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Mashable's Responsive Redesign

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Re: Mashable's Responsive Redesign

#11

Post by thetrendycyborg »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #3

Shades of the Gawker redesign here. I just don't see the benefit of having 3 distracting, content-filled columns with the most important information being on the far right (on the desktop and tablet versions, anyway), unless their target audience was using Arabic or Hebrew as their primary language.

The reason that the big content is on the right is that it is the most popular content, likely already read. The new stuff is on the left, and we want the eye to move across the page in the natural way to help promote newer and rising content.

Re: Mashable's Responsive Redesign

#12

Post by cheald »

zachwill wrote: post #8

Interesting that you can't look at any of the articles without signing up. No thanks.

It's a technical measure, not a marketing one. We're going to open up pieces of the product to general use as we smoketest and validate their performance. The join page is more or less there to be served Very Very Fast (and still let people be notified when stuff opens up) more than it is to lock people out of content.

This iteration is a ground-up custom build rather than an iteration on Wordpress, so we're being conservative with our testing. It won't be that way for too long.

Re: Mashable's Responsive Redesign

#13

Post by akshat »

I found the design distracting, and was not sure where to look first. I normally look for the main content on the left side of the screen.

Since "The next big thing" column is in green, I expected that to be the primary section, but then because it was smaller, moved to the right section.

Overall, I prefer blogs to have the more traditional feel.

Re: Mashable's Responsive Redesign

#16

Post by cheald »

RollAHardSix wrote: post #7
humbyvaldes wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who doesn't like this trend?

YANA. - Just made my day I got to use that! I too, do not like this trend. Does the average consumer (statistically)?

(I'm the tech lead at Mashable and on this project)

Our analytics and testing have indicated that there's a direct correlation between how visual (versus textual) our presentation is and how well it performs. Personally, I prefer a much more linear and text-heavy presentation (I spend all day on HN!), but our core audience is apparently different from me. Over the past couple of years, our audience has grown to be much more general and less tech-oriented (as I'm sure many HN readers have noticed), and the new design was done with that in mind.

I didn't like it at first, but it's grown on me. The article pages are much more "traditional" in terms of presentation, as well, which helps (and yes, I know you can't see them right now; sorry!)

Re: Mashable's Responsive Redesign

#17

Post by meritt »

cheald wrote: post #16
RollAHardSix wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YANA. - Just made my day I got to use that! I too, do not like this trend. Does the average consumer (statistically)?

(I'm the tech lead at Mashable and on this project) Our analytics and testing have indicated that there's a direct correlation between how visual (versus textual) our presentation is and how well it performs. Personally, I prefer a much more linear and text-heavy presentation (I spend all day on HN!), but our core audience is apparently different from me. Over the past couple of years, our audience has grown to be mu…

Keep an eye on your ad revenue because you have a serious case of information overload at this point and the well-padded banner advertisement went almost entirely unnoticed for me. Advertisers will see that consumers never click nor react to their ads (Unless it's a CPM media buy and they don't get to see stats...) any longer and will eventually seek higher performing placement.

Re: Mashable's Responsive Redesign

#19

Post by cheald »

meritt wrote: post #17
cheald wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the tech lead at Mashable and on this project) Our analytics and testing have indicated that there's a direct correlation between how visual (versus textual) our presentation is and how well it performs. Personally, I prefer a much more linear and text-heavy presentation (I spend all day on HN!), but our core audience is apparently different from me. Over the past couple of years, our audience has grown to be mu…

Keep an eye on your ad revenue because you have a serious case of information overload at this point and the well-padded banner advertisement went almost entirely unnoticed for me. Advertisers will see that consumers never click nor react to their ads (Unless it's a CPM media buy and they don't get to see stats...) any longer and will eventually seek higher performing placement.

We absolutely will be. We're trying to find ways to integrate advertising in ways that are less obtrusive than normal; we're readers, too, and hate obnoxious ads as much as the next guy. We do direct ad sales rather than through a middleman, so we have some leeway in how stuff is presented, and we work with our advertisers to make sure that everyone is happy.

At the end of the day, advertising pays the bills, so we have to figure out the right balance there. Initial feedback from our advertising partners has been very good, though, and we'll be watching it closely, because...well, we like being able to pay rent. :)

Re: Mashable's Responsive Redesign

#20

Post by bluetidepro »

> "Use anything from your Nexus 7 to your mom's iPhone 4 to browse Mashable's new adaptive design." (A quote from within the left column marketing image)

Is it often referred to as "adaptive design", I've only heard it as "Responsive Redesign". Is there a difference between the two in any way? I doubt so, but I just figured I would ask so I don't miss something with the lingo...

Also, for the record, my mom actually has an iPhone 5 and I only have an iPhone 4. ;) Ha

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