Welcome to our latest design update, Ars 9.0!
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Truly hideous redesign, I thought Ars was one of the nicer looking sites on the web on Mobile and desktop before this, now it looks truly awful on both, almost a clunky 2000s cheap-software-template vibe. You've managed to replace a nice, very readable professional hub navigation with three options for worse versions that are all bloated with whitespace, somehow even while ditching images, it is actively tiresome just to work out what I've read. I will probably just find another way to get Ars, I've been a daily reader but this is so bad it's actively annoying to use and look at
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I read ARS mostly on my desktop and (so far) the "List" layout works for me here, but it was jarring when I navigated back to the home page and the "Featured" article I saw while in Grid view was gone! I was surprised to find that it was several articles down the page which hardly screams "Featured".
I very much like the "Most Read" items, but why can't I have both in List View with "Featured" top right followed by "Most Read"?
I very much like the "Most Read" items, but why can't I have both in List View with "Featured" top right followed by "Most Read"?
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Piping in a bit late: it seems like the text width is independent of header image width until it gets sufficiently narrow. Lots of dead space, and it's not "on the sides" dead space - it's exclusively on the right unless you're full-screen.
This disappears as I manually shrink the window, but it makes default Windows half-screen snap experience a rough viewing experience compared to even narrower windows:
This disappears as I manually shrink the window, but it makes default Windows half-screen snap experience a rough viewing experience compared to even narrower windows:
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Where, exactly? When I change the font settings in my profile, it affects font size everywhere except the front page/articles. So... doesn't seem to be an option.
Can we please hide the "Most Read" box entirely? And, critically, let that space be used by the articles list/grid instead? There's an "Any" option for the settings there, but I'd prefer a "none" option, to be honest.
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Going to add an observation (or two) based on the comments which seem to suggest that this change is not well liked in much the same way a tidal wave would suggest things are soon going to get a touch moist.
I get that the good folks at Ars are trying to address the issues its readers have mentioned over the years with the site. But the comments would suggest they missed the mark by making other things not so good anymore.
I feel for the Ars crew. They get a complaint (or 1000) and do what they can to address it, and then get feedback that largely adds up to, "Yes, it's fixed but we didn't want it THAT way!"
For the record, I don't use Ars on my phone, ever. So whatever complaints that suggest it's worse there than on the desktop don't really apply to me. Also, I find the new layout inoffensive, if different. Some zoom settings fixes 90% of the issue, and the larger font fixes the rest. Some of the stories don't show up on the same window as before, but scrolling takes little effort.
I wasn't keen on change to begin with, but once I explored the changes, and the missing functionality came back, I'm fine with it. There are definitely new features I like a lot (especially the topic hiding!).
No one likes to see massive remodeling of their "home" without the opportunity to pick the type of paneling and wallpaper that's going to be put up. That the notice of the change was posted in the forums was probably not the best idea they've had, either. Most of us rarely routinely go there. (Today was the first time in ages for me.)
But because people in general are resistant to change, their emotions are usually ruled by the reaction of coming to a "familiar place" and finding gross unfamiliarity upon arrival. I did not react well. That was MY initial impression, too. But the more I use it, the easier it becomes, and it's much more clean than before, making finding my way around easier. That's probably a nod to those smartphone users, too.
My only complaint at this point is how the links don't change colors once clicked. It's a minor quibble, and I'm sure that's on the "it fucking worked before deployment!" list of things someone who's working on it is probably screaming as their hair goes flying. They have my sympathies.
But as I posted before, life IS change. This is just the next evolution of Ars Technica's website. And with time, and a few more tweaks, I suspect most folks will settle down and learn to deal with it without as much screaming and hair pulling they're having, too.
I get that the good folks at Ars are trying to address the issues its readers have mentioned over the years with the site. But the comments would suggest they missed the mark by making other things not so good anymore.
I feel for the Ars crew. They get a complaint (or 1000) and do what they can to address it, and then get feedback that largely adds up to, "Yes, it's fixed but we didn't want it THAT way!"
For the record, I don't use Ars on my phone, ever. So whatever complaints that suggest it's worse there than on the desktop don't really apply to me. Also, I find the new layout inoffensive, if different. Some zoom settings fixes 90% of the issue, and the larger font fixes the rest. Some of the stories don't show up on the same window as before, but scrolling takes little effort.
I wasn't keen on change to begin with, but once I explored the changes, and the missing functionality came back, I'm fine with it. There are definitely new features I like a lot (especially the topic hiding!).
No one likes to see massive remodeling of their "home" without the opportunity to pick the type of paneling and wallpaper that's going to be put up. That the notice of the change was posted in the forums was probably not the best idea they've had, either. Most of us rarely routinely go there. (Today was the first time in ages for me.)
But because people in general are resistant to change, their emotions are usually ruled by the reaction of coming to a "familiar place" and finding gross unfamiliarity upon arrival. I did not react well. That was MY initial impression, too. But the more I use it, the easier it becomes, and it's much more clean than before, making finding my way around easier. That's probably a nod to those smartphone users, too.
My only complaint at this point is how the links don't change colors once clicked. It's a minor quibble, and I'm sure that's on the "it fucking worked before deployment!" list of things someone who's working on it is probably screaming as their hair goes flying. They have my sympathies.
But as I posted before, life IS change. This is just the next evolution of Ars Technica's website. And with time, and a few more tweaks, I suspect most folks will settle down and learn to deal with it without as much screaming and hair pulling they're having, too.
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I don’t think the internet works at all for widescreen monitors anymore. Too many sites just give up on that format. If you want a good experience with a lot of screen space, get a second 4:3 or 16:10 monitor, spin it sideways, and put your web browser on that. Main screen is for coding.
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Just my 2¢ ... I don't consume online content via the vertical world and I find the increased emphasis on the extreme ratio phone screens (as much as 22:9) and it's resulting empty/wasted/blank space on a horizontal monitor to be a little sad. Thank you. PS, I continually frighten and confuse friends and relatives when I post or send videos recorded (I have not "filmed" or "taped" any content in 15 years) in a horizontal/landscape aspect! My eyes are still arranged in that format.
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You're clearly not alone!
Hopefully our collective blood pressure will drop once some of the most glaring bugs are worked out.
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I’m not going to whine about the layouts. Seems good to me.
But having to reduce privacy protections in order to log in sits wrong with me.
iOS with safari and iPad with Firefox exhibit the same. Once logged in it looks like I can reenable them, but it is a nuisance.
But having to reduce privacy protections in order to log in sits wrong with me.
iOS with safari and iPad with Firefox exhibit the same. Once logged in it looks like I can reenable them, but it is a nuisance.
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Ars is literally the only website I trust with a site refresh.
Y'all did fine in the past. Last update nearly everyone was bitching, and it ended up fine. Now everyone's going to bit a bit about this one.
But all in all the updates look acceptable to me, and I'll get use to them after a bit of cognitive retraining on how I interact with the site.
Y'all did fine in the past. Last update nearly everyone was bitching, and it ended up fine. Now everyone's going to bit a bit about this one.
But all in all the updates look acceptable to me, and I'll get use to them after a bit of cognitive retraining on how I interact with the site.
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The trend towards larger fonts is for accessibility. People with bad eyesight are more likely to read and engage in content they can read (for obvious reasons), and people with good eyesight can still read the text if it's slightly larger. Try reducing your browser zoom to partially compensate?
No need to be so rude. I'm sure the team spent hundreds of hours on this redesign, and I'm guessing the bug was discovered after go-live.
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Made a new account (lurker, of over a decade) just to say I hate, like, all of this. I won't be back if this is the interface, and will just spend more time elsewhere. Thanks for the good times, best of luck.
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It's great that some people wanted a "most read" feature, but for others of us (to repeat a point I made this morning), it's the new most hated feature.
I could do without condescending remarks about how change is unsettling, although at least you guys are doing this with good intentions, unlike some a55hole apps who just change their UIs to relentlessly push more product.
It's great the site is more responsive and better under the hood. But the new hoods and their ornaments are ugly and need some real rethinking just for esthetics, not to mention readability.
If you're making a change, make sure it's truly for the better.
And you could at least make font sizes directly controllable outside of the browser's zoom, since that causes its own problems. It's like Ars is constantly yelling at me now.
I could do without condescending remarks about how change is unsettling, although at least you guys are doing this with good intentions, unlike some a55hole apps who just change their UIs to relentlessly push more product.
It's great the site is more responsive and better under the hood. But the new hoods and their ornaments are ugly and need some real rethinking just for esthetics, not to mention readability.
If you're making a change, make sure it's truly for the better.
And you could at least make font sizes directly controllable outside of the browser's zoom, since that causes its own problems. It's like Ars is constantly yelling at me now.
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FWIW, the old "mobile site" was actually much nicer from my perspective.
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I just wanted to say thanks to Aurich for bearing the brunt of the negative responses today, but it is awesome that you guys are in here listening at all. Coming back to the thread a few hours later and scrolling through the comments, it really shows how special Ars Technica is as a site. The average account age of the comments in here has to be over 10+ years old. It's nice there is still somewhere on the internet where the grizzled old nerds can get together. So many of us have been around here forever and it is nice that Ars seems to actually care and listen. Even if it isn't perfect yet, keep it up!
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You know why it looks like that?
Because you're blocking ads. That blank space on the right is where an ad would be.
The subscriber view looks like this:
Honestly anyone who complains that their ad blocking is breaking anything has two choices:
1) subscribe for an optimized ad-free experience, that we'll keep working to make the best we can
2) live with it, because we're not fixing anything to make ad blockers lives better
If you don't want to support our work, and just take our content, we're not stopping you. But we aren't going to spend any of the resources you don't help pay for on you either.
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This is 200% true, on both desktop and tablet.
WTF is up with showing a headline, -small!- picture and subheading and NOTHING ELSE on a 4K screen?!
I already saw those three whole things when I clicked on them in the article list!
Also SUPER useful to see 1,5 articles in the list at 2160 pixels tall.
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Does Ars do trial subscriptions? Might be a good idea once the wrinkles have been ironed out. That way people can try out the exclusive layouts and possibly subscribe to keep them.
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Meh. Seems very mobile-focused. Round images are a little, um, weird, I guess? Can't put my finger on it. Forever scroll should be illegal. Not my cup of tea.
Ads disguised as articles. AI training. Change happens. Its been a long fun ride with Ars, but I think I'm at the end of this 15-year journey.
It's been a lot of fun. Nothing but love. Take care y'all.
Ads disguised as articles. AI training. Change happens. Its been a long fun ride with Ars, but I think I'm at the end of this 15-year journey.
It's been a lot of fun. Nothing but love. Take care y'all.
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Classic view with small font set with the following style sheet works for me on both desktop and mobile to get back much of the information density:
Edit
Oh the .75 line height squishes forum too much, back to the drawing board...
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This works for me:
@-moz-document domain("meincmagazine.com") {
html{
line-height: .75;
font-size: 12px;
}
}Edit
Oh the .75 line height squishes forum too much, back to the drawing board...
edit 2
This works for me:
@-moz-document domain("meincmagazine.com") {
html{
line-height: 1;
font-size: 12px;
}
.text-xl{
line-height: 1.25;
}
.text-2xl{line-height: 1.25;}
.sm\:max-w-3xl{max-width:85%;}
}
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More of a bug report, this looks very wonky, right below the comments here:
Other than that, I would like better use of horizontal space, CSS has support for width breaks, add one for wide/ultra-wide monitors, having the overall content width be about 10% narrower than it was before is not great and makes me wonder exactly what kind of screens the staff use on desktop (4:3, 5:4??). Not sure how I feel about having all the headlines bouncing around, makes me work instead of just being able to pan my vision across the page, having to zig zag up and down is meh.
Other than that, I would like better use of horizontal space, CSS has support for width breaks, add one for wide/ultra-wide monitors, having the overall content width be about 10% narrower than it was before is not great and makes me wonder exactly what kind of screens the staff use on desktop (4:3, 5:4??). Not sure how I feel about having all the headlines bouncing around, makes me work instead of just being able to pan my vision across the page, having to zig zag up and down is meh.
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So, I use Firefox as my browser of choice, and one neat trick is that Firefox has dev tools built in that will let you locally tweak stylesheets and even html if you really want to modify the page, in memory.
After using "Inspect Element" and then exploring around to find the element that was controlling the width, I found a div, that was being styled by the following stylesheet:
.sm\:max-w-3xl {
max-width:48rem;
}
Which I changed to:
.sm\:max-w-3xl {
max-width:85%;
}
And that allowed the text of the main column of the article to flow out to a nice width.
It did have the unintended side effect of kind of screwing up the formatting of the comments lol.
But, it might be a start for the Ars's staff in working towards a fix for the 'very narrow text' issue. I really think the max-width ought to be specified as a percent and not as a "rem", which is a kind-of-sort-of absolute width. Truly responsive web design should favor percents, as percents will automatically scale with the window width.
After using "Inspect Element" and then exploring around to find the element that was controlling the width, I found a div, that was being styled by the following stylesheet:
.sm\:max-w-3xl {
max-width:48rem;
}
Which I changed to:
.sm\:max-w-3xl {
max-width:85%;
}
And that allowed the text of the main column of the article to flow out to a nice width.
It did have the unintended side effect of kind of screwing up the formatting of the comments lol.
But, it might be a start for the Ars's staff in working towards a fix for the 'very narrow text' issue. I really think the max-width ought to be specified as a percent and not as a "rem", which is a kind-of-sort-of absolute width. Truly responsive web design should favor percents, as percents will automatically scale with the window width.
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Even though I'm running in "light" theme, all the articles are white on black, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get black on white. If I wanted larger text I'd change my font sizes (and expect my browser to re-wrap the text... because you'd have a properly marked-up web page)
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I'm a different person than who you replied to but I wanted to let you know that my view looks the same as theirs and not yours. I do run a PI-Hole in my house but it looks the same even if I disable ad-blocking and do a hard refresh.
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Please add my voice to those looking for a better...or at least consistent...way of identifying what I have read and what I haven't.
At present (in List View) there does not seem to be a way to distinguish articles I've viewed from the rest, but that is not true of the Comments. As I scroll though the list the "Comments" balloon displays as orange if I've been to those Comments and grey if not whether or not I have browsed directly to the article itself. Maybe consider changing the Mouse-over color for the article titles...or leave then as is but also make them orange if you have already viewed it
At present (in List View) there does not seem to be a way to distinguish articles I've viewed from the rest, but that is not true of the Comments. As I scroll though the list the "Comments" balloon displays as orange if I've been to those Comments and grey if not whether or not I have browsed directly to the article itself. Maybe consider changing the Mouse-over color for the article titles...or leave then as is but also make them orange if you have already viewed it
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I really wish there would be an additional font size between small and medium (seems more like large to me)
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On iPhone Mini, the Neutron view is the only front page view that is usable, but it's actually quite nice. I like it.
My best to the team, change is always tough.
My best to the team, change is always tough.
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Oh Good God more damn scrolling because everything is BIG and surrounded by whitespace. I'm on a 1440p monitor and 2/3 of the screen is taken up by the header image on an article (more than that initially when the menu bar is displayed), and even the text is bigger and more separated, and the width seems to be smaller but that may just be an illusion in relation to the font size, so there's even less content per screenful. And of course the home page has less content visible for the same reasons. Gigantic boxes containing each article so even 6 of them just BARELY fit on the screen, depending on whether the menu bar has dropped down or not. And what is "classic" view? I've never seen that view before. I mean, it looks "prettier" but no, it's less usable.
I truly do not understand how so many things like this, from so many companies, are designed, tested, reviewed, adjusted, tested, reviewed, and then get released and are so utterly bad. I just don't understand WHY sticking white space around everything is so popular, WHY reducing the visible content is considered good, WHY making people click or scroll more often is determined to be the way to go.
Oh, also, either put the image in the preview boxes above or below the text. Not going back and forth. It hurts to look at when I'm just trying to skim the titles and sub-titles and can't just go straight across.
I truly do not understand how so many things like this, from so many companies, are designed, tested, reviewed, adjusted, tested, reviewed, and then get released and are so utterly bad. I just don't understand WHY sticking white space around everything is so popular, WHY reducing the visible content is considered good, WHY making people click or scroll more often is determined to be the way to go.
Oh, also, either put the image in the preview boxes above or below the text. Not going back and forth. It hurts to look at when I'm just trying to skim the titles and sub-titles and can't just go straight across.
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I'm a long time lurker who registered today (well, I did have an account originally with a now abandoned email address and couldn't reactivate it...). I'm not keen on the redesign similar to others but appreciate you have reasons - bumping up subs etc. I still have Ars as my goto for tech news and wish you luck. I'm sure I'll adjust/layout will improve over time.
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I have an idea. Let's talk like we're both adults. You've had an account here for 20 years, so let's assume you're a grown person. I myself am a grown person.
Do you know why that comment bug happened? Because Cachefly was caching a forum script such that it worked perfectly fine on our staging site, and broke after we went live. So we did not, in fact, know it was broken until afterwards because it was fine in all our testing.
People reported the bug, I said "yup, we're working on it", and it's now fixed, it was a high priority issue.
What is it about the internet that makes adults think this is a normal way to talk to people?
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Not sure what's broken, clearly you're signed in to post this, but if you're having problems please try deleting your Ars cookies and logging in fresh.
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Hey, I've been reading for many years and never felt the need to register to comment until now. On the mobile homepage, I was able to index the news quickly and choose what I wanted to read because so many headlines were in view. Now, it's one headline in view. This will surely lower the amount of articles I read per session and will decrease repeat usage of mobile home page. I'm sharing because I love your writing and want to see you succeed under the sometimes brutal requirements of Conde. In this case, there's a design that can fit Conde's KPIs and user needs. Rare! GL.
Update: I just found neutron view. This helps a lot but doesn't feel as compact. I'll get by. Thanks.
Update: I just found neutron view. This helps a lot but doesn't feel as compact. I'll get by. Thanks.
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Actually just to follow up on this, the site looks fantastic in Neutron if you use the built-in mobile Safari feature to reduce the text size to 75%. Really that is the ideal form of the site, it is a thing of beauty. This got me to scroll down far enough to hit the “subscriber only” bit.
As a cheap jerk (actually I have no money) who’s been using your site for a long time without paying, fair enough! Oh well. For pros, though, I highly recommend it.
List view at 50% is not so bad. It is notably worse than Neutron/75%, hopefully I’ll get an ok job soon and will have a chance to upgrade.
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Using 'Next' to go to the next page of comments puts me in the same vertically scrolled location rather than resetting back to the top of the comments, so I have to scroll back up to continue reading the comments.
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There are a lot of really rational reasons for that, which is why everyone does it. But I'd love to see examples of the exceptions.
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