‘Simplify and add lightness’: A few design changes at F1 Fanatic
F1 Fanatic
You may have noticed some revisions to the layout of the site today.
The changes are far less radical than the last alteration to the site and are mainly aimed at making it easier to navigate, quicker to load and offer easier navigation.
The most significant changes are on the front page where you’ll notice the ‘grid’ format has been retired and replaced with a more conventional list of stories.
Beneath the top ten stories you’ll find a simple page list which allows you to browse through every article posted on F1 Fanatic.
Underneath that is another new feature – the top top most commented stories over the past 31 days. This is intended to help you keep up with the most popular content on the site. To the right of that is a revised list of latest articles across a range of categories.
There have been a few other changes throughout the site to improvement performance, reliability and fix some minor problems. Among them you should notice that logging in no longer redirects you to the home page – instead you are returned to the page you came from.
There are a few outstanding known problems which still require fixes, including on the mobile site. These will be addressed in future.
In the meantime if you have any feedback on today’s alterations please post details in the comments below. You can make suggestions for the site and report technical problems using the links below:
Nixon (@nixon) said on 8th January 2012, 18:24
Glad to see you caring about your readers, Kieth. Makes me feel special. :D
west (@west) said on 8th January 2012, 18:34
All this new layout is a copy cat from sky. com, any one on that!!!!! lol
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 8th January 2012, 20:44
@west I never use that website and don’t even know what it looks like.
Mike (@mike) said on 9th January 2012, 2:25
Just plugged sky.com into google. I don’t get it, it doesn’t look remotely similar? O.o
sato113 (@sato113) said on 8th January 2012, 18:35
i don’t like change but this looks good. ;)
however I miss the quick links to older articles above the ‘active f1 fanatics’ box on the right. now i have to scroll down to find these other articles. boo hoo. lol
sato113 (@sato113) said on 8th January 2012, 18:37
@keithcollantine ah i’ve just realised that the ‘new on f1 fanatic’ mini-list in the top right only appears when you’re viewing an article. can we not have this on the home screen too?
xxiinophobia (@xxiinophobia) said on 8th January 2012, 18:46
@sato113 That bit is the same list of articles that appears in the main area of the home page.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 8th January 2012, 20:45
@sato113 As @xxiinophobia points out it would only duplicate what’s already there, so what would be the point?
sato113 (@sato113) said on 8th January 2012, 22:30
fair enough then. guess i’m just too lazy to scroll down.
verstappen (@verstappen) said on 8th January 2012, 19:46
For me, it’s better. Although I got used to the new frontpage, sometimes it was ‘too fast’ for me. Especially when I was too busy for a few days to read F1F and then wanted to read up. (Although I have to admit that lately I’m always finding time…)
watty (@watty) said on 8th January 2012, 21:27
not sure if this is the right place – but one thing I would love to see is guardian style “recommend” for each comment. i.e. the ability to vote up popular posts but without the silliness of voting down by people of differing opinion.
leroy (@leroy) said on 8th January 2012, 21:56
I like the change, having more content is good. One of the things I love about the old layout was the preview underneath each article title, just a few lines to get a glimpse at the article. Any chance we can see that return?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 9th January 2012, 11:24
@leroy Nope I’ve decided to drop it. It just adds another step in publishing new articles which slows things down. And you’ve already got a one-line introduction and an image.
manatcna (@manatcna) said on 9th January 2012, 1:25
One word – Impressive
shrayyef (@shrayyef) said on 9th January 2012, 1:57
it’s now looking like more like a blog which it is.
nice work i liked the page number so i can go back to whenever i wanted.
wasiF1 (@wasif1) said on 9th January 2012, 2:06
To be honest I kind a liked the old grid system. Do you have any place where we could see the list of people who have commented over the past 31 days?
Mike (@mike) said on 9th January 2012, 2:45
Same, the grid was iconic too.
Mike (@mike) said on 9th January 2012, 3:45
Having said that, I didn’t like the grid when we first got that either.
I’m a grumpy bugger aren’t I? :D
BasCB (@bascb) said on 9th January 2012, 8:02
I know what you mean @mike, I was not thrilled when i first saw the grid. But now I miss it!
The changes below that (articles most commented on) and the fact that this way its easier to find a recent article on big news days (upcoming car presentations, testing, race weekends) makes it a defenitive positive for me.
Skinnious said on 9th January 2012, 2:18
I like it. May I suggest a couple of small CSS changes for the front page though?
At the moment, the date/comments text is far too bold. Since it’s right aligned, too, it makes your eye jump uncomfortably after reading the headline of the story. I’d suggest either swapping the entry_subtitle and the date/comments. Or, even easier, just change .entry_meta_first from font-weight: bold, to normal. Just did this with firebug and it looks a lot lighter and nicer.
I also noticed that in this CSS class, the margin-right is set at 5px, while the whole .homepage-intro box has no margin. I’d suggest setting .homepage-intro from 430px to 425 and adding the 5px margin there instead. This way, the text won’t be able to go all the way to the grey line.
damonsmedley (@damonsmedley) said on 10th January 2012, 5:06
I have no idea what any of that means, but yeah, I agree! :P
Jack Flash (Aust) said on 9th January 2012, 3:23
I like it. Front page scroll list makes things a lot easier to find, even older stories.
Thumbs up from me, Keith. JF
RumFRESH (@rumfresh) said on 9th January 2012, 4:07
This is great. I had a hard time going back and looking at earlier articles. The new layout definitely helps!
pankit2000 (@pankit2000) said on 9th January 2012, 5:12
Hey Keith,
Like the new design change … makes it a hell lot easier to navigate and go through older articles …
Like the tiles too but it was a little tedious if you ever wanted to go through old articles …
Big Thumbs Up to the new look and 2012 season …
Regards
Pc
OOliver said on 9th January 2012, 6:40
F1fanatic has almost turned full circle. This is close to the original theme.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 9th January 2012, 11:26
It’s closer to a previous theme but not the original one – I’m probably the only person who remembers what it first looked like and I’m not going back to that any time soon. I’ll dig out a picture if I can.
attarda (@attarda) said on 9th January 2012, 6:49
Great job keith keep it up. I’m a daily reader and it keeps better each time.
I like more the new look.
Looking forward for the first test as it seems long long time now!!!