Welcome to our latest design update, Ars 9.0!

More good stuff. Personalization, responsive design, and more...

See full article...

 

[Sharkbyte]

I'm sorry but comments don't work in-line. All of the view modes suck.

 

[Zncon]

Is there any way to get back to an older view? This whole thing looks like it's designed for mobile, and looks terrible on desktop. Everything is far too big. I used to be able to see 10 or more topics on the front page, and now it's only four in list mode.
Edit: And it feels very.. Flat? There's a major lack of variation between page elements and it makes it hard to know where I should be looking.

 

[Smithy6482]

Anyone else having an issue seeing comments on the article page? I've tried both Chrome and Edge. Comments do not show up for me. I have to go to the forum view to see any comments.

 

[CleveDawgPound]

Ugh, change.


Fine….

 

[radulov]

Comments are broken
doesnt recognize I am logged in
design in NOT responsive, try the page in 4K (see image)
What happened? ARS having a Sonos moment? This is seriously broken stuff

 

[Aurich]

We know the comments are broken, it's a bug, we're working on it.

Once we get things that are broken sorted out (we tested this all, and of course once things are live there are issues to sort) we'll take feedback into account more seriously.

Until we know everything is working right it's hard to sort bugs from everything else. We just need to ask for a little patience, we are a very small team that can only do so many things at once.

 

[RajeshV]

The new list view is absolutely perfect for me, and yay for dark mode. Neutron view is quite interesting also and would definitely be great for power users (though I feel it should allow opening articles with just the mouse also).

Thanks for the update. Loving it so far.

 

[CleveDawgPound]

Anyone else having an issue seeing comments on the article page? I've tried both Chrome and Edge. Comments do not show up for me. I have to go to the forum view to see any comments.

9.1 maybe?

 

[entropy_wins]

It's a shame such a good site like Ars can have a spectacular miss with the new interface.

Surely, production 101 is to have a testing phase and reversion option?

 

[leonwid]

First impression on my iPhone: it sucks.

The screen space is limited and is now not filled with information like the title but with a picture and lots and lots of whitespace.

I really want a quick overview, not scroll continuously.

 

[LeoRed]

Is there any way to get back to an older view? This whole thing looks like it's designed for mobile, and looks terrible on desktop. Everything is far too big. I used to be able to see 10 or more topics on the front page, and now it's only four in list mode.

To be fair, it looks terrible on mobile too.

 

[prairiedog]

Anyone else having an issue seeing comments on the article page? I've tried both Chrome and Edge. Comments do not show up for me. I have to go to the forum view to see any comments.

Same for Safari & Chrome on MacOS.

 

[Snark218]

Well, I'm sure you know this, but comments are fucked.

Some random feedback:

• Round header images in grid and Classic view have to go. More than anything else anyone is going to say, this is - and I say this with love - dogshit UI/UX and actively makes your header images irrelevant and incomprehensible. Most of the periphery of the image that gives the subject some context is invisible, and because a circle wastes so much space, they have to be tiny, so the subject isn't easy to make out. Really, truly, seriously, headers cannot be tiny round medallions and how that passed even the mockup stage confounds me. List view is the way for now, but that only has "most read" not "featured" as the sidebar.
• The customization features are interesting. Finally, all those who super seriously swear they really, really do not want to read any more stories about Elon Musk can turn them off! (Narrator: they will not)
• In grid view, alternating whether the headline or the tiny circular header image preview thing is on top in the grid square is confusing, hard to read, and visually incoherent. I think y'all were trying to break up the sameness of all the grid squares, but it's a grid; own it or ditch the option.
• We read left to right. Putting "featured" at the same level as new stories is odd, but not new. Wish you didn't, though.

 

[MacBrave]

"Classic" mode sure doesn't look like the Ars I was visiting yesterday, or last week.

 

[clackerd]

Jarring and not really any better than what it replaced as far as navigation goes. I'm sure you'll give it the polish it (most assuredly) needs, but first impressions are not great.

 

[Geebs]

It’s certainly a big update. As in, everything is waaaaaaaay too big.

 

[Zncon]

To be fair, it looks terrible on mobile too.

Well that's hilarious. I only use it on desktop, so I just assumed it had to be better in mobile land.

 

[tipsy.trex]

Fuck information density, am i right? Personally, I think we still have too many articles on the front page, three is overwhelming. I should have to scroll at least twice to see a second headline.

 

[gizmo23]

The other significant change is that Ars now uses a much larger default text size. This has been the trend with basically every site since our last design overhaul, and we're normalizing to that. People with aging eyes (like me!) should appreciate this, and mobile users should find things easier to read in general.

You can, of course, change it to suit your preferences.

Ok, how? I'd like to be able to see more than two stories on the home page without the need to scroll on mobile

 

[pauleyc]

Oh dear. Oh dear.

I saw that the Lounge topic "What happened today that you liked" was recently bumped and my first reaction was "well, certainly not the new layout". After I reset my zoom settings on desktop and mobile it's...ok I guess? The old layout was perfect though so everything feels like a step back. I certainly will need to get used to the new hotness but...ugh, change.

Also. comments are not visible at the moment at all. edit: in-line comments under the articles, on desktop and mobile.

 

[shawnce]

I think we are going to need a per device or per form factor mode selection... that or improvement of the design for mobile. I can absorb a good amount of dead space on my desktop browser but on mobile the dead space in the view styles is a little too much, I have to swipe scroll a lot to find stories (often interrupted by unexpected special sections).

I will play with the settings to see if I can get it working well enough but I suspect what I do to make the desktop work for me will cause mobile to be less then ideal (and vice versa).

 

[Lovelac7]

Absolutely hate it.

 

[Noiro]

And the march towards showing as little actual information as possible continues. In 5-10 years there will be no content at all, just white space.

Seriously though, these margins are absurd.

 

[nimro]

Looking forward to reading the same comment thread as the last 4-5 redesigns I was around for

I like the new article reading experience, especially the updated font and how there are no distractions. I'll need to play with the new front page layouts for a bit before having any real thoughts.

Happy redesign day!

 

[poochyena]

The text and dead space really is too big. I think an increase is good, but the increase was overdone I think.
I think the new article pages are fine, as is front page on mobile.
I don't hate any of it, but I wouldn't say anything is an improvement either, other than filters.

 

[Waco]

Information density is down in every view. The desktop site is now even more of a space waste.

I know you guys are not a big team - but surely this could have been tested prior to launching to universal negative feedback?

 

[Cormacus]

My main criticism is the wasted space. Elements are spaced too far apart. Please take a look at how to better use both mobile and desktop real-estate.

 

[JoelF847]

I really didn't want to post since ai scares the comments but don't have another way to provide feedback.

I don't like dark mode, but seems even when I'm in daylight mode the home page is still dark backgrounds, yuck.

In an article or comments it seems to work but the main page doesn't.

Edit: seems that the problem is only for grid view. Since classic is better, immediate problem solved.

 

[mumble sloth]

light mode is just dark mode with a light background now...

 

[leonwid]

Neutron view is ok on my iPhone. Titles should have a smaller font. Under that green thingy there’s room for a comment count box.

It wouldn’t look great but at least the information density would be higher than almost 0.

 

[dhexcxr]

Looks pretty good, appreciate the new view modes.

I found the Font Size setting in Account -> Preferences, and when I change and save it the text in that Preferences menu changes but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the font size in articles (currently on iOS).

 

[Varste]

Anyone else having an issue seeing comments on the article page? I've tried both Chrome and Edge. Comments do not show up for me. I have to go to the forum view to see any comments.

Same boat, and came here to comment. I have to go to Forum view to see comments. I do have Ghostery installed, but I have Ars as a trusted site so it shouldn't be affecting it. Never did in the past.
I will also share my sentiment that there is way too much padding on desktop, it feels so wasteful. If you have old eyes, just hit that Ctrl + combo and embiggen your text. If I do the opposite and use Ctrl - to decrease text size, it also increases the padding! So it doesn't really help.

 

[Grimblegromble]

Oh, so it's your fault! I thought either I or Firefox had gone insane.
Only viewed on mobile so far, but I think it's a bloated mess. Sorry.

 

[xsherlock]

gigantic serif font in grid is totaly unusable on desktop, honestly none of the views is good, font choice is terible

 

[Veritas super omens]

I'm Okay with change that means improvements. This ain't that. The comments icon leads to a circle that never gets to comments. I am comment on forum view. Please fix this. My subscription money is at stake for you.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

The other significant change is that Ars now uses a much larger default text size. This has been the trend with basically every site since our last design overhaul, and we're normalizing to that. People with aging eyes (like me!) should appreciate this, and mobile users should find things easier to read in general. You can, of course, change it to suit your preferences.

Ok, how do I change the font size? In my account preferences, I can make my font size small, but that just changes it in the forum. On the main site everything is still huge.