Come Try Out Slashdot's New Design (In Beta)

Slashdot's biggest redesign effort ever is now in beta and you're invited to help guide it. This redesign has been shaped by feedback from community members over the past few months (a big thanks to those of you who participated in our alpha testing phase!), and we'd like your thoughts on it, too. This new design is meant to be richer but also simpler to use, while maintaining the spirit of what Slashdot is all about: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters. Read on for the details of what's included, or read this blog post. Update: 10/02 19:16 GMT by T : Since this post went live, we've been reading through the comments below as well as your (hundreds!) of emails. These are all valuable, as we continue to implement our current features into the Beta. Keep 'em coming; we love the feedback. Please keep in mind that this is called Beta for a reason; we've still folding in lots of improvements. One important thing to bear in mind is that the images are optional: check out the Classic mode by clicking on the view selection widget (just above the stories) on the Beta page. What's in the Beta?

• Cleaner, simpler homepage design with option to view stories in three different layouts (Standard, Classic and Headline View)
• More community-promoted content in the All Stories view
• Improved profile pages to give you a snapshot of other community members
• Better, more prominent filters to view stories in different dimensions
• Easier browsing of popular topics straight from the main page.

Please keep in mind that this is a beta and some features are not yet available or fully baked. For features not yet available, you'll see a "Coming Soon" bubble if you hover your mouse over those areas of the site. Here are a few key areas we are still working on:

• Sign up
• moderation
• story submission
• replying to comments

Update: 10/01 20:54 GMT by S : For those of you who would rather browse Slashdot without pictures, click the icon at the top right of the story column, and switch to Classic View.

Comments

Link broken?

[Samantha Wright]

For some bizarre reason, https: on the link redirects to the current home page.

Who wants to start making tongue-in-cheek remarks about the current layout instead of the new one?

Re:Link broken?

[TWX]

I opened it. Unlike the current design, it did not scale to fit my 1400x1050 screen, leaving large whitespace borders on both edges. If that's what it does on a 4:3 screen with a narrower horizontal resolution than many modern widescreen "high definition" displays, then this is a bad thing.

Additionally there was less content on the initial screen than there is on the current design. Much of the time I skim the headlines, if I find one I find relevant I immediately read the blurb. If the blurb appeals then I follow the link(s) or read the comments. This new layout doesn't offer as much content on a given screen, and one thing I learned in design in general, if you don't grab your audience with little more than a glimpse, then you've lost your audience.

I did design for some ads for some fandom events, and within the form factor of the ad I had to answer who/what why, and when, and to a lesser extent, where. I had to name the event, give the viewer a reason to go to the event, give the date for the event, and for events that weren't in the normal venues or where the venue itself was an advantage, name the venue. All of this information needed to be conveyed in little-more than a snapshot.

While Slashdot or any bulletin board system is not the same as an ad, it is important to present the frame of the discussion in a format that allows the casual browser to see the important stuff pop out instantly. The current layout, with different presentations, reverse colors for somethings, etc, works to do that. The new format didn't give me the impression of being well organized in that regard. One needs the headline to convey the important "grabber' in a way that actually commands attention. The new system didn't do that for me.

Re:Link broken?

[dgatwood]

Speaking of text, in Safari, I have to increase the font size twice before the "Most Discussed" heading on the main page appears in the same row as the rest of the buttons.

Also, when they chose their color scheme, did they actually test it on even one Mac laptop with the standard Mac gamut? Because all those near-white colors are completely indistinguishable until I tilt the screen by about ten or fifteen degrees. They're way, way too subtle. I can't even tell where one story ends and the next one begins. The site borders on unusably hard to read as a result.

Re:Link broken?

[Soulskill]

I hope to hell someone with a say in the matter reads this and understands what it really means.

We're reading, and we understand, believe me.

Thanks for the feedback.

Oh yea, it's fantastic

[NoImNotNineVolt]

It looks great on my 14" SVGA CRT.

On my 1920x1080 LCD, it looks retarded. There's as much whitespace running down the sides as there is content running down the middle.

Apparently "Web 2.0" involves designing sites for 9:16 devices. I think someone got that aspect ratio inverted somewhere along the line.

Re:collapsable comments

[strength_of_10_men]

Agreed

And the redesigned nesting layout makes it harder to follow threads. I'm not exactly sure what others are seeing but my current layout preference has comments nested with clear boxes/lines delineating each, which makes telling what nesting level they belong to.

pluses and minuses

[Strange Ranger]

Well it certainly looks more modern and pretty.
But the part where 70% of my monitor is blank white space sure isn't a step forward.
And not being able to see any comment info on the home page is another step backwards.
 
But it doesn't look antiquated. That's sure a plus. It looks like the default wordpress theme.
 
Hey it's like a hot sorority chick! Sexy as hell for an hour. Then frustrating and mostly empty. But hey it shows real well at homecoming.

Re:pluses and minuses

[afidel]

Luckily the layout can be fixed with a few lines of greasemonkey script, just turn off max width on the split-right container, turn off the background images and turn off the max width on the col-river pull-left div and things look MUCH better. I commented on the first day of the beta that the whitespace was horrendous but apparently they don't care, luckily HTML and CSS are client side so we can decide how to render the page =)

Re:pluses and minuses

[afidel]

Oh yeah and if you want to get rid of the right column crap in comments just write a rule to remove the width parameter from col-river pull-left for *.slashdot.org/story/, it makes the content 100% width and hides the right column.

Re:pluses and minuses

[radicalpi]

I threw together a GM Script to fix the width issue. I plan on expanding it and tweaking it a bit, assuming they ignore the feedback and don't address it on the Beta site. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/179020

Wasted space

[Flentil]

I have a widescreen monitor and roughly half is blank white space. Also, the images load slow, like they wait for me to scroll and see they're not loaded and only then do they begin to load. I guess this is a feature, but it works like a bug. I'm with the others who say give us the option to see the old format, but the cynic in me says that will expire and we'll be stuck with the new view anyway in a few months.
Also, Slashdot, please remember what happened to Digg when they redesigned everything.

Use 100% width please

[Tepar]

This layout does not auto-adjust to the width of the browser. It is responsive for smaller screens, but for large ones, it wastes space. I hope you're also working on the comment filtering, because I don't see those controls anywhere.

Re:One request

[Spillman]

I agree. As someone who doesnt have the best vision and generally uses Ctrl-+ a few times in web browsers , I can assure, all those layers start to break and it looks terrible. I've been a happy slashdot reader for 12 years, please don't make me somewhere else. Thanks!

Complete waste of space

[damnbunni]

The actual content only fills about a third of my browser's width.

Worthless.

Why so narrow?

[Max_W]

Why did I buy a large wide display? 20 centimeters from the left and from the right are empty. A narrow long column of the text, like a pillar, is on the screen.

Some feedback

[jones_supa]

The main page looks refreshing and nice. Bringing more attention to submissions is also a good idea. Tree structure of comments is now harder to follow though. The classic version with clear borders around comments and ample usage of horizontal page was much more comfortable. I hope the main page autorefresh has been removed (or an option to turn it off), I always find it annoying in the current version. Now would also be excellent moment to roll in the long-awaited Unicode support.

Fixed-width text areas are brain-dead.

[jcr]

When I make the window wider, I don't want to just get more blank space.

Seriously guys, this is pretty simple stuff. Get it right.

-jcr

Re:Gonna miss Slashdot

[afidel]

Dude, it's a freaking mailto: link, if your system is setup to use Outlook to handle mailto: it's nobodies fault but your own!

Wasted space

[jbmartin6]

The side bar is too big. And the images with the stories serve no purpose other than to clutter up the screen.

fixed column width sucks

[bored]

See subject

Re:Digg version 2.0

[i kan reed]

Well, they do look utterly unbearable. And that made me go look at the user control panel to see how the comment summary is. It's really wonderful to not be able to see what replies you've gotten on your posts, or get a summary table by story of your posts. That just reeks of feature improvement. This is not a good design, and I can't see myself continuing to use slashdot if they changed over now.

Re:How about the old design?

[jerpyro]

I agree. The current iteration on the homepage is bad enough, but at least it lets you expand the page to full width, and doesn't have somewhat related stock photos taking up space on the page. I used to read Fark before they switched to a fixed-width, graphical intensive layout -- and now it's useless. When I go to slashdot, I want it to load fast, be free of BS and give me the latest without having to skip stupid stuff. If I wanted to see pictures and horiscopes and shit I'd set my browser to MSN.com.

Please, less with the attempted eye candy and more with the news for nerds. You shouldn't be trying to appeal to mass-market web designs, half of us still subscribe to USENET for God's sake.
 

One giant step forward to trendiness . . .

[Jimbo God of Unix]

One giant leap backwards for readability.

Come on, really? It's not a "media" site, it's a readers/posters site.

Re:Sigh

[koreanbabykilla]

I have a 4 digit UID as well, I have been coming here every day for as long as I can remember. Without the ability to keep slashdot the way I like I really may stop coming. Hopefully someone that matters reads these and at least leaves me a way to do so. More power to em to redesign all they want for the young whipersnappers, but better leave us old folks some way to use the old way or we will be gone.

Images

[Soulskill]

For those of you who would prefer to read the site without images, click the icon at the top right of the story column. You'll be able to switch to a classic view, or to a headlines-only view.

Low Res

[gd2shoe]

Unlike the current design, it did not scale to fit my 1400x1050 screen, leaving large whitespace borders on both edges. If that's what it does on a 4:3 screen with a narrower horizontal resolution than many modern widescreen "high definition" displays, then this is a bad thing.

It also doesn't work well on my laptop 1024x768 screen. (Yeah, I know that's low, but It's a laptop. People are still using this resolution, making it a good minimum gauge.)

The font is larger, but the real problem is the right-hand panel that takes up too much room. This compresses the comments, forcing them to take more vertical space and making the conversation harder to follow. The font size and extra whitespace give a more open feel, but they exacerbate the conversation problem.

Remember, Slashdot comments aren't loved because we can read what others have written. They're loved because we can hold conversations. Anything that detracts from being able to hold or follow conversations will make Slashdot less popular.

Re:Low Res

[skegg]

* Same here: excessive white-space down the left & right-hand side of the page.
* As others have said, the presentation of comments is off-putting.
* Images at the top of each article are a waste of space; dump them and display the full bloody summary instead !

Let me put it this way:
I used to visit Engadget a couple of times a day (I currently visit Slashdot more often). However after Engadget adopted their current design, I'd say I now visit them about once every 1 or 2 weeks. I love the content, I just detest how it's being presented to me. And now you guys are going down the same path ?!

You've been told. The rest is up to you.

Re:What's the problem that the redesign fixes?

[narcc]

Some people have complained about the lack of a moderation breakdown, the addition of even more unnecessary javascript, and lack of unicode support. It doesn't seem to offer users anything new.

Also, it completely sucks.

ABSO-FSCKING-LUTELY NOT!

[ewhac]

You are forbidden from deploying this design. Dear $(GOD), what the hell is the matter with you? Who told you this was a good idea? Which three-pleat consultant said that this highly technical readership wanted this site to look like a fluffy blog with fscktons of whitespace? How much money did s/he take from you? Have you caught them yet?

For those of you who would rather browse Slashdot without pictures, click the icon at the top right of the story column, and switch to Classic View.

Does. Not. Work.

This is real, pathetically simple, Mr. S:

• Install Firefox.
• Install NoScript plugin. Leave at default settings.
• Surf to your site.

If your site does not operate correctly using this browser setup, --== YOUR SITE IS BROKEN!!==-- Please do not assume that the users on this of all sites are fscking morons who leave their browsers in an insecure state and happily execute just Any Damned Script. You're lucky I'm willing to whitelist fsdn.com, but just who the fsck is rpxnow.com, or ooyala.com?

Scrap the whole damned thing and start over. Better still: Don't start over. It's fine the way it is.

Not a redesign

[DerekLyons]

Slashdot's biggest redesign effort ever

This isn't a redesign - it's a fundamental replacement of how the site functions. Looking at the beta is like visiting Amazon.com and finding Flickr.com instead.

Frankly, the new commenting 'system' sucks - the comment area is too narrow for useful indenting, and you've taken away the bars the separate one comment from another. In the name of looking "l33t and h1p!11!!!11" you've basically torn the heart out of the most basic function of the site.

The less said about boring, generic, and derivative overall look, the better.

Slashdot is, and always will be, something of a fringe site. That's a function of the content and the community, not of the site design. It's not hip and trendy, and it never will be.