New Lifehacker

This new system is HORRIBLE. Completely unreadable and it doesn't even work half the time! Not to mention unbelievably slow, when the server actually responds.

I noticed they did this to Jalopnik the other day, makes it much more difficult to browse the list of headlines. I very rarely want to read the first story on the list, or each story for that matter. I use sites like Jalopnik, LifeHacker, and even Hacker News as a stream of content during the day (that doesn't care if I skip a day, unlike my RSS reader), I pull up the page a few times a day, scan the headlines, and pick out 1 or 2 stories that actually attract my interest. The new interface for Gawker sites actually makes this process harder, not easier.

So the noticeable difference (having not paid attention to the layout of this particular blog in the past) from other blogs is that the sidebar doesn't scroll with the content.

That means that the big ad takes up about half the screen for me, and probably about 100% of the screen on a netbook, meaning that whatever links are supposed to be over there are permanently scrolled off the screen. I count 4 of them visible at my resolution, though the last one is cut off, implying that there's more that I'm missing.

So if their goal was to keep that particular ad in front of me the whole time I'm there, they've succeeded. But realistically they've simply removed the rest of their site from the navigation, meaning that if I end up there my only way to move on is via the back button.

I can't imagine that's what their goal was.

I like that they got rid of the giant submit box at the top that I always mistook for a search box.

The new layout seems to be pretty efficient, too. The bar on the right effectively acts as a RSS feed, letting you see stuff as it comes in and what time older stuff came in.

If you switch to the headline view (I assume it will be the default view, once the design's been up for a while and there's no need for the "Welcome to the new design" bit), it's just like the older version. The font change takes some getting used to, but I've always found serif fonts easier to read.

I'll use it for a bit before I make a decision, but for now, I like this.

I do wish the design were a bit wider, though. There's so much wasted space on the sides.

It fails the basic test for me. It just shows a blank page with Javascript disabled (NoScripts).

Navigation should never require Javascript. It should display content and gracefully degrade. It doesn't even display a "please enable js" style warning.

Doesn't fail gracefully with javascript disabled. That's three strikes all at once for me. Thankfully, they still have a full-content RSS feed if you dig around deep enough for it. You can say RSS is dead, but I'll probably see your proclamation via RSS. This solidifies LH as a site I will never intentionally click through to.

I really dislike the Gawker makeover. Everything feels so disjointed, I don't know where to look or what to read. Navigation is opaque and it's difficult to separate layout from content.

That looks like something designed for a tablet.

Actually it's my observation that any websites using (css:)fixed elements feels weirdly unnatural on desktop.

Scrolling is glitchy on Chrome Win x64 10.0.648.18

As someone who browses from a computer (shock horror!) this sucks. Everything is so squashed.

I see Gizmodo also changed. As such i will be removing Gizmodo off my daily reading list.

I wonder if that's going to be a more secure system addressing the hack!

Focusing on tablets?

And it's the same for all Gawker media sites!!!

They had me at "keyboard shortcuts".

Broken on iPad.