grade logo. Sorry Richard."

RM: You presume do you? As with Winston, your presumptions are very wrong. And again, see what I said above re MikeB's comment. You ignored all the context and your criticisms are non-specific - and as a result they're basically devoid of any meaning.

Anne (#34) said: "I must agree with Winston's constructive criticism concerning the logo: The kerning in the logo is slightly off and the harsh contrast makes it hard on the eyes."

RM: OK, fair enough - not everyone likes the logo. But at least Anne was actually constructive in her criticism and explained *why* she doesn't like it. So thank you Anne, we will take your feedback into consideration.

fak3r (#35) asked: "Overall, looks like a great upgrade - final query; would you be releasing this theme, perhaps in a neutral colour? I can see it being really nice for anyone looking to upgrade their site."

RM: Thanks for your comments fak3r. At this stage we have no plans to release the theme (it would defeat one of the goals for me, for our site design to be unique) :-) But I'm pleased you like it.

Rylan (#37), yes print CSS is coming. Thanks for the reminder!

Steven Thomas (#40) said: "The Logo wastes a lot of space and looks like my one that my son in junior high created. (The YinYang is really trite - you gotta kill that.) I know the previous color palette was red but this seems bolder and red means stop to many of us. The formatting of the posts with image badge is really nice. I like it much more than many of the other blogs I read."

RM: I hate to focus on mainly the negative comments, but again I have to respond to this - because as with 28 & 30 this is an insulting and mostly nonsensical comment. Red means stop? Puuulease...

And no I won't "kill" the yinyang, because unlike with you the yinyang actually has meaning for me. Read/write, yin/yang?? But at least Steven you finished with some nice things to say.

Overall, it's hard not to take criticism personally - particularly after all the work that went into this re-design. But I think you will come to love this new design as much as me. Sure it is different and the red is bold. But there is a reason for both those things. And much of the critique here did not mention how clean, modern and fresh the design is.

Lastly, if you do have a critique to offer, or don't like something - it's fine to say that, as long as you give your reasons and don't insult the intelligence and skill of people who put a lot of effort into this design. To be blunt, I have no respect at all for commenters 28,30 and 40 - just as they showed no respect to the designers or myself. But I respect the comments of Winstonn (18) and Anne (34), because it was constructive (even if I don't agree with some/most of it).

Anyway, enough of me on my high horse. It is of course important to me that RWW readers like the new design, so we will take all comments into consideration - and we welcome your further (constructive) feedback.

* visual separation of modules
* border grids to separate sections

And of course, remove what is not needed.

* It do not remembers my login credentials
* It do not remembers anything even if I login with my TypeKey credentials
* Registration says my Username exist but password retrieval do not work. I honestly don't remember registering with RRW before!

This design is not much different from the old classic. A change could have been a lot better.

Even GigaOm switched to the wide-column unreadable format recently. Atleast, ReadwriteWeb and GigaOm is so much better looking than the Arrington's site. When will that ever get redesigned?

Like the stuff you write, though.

Nice + Clean + Modern!

Congrats! ;))

http://blog.frivolousmotion.com/2007/12/readwriteweb-redesign-analysis-and.html

If you feel like clicking through, give it a look. I tried to keep it fair and constructive.

Obviously your new design invokes a complex range of responses, as will any design.

Also I understand why in your comment #60 you said you had no respect for commentators #28, #30 and #40. But I do think that when you are reading through all the comments it can be interesting and at least different to see some viewpoints expressed this way.

I also wrote an entry in my blog about this topic:
http://www.designvsart.com/blog/2007/12/18/bad-color-contrast-analysis-of-new-readwriteweb-design/

Kevin, thank you for taking the time and effort to do this analysis. It is very thorough and you make some very good points. Plus as you are a regular reader of RWW, your feedback is truly important to me. I'd like to respond to some of what you said though:

1) You said: "I wouldn’t be so picky if I didn’t care."

RM: Fair enough ;-)

2) You said: "...among other things, he even goes so far as to state that he doesn’t respect certain commenters - not their comments - but as people. His justification for this is that they didn’t show respect for himself or the designers, and I don’t see this at all. Two of the three commenters he singled out actually had positive things to say about the design, and I fail to recall a rule somewhere that specifies that all opinions on the subject of design have to be justified by technical know-how."

RM: I stand by what I said -- if people are disrespectful, rude *and* make non-specific criticisms, I honestly have no respect for that kind of person. Sorry if that upset you. But it's not being elitist or anything like that, it's just simple manners. And it's nothing to do with lack of technical know-how or not being a designer either, it's that they made negative, rude comments with virtually no basis at all. If you're going to give negative feedback, particularly if it is disparaging of people, then you must back it up. If you don't, and show disrespect for myself or the design team, then don't expect any respect back. I honestly don't mind if people say "I hate the design" or whatever, but I don't see how you can expect to be taken seriously when you make disparaging comments about professional people *and* make nonsensical statements at the same time (note: it's the combination of the two that gets under my skin, so it's not about lack of technical knowledge at all).

Having said that, obviously I have a great deal of respect for your critique, because you took the effort to explain things and you didn't stoop to insulting me or the people behind the design. Likewise many of the other comments, negative or positive, were fine because they represent the opinion of our readers -- and were civil.

final thoughts...

I really do appreciate your detailed feedback here. I stand by the design though and I think it is a much cleaner, more professional, bolder design than our previous one. I like the logo too, for the reasons I listed in my original post. The new design positions RWW as more of a media property and the many links you speak of are designed to give people more ways to access our content.

Having said all that, I certainly respect your right to disagree - and I'm very glad you listed out point for point *why* you feel that way. We will take it all under consideration, I can assure you of that. Thanks for doing this analysis and I hope you continue to read and enjoy RWW :-)

If you like clean, functional, professional and bold design, you'll love this redesign. It's easy to read and has an openness that the last design didn't have. The red is now isolated to the header and the rest of the page is clean. I like it! Don't let the negatives speak for the majority of people visitng your site.

"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"

Doesn't make it better than Transitional and it will certainly contribute to the +360 validation errors. ( declare it as Strict if you really know what it is )

BTW, being a R/W Web blog, where's OpenID integration, microformats and etc? =)

Love the nice, big MyBlogLog widget but then again I'm a little biased :-)

Ian

The new site just feels clunky and loose. Because the new design only uses red in the header the rest of the page seems to fall apart it’s almost impossible to tell content and branding from advertising.

The logo is shockingly immature in nature and lacks any design whatsoever. It reminds me of things I did early on when I had no ideas.

If the request of Read Write Web was that they wanted to emphasize the RWW in their name then surely there are 100 better ways to do that than by merely making the RWW big and black and the other letters small and gray.

http://www.malandarras.com/read-write-web-redesign/