too many columns (3 is the limit).

too much 'navigation'

go back to the previous site. simple is best. everybody chickens out and makes their site too complicated.

Can you clarify your comment a bit for us? We're a little confused (not unusual).

Thanks!

The new version is too wide for my screen and requires more scrolling from side to side, which is a huge pet peeve.

I also think the top banner looks sorta canned and dull.

Otherwise, I don't know yet. It's okay.

What is your screen resolution? The new site is designed for screens set to at least 1024x768. If your system is set this way, what browser are you using?

Thanks!

I changed my screen to 1024x768 and while I could see everything (yay!), it obviously shrinks all the text which is a problem for me.

Like a lot of computer users, my eyesight isn't all that great and I'd prefer to keep my computer at 800X600 so I don't squint. (I don't think they don't make contacts any stronger than the ones I already have.)

I understand that this is my problem, but others might have the same issue.

Thanks for the response, though so now I know how I can fix it if I want to.

searchable events,etc. is rad..

And that's the only problem. It's very crowded. Unless there's a business reason to put absolutely everything on the front page (lots of ads?), please consider less. On 1280x800 in Firefox, it scrolls 5 screens vertically, which is too many, IMO. Better to click through to different pages than to scroll.

Maybe don't put a picture on every subsection on the first page. It just takes up space. The pictures are already available on the individual section pages.

Also, maybe limit the number of article summaries per front-page subsection. The current lead article for each section should be enough. I can click through to find out what else is in that section.

I could do without the pop-zoom cartoon at the bottom.

Thanks again.

however i agree with previous posts that there are too many columns/ the design is too cluttered.

It's a small point but I'm kinda iffy about that denim-navy blue. It reminds me too much of other, sniffier papers that I hate.

It was nice to try and get some things on the front page like the search link, but I have to agree about the width. Not everyone is on a 22 inch monitor and wants to look at things at a microscopic resolution.

I personally thought the old design was the best looking, cleanest web site of any free weekly I have ever been to.

It was logical. If you came there a few times, it was easy to find what you needed. The banner ads were well integrated. It felt a lot like reading the paper version of the Stranger. I could even surf it on my pda in a pinch, without undue scrolling.

It would be great if there was an ad index, though. Sometimes I want to find a club ad, because it has info not included in the club calendar. It would be great to be able to do that from one dedicated indext page (or from the seach box). I think the Chicago Reader used to have such an index in the paper edition.

If you're getting feedback that people don't like having to do up and down scrolling, then I guess that's valid, although I find that sort of scrolling far less bothersome than side to side scrolling.

Maybe if you articulated the goals of the redesign it would be easier for people to give their opinions on how well the new design accomplishes the goals and perhaps offer suggestions.

Stranger Suggests is given a lot of page space but weirdly placed. Either make it prominent by putting it in the top right or don't give it so much space at all.

The top banner does look way too boring for the Stranger. It's even almost ugly.

Use more outlining around each of the sections to help it feel less cluttered. And cut some of the pictures. The cluttered feeling wouldn't be so overpowering if all of the major content could fit on one screen view, without scrolling down (like Slate). But tehre is just too much, everywhere. It's like every article is yelling "hey, over here!" and "No, look over here!". Bleah.

The new layout kinda reminds me of the Microsoft/ iPod video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0.

I, too, am using the site more and more from a mobile device, so a busier, more scattered layout is a very bad thing. I will use the site less as a result.

I like the color. Otherwise, the design looks a little like something made with blogging software. Not exactly a bad thing, but not an improvement.

The events listing search thingie is COOL, love it. Just slap that baby near the top of the current site and leave it the hell alone. :thumbsup:

If you have far too much time on your collective hands, I can find activities that will certainly keep you all busy.

---Jensen

Please don't swtich just 'cause you've put the work in. I know it's hard to resist, but. . . don't do it. It's bad.

If you have far too much time on your collective hands, I can find activities that will certainly keep you all busy.

---Jensen

Suggests is too big, though. Weighs down the bottom of the window.

Using LINK tag auto-discovery for each RSS feed would be fabulous as well, especially since the latest browsers (IE7, FF2) support RSS auto-discovery. More on that: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/06/02/important_change_to_the_link_tag

-Mike

Don't forget it isn't always the screen resolution -- it is also how people use their computer screens. I have a 1280 x something resolution but I don't want my browser taking up my entire desktop, so I have it set to about 800 pixels or so. I use my browser, email, word processor, and usually some other stuff at one time, and I like to be able to move things around.

Search field on top of every page. Yey for search. Perfect!

The not so great:
Even on a 1024x768 resolution on Safari on a Mac there is still some horizontal scrolling. It disappears when the the window is resized to full 768, but that is rarely the case, for me at least. Horizontal scrolling is annoying to say the least.

I am not sure I understand the color coordination. Blue is an odd color choice as it is one that human eye is least sensitive to and much more importantly it is usually the color of hyperlinks. But that would be OK if the use was consistent. However, especially the calendar search is using a color scheme that doesn't match the rest of the site. There is blue, grey, green, turquoise, red, green, etc.

In the same vein I can count no fewer then 7 different font styles on the page. Serifs, Sans Serifs bolds and roman, etc. I think this is somewhat excessive. Fewer fonts would help unify the page.

Everything seems to be rather packed together. I would like to see a lot more use of negative space to separate content on the site instead of all the lines (rules) to do it.

Of course getting a reaction from your audience is great, but one thing that I would suggest is to to an actually user study. Those tend to reveal things that designers forget about -- since designers aren't users. The tests don't have to be expensive 10 or 15 people would do rather well. If that sounds daunting Heuristic Evaluation is a good compromise.

Anyway, great effort. I don't want to make this comment sounds overly critical, since you obviously care about your users enough to improve their experience on the Strager's site.

It is good to see more info on the screen, I always wanted to get restaurant and event listings easily.

I think there are a couple of tweaks I would look at. The secondary fonts (i.e. Slog's block quotes) look like anything I'd see on someone's first try at a blog. The menu bar could be more prominent, too. Also, the color scheme makes the site look "cold". I like blue in general, but I like the warmer scheme you guys have on the site now.

I am also get a feeling like I've seen this site before...does it look a little too much like the Weekly's layout?

The only thing I'd point out is that it seems like all of their blue text is, in fact, being used for links. If that weren't true, the hyperlink problem would be really annoying, but since they're using it for links, I think it's kind of ok. And dark blue on black may be boring, but it's very readable, unlike half of the colored crap on the web.

Usability study would be good, and it would have been good to ask us how we actually use (or want to use) the site BEFORE spending time/money on redesign (duh), but . . . hey. Better late than never.

Remember the KISS principle. Why provide three different links to the same thing? Keep the first column, the second column and the fourth colum on the first vertical page--i.e., no scrolling to access the same content--those are well done (though need a bigger default font).

The new masthead is more exciting than the Seattle Weekly's at least.

I was browsing through the movie times and saw that Children of Men will be playing when I arrive back in Seattle.

I clicked on " Children of Men" thinking I'd get to read a review (like I got when I clicked on another movie). Instead I simply got "See review this issue" (along with the upcoming showtimes times.)

Unless I'm missing something, there was no direct link to the review. I had to click on "Film" on the left nav bar and then click on the Children of Men review. Why can't "See review this issue" be a link that points to the review?

p.s. I think you should make the Slog button more obvious.

Children of Men and The Painted Veil should link to the reviews now, and new movies will link in the future. I'm trying to keep up with both versions of Film Shorts right now; bear with me.

Use any fonts you want for headlines, indexes, and other graphic elements, but please please please use an easily readable SERIF font for the body of text for articles. Serious readers will thank you. Seriously. The common font "Times" was specifically designed for newsprint to be both condensed and easy for the eyes to read. That is why ALL books use a serif font of one sort or another for the text.

Graphic design 101: rule #47: blue is a corporate color.

The Stranger is anything but corporate. Blue is totally the wrong choice of color for your new website.

In short, it looks pretty nice, but it's not all that functional. The amount of "stuff" on the front page is overwhelming and difficult to navigate visually.

Your link structure is still a pain to deal with. Having everything at URIs like thestranger.com/content?oid=123456 is far less useful than thestranger.com/20051023/letters/ and thestranger.com/current/letters/, with the front page for each issue at thestranger.com/20051023/ and thestranger.com/current/, etc.

There are some good tips for designing URIs in this W3C article: "Cool URIs don't change".

Unfortunately, I think her study was flawed.

I read very fast. In fact, I read faster than most people who learn "speed reading". People like me read large bodies of text differently than small chunks of text, like a headline. For stories and other longer bodies of text, my eyes scan a whole page, and my brain absorbs whole sentences and paragraphs at a whack. I don't actually read each individual word. I don't know how or why that works, but it does (I'm sure people who study this kind of thing could probably explain it). It isn't a conscious thing, nor was it taught to me; that's just how my brain works. And my reading comprehension is as high or higher than people who read more slowly and read each word individually.

One thing I have noticed is that my ability to read fast can be strongly effected by the use of non-standard fonts. I have to slow way down.

That is where I think this study falls apart. First, her test paragraphs are relatively short. Not really long enough to know if it would impact my ability to read and comprehend longer stories. Second, she uses a gobbldegook mix of non-words, rather than actual words in English. This completely ruins the study, because I can't read it anyway, regardless of the font. So what she is testing for is what fonts look good and clear on a monitor in short paragraphs with no actual context for real use.

Without testing it, I couldn't say for sure. But anecdotally, I'm pretty sure that I can still read faster for longer blocks of text in a serif font, even on a monitor, not just in print.

But that was an interesting study. One thing she doesn't delve into is monitor resolution. I'm guessing that the higher resolution monitors are more similar to reading printed text, and that lower resolution monitors don't deal as well with serifs, which might lead to more muddied text on a low res monitor.

Thanks!

Redesigned "look and feel" is...not so great. The old site has a brand identity. (The brand identity of your print paper. Appropriate!) The brand identity of this is kinda "My First Resume Template #3." Very clean, conservative and monochromatic. A lovely site for the Seattle Times or the Seattle Weekly. It's weird to read any of your articles in the framework of such conservative design.

Recommendation: Incorporate the functionality upgrades (better music calendar, etc) into the old graphic design. It's a fine site, the eye knows where to go, any scrolling goes pleasantly downwards instead of side to side. Then again, if the purpose of the redesign was to create more ad space to sell at higher prices, well done. But still, don't toss the old graphics. If you are bored and need new ones, shoot for the same style.

OK I'm done now.

I'd like to see a single navigation menu for sections, incorporating the regular columns and archives.

The font is awful. I expect something slicker and more modern from you kids.

I love the idea of a design contest in the vein of Slashdot - this is Seattle for crying outloud, we should be able to come up with three or four great redesigns that incorporate better browsing, more ad space, and nifty Web 2.0 features!

I do think the site needs to be redesigned - it feels very Internet 1998.

I think you guys went way to heavy on the modular headers, especially on the SLOG and Line Out. It really distracts the eye having all that horizontal block work. It would feel a lot less if you applied a back ground color to the content areas of the page and scratch the background color and borders around the headers.

Why have you gone with a fixed width? The content area should at least be allowed to flow you could set a min and max width for the content area only, this would allow people to view your pages at there preferred screen rez rather than having to deal with the scrolling. Oh and your pages are not scaling correctly in FF

the lead story isn't emphasized enough; it doesn't feel like a lead because the font size and the accompanying graphic of Gerald Goddamned Ford isn't as large as it should be.

the dark blue makes me think too much of my dad's old AF uniform, sorry to say. (but please don't go back to the old colors. i like blue. just not THAT blue.)

and scrolling down on my Mac's trackpad so much hurts my fingers. (i use Safari, which less than 2% of online nerds use to browse the internets, so maybe that's my fault and not yours.)

there's promise here, but it's not quite done yet, that much is obvious. good on you for letting us chip in our thoughts.

Toomuchinformationdisplayedatonetime.

Simplify and de-corporatize it a little.

1) Include dance (also in the left column on the front page) as a category;

2) Provide the full set of search options with the results, so if the user doesn't find music to their taste on a particular night they can start a new search for dance or a movie without backtracking to the previous page.

The Stranger is one of the last attempts at keeping Seattle real, how the hell are you going to spotlight local artists and musicians on a site that looks like it was built by a young republican?

You already lost us.

Don't care why, don't care how pretty, it's all about the bandwidth, baby.

Less is more.

1). Navy blue banner = fuckin ugly. Consider having it change each week or ask Johnny Ryan to do it.

2). Width not a problem for me, but you may want to consider more prominent gutter lines to distinguish the columns. Also, it's not clear why some are thinner than others below, i.e. chow is skinny, but music is wide. Why? Why not equal widths?

3). What's SLOG gonna look like?