Full FeedA new Gadgetell design for 2009
We are very excited to launch the next version of Gadgetell! We have rolled this new design out to Gadgetell and Appletell, and will follow-up with Gamertell in two weeks. Here is a rundown of what we were trying to achieve with the new site and some of the changes that went along with it.
Our goals with the new design were:
- Do a better/cleaner job of organizing/featuring/laying out content
- Fully integrate social aspect/membership network
- Keep the site looking fresh
- NOTE: this was never intended as a redesign, rather a refresh
A few things to notice:
- The 3 latest headlines are now big and bold for a quick glance. These will either be the latest news or breaking news from Gadgetell.
- ’Hot articles this week’ and ‘Hot topics today’ can be found in the second column. There are what they say and change based on the page you are on within the site (to best fit that content).
- A Featured Content box now sits under the Latest Headlines and lists 3 articles at a time…9 total. These will be exclusive content to Gadgetell and Gadgetell only, such as interviews, contests, reviews, columns, industry analysis, site announcements, and more!
- To help you browse faster and scroll less we we have condensed the article down the page and are now presenting them as excerpts with thumbnails.
- Keep track of your favorite writers with a full listing of the team masthead on the homepage. All names are links and go to the writer’s profile page.
- Wider post pages with less word wrapping: a cleaner look, larger images, and ready for high-res video.
- You can now log-in to Gadgetell from the top of the page and we have begun to roll our even more member benefits throughout (profile pages, avatars, etc) and have more to come. If you haven’t created an account, sign up now.
- Use of “Share This” on article pages to share articles on social networking sites and email
Please leave any and all feedback you have in the comments below. We are sure there are still a few bugs that we missed, so drop those in here as well.
We hope you like it!
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I miss the quick links to appletell/gadgettell/gamertell which i use to quickly navigate through all pages
And all the white is kinda distracting
And i kinda like to scroll down and read the headlines, rather then looking all over one place where i cant even tell whats text or a headline
But thats just me, or than those id say its a pretty nice change
on January 4, 2009 at 11:22 PM - LINKStephen, thanks for the comment. We have removed the quick links to the other sites from the sidebar but may put them into the footer once we finish up that part of the page (we opted to go live and make some final tweaks later on). We also now integrate the most relevant content from Gamertell and Appletell into the main feed of Gadgetell so at time we felt that it was a bit repetitive.
At first I too found the white very distracting, but I have begun to get used to it. The funny thing is that our first ever design was very white and then with the past two we have gotten darker and darker—so we felt it was time to brighten up a bit.
The headlines still run down the whole first page. Maybe this will help:
-3 headlines up top with the latest breaking Gadgetell news
-a box of 3 items of featured content—sort of the best of the best on Gadgetell
-the next 10 articles with headlines, a short excerpt from the post and an image
-lastly we have the final rundown of the next 10 headlines
—>All in all we have about 20 articles on the page, which accounts to about one day’s worth of news (on an average day we do 20 articles)
Thanks for the comment!
on January 4, 2009 at 11:27 PM - LINKAlright, thanks for the quick reply. I agree, it’s a good thing that your lightening it up after all the years of making it darker, and I think ill adjust, but for now I’m still getting used to it. Your post helped clear up any issues i had with trying to find things on the homepage, and I kind of like the way you prioritized the headlines. Oh yeah, and putting the links in the footer would be just as good as they were on the last version where they were on the right.
Well, all in all your plans sound good, and I like to see gadgettel evolving into a better website. Best of luck to you guys, and a happy belated new year XD! Good luck!
on January 5, 2009 at 12:06 AM - LINKThanks happy new year to you too. Enjoy the site, our upcoming CES coverage, Appletell’s Macworld coverage, and some big giveaways right thereafter.
on January 5, 2009 at 12:08 AM - LINKI noticed the RSS feed from Appletell now points to Gadgetell. Will Appletell have it’s own RSS feed again?
on January 5, 2009 at 07:50 AM - LINKThanks for catching this bug. We’ll get it fixed shortly.
on January 5, 2009 at 09:10 AM - LINK