Inside Line Redesign - How to Navigate the New Site

chopperx says:

06:12 PM, 11/27/2009

While a new design with larger imagery and content areas is greatly appreciate, I feel, as with the others, you've sucked the "life" out of the website.

It needs more color, more traditional layout for headings, and perhaps less use of Flash.

1.) Areas are hard to distinguish from the other areas.  Colored areas assigned to certain areas or features would have been a good visual cue.

2.) The homepage is very hard to navigate becuase your have large sections with no labels or small labels that don't really feel like banners or headers.  When you have large repeating sections of similar content, it is helpful to create contrast with alternating color rows.  Since the site is so stark white it is hard to tell (even with the borders) where articles end and begin.

3.) Flash is always a big question and I think what you have done is great, even though load times, even on my cable modem seem a little high.  Your DSL and Dial users are probably pretty upset.  

Hope you address some of these issues as I think the website can be fantastic with a little more work..

bemanix88 says:

07:38 PM, 11/09/2009

I agree with the last poster.  Flash, especially for Mac users, is just terrible.  And as an extra downside, Flash precludes tabbed browsing!

says:

04:59 AM, 11/09/2009

I really cannot stand the new site. I used "Click to Flash" to control flash sites.  Your entire site is one big click-a-thon for me.  Horrible design run by even worse technology.  

Flash is very inefficient and make my processor run too hot. I do everything I can to avoid it.  You might think about scrapping the new site.

says:

11:20 AM, 11/06/2009

Did you hire Chris Bangle to redesign this website?

I guess not. Even he had some fans.

bemanix88 says:

08:02 PM, 11/05/2009

Everything on the website is too big!  I have a 19" monitor at 1440x900, and even THAT is barely enough resolution to contain the whole site.

Also, I really love the new high-res images, but why aren't the text descriptions available in the full-screen view?

camaro91 says:

11:52 PM, 11/02/2009

I wanna say that this is a poor design for the website and its too white and confusing to the eye.
it looks like this website is not even finished.
i use to Read IL everyday but now im beginning to read autoblog more and more ever since this design became online.
autoblog is a more organized website and easy to use and They know what they are doing.
i really liked the old IL.
but now i dont think im gunna continue reading insideline anymore.

dodgeman07 says:

05:27 PM, 10/30/2009

Tough to use the new site.  How do I get to "Future Vehicles" now?  Say I want to look up Ford Future Vehicles?  It doesn't work!  I see it at the bottom of the webpage but can't get to what I want.

Maybe this will get better with more use but right now it's like MIcrosoft Office 2007, a step back from 2003!

mark_texas says:

03:31 PM, 10/30/2009

I too see parallels to Car and Driver.  To quote Editor Eddie Alterman in C/D's December '09 issue (page 9):

"It's probably fair to say that this magazine's redesign in 2006 was not a complete success, in the way that the New Jersey docking of the Hindenburg was not entirely triumphant."

I guess Edmunds and C/D can now form a club for failed redesigns.  I just hope it doesn't take you 3 years to correct it.

As others have pointed out:

1.  The fact that you have to make a video to show how to navigate your web site should tell you something.

2.  Not everyone (including me) has a widescreen display.

3.  There is too much white space.

4.  The pictures are too big, so you have to do a lot of scrolling to find what you want.

I check your site every day, so I hope you take my criticism in the spirit it is intended.  The redesign has reduced the frequency of my visits.  The new design is broke, so please fix it.

honfatboy says:

01:43 PM, 10/29/2009

Hey, IL.

I'm a 29 year-old male in Pasadena. Switched over to IL from C/D when quality there started to slip. I read IL everyday. I'm also involved in web design and wanted to work for you someday.

This web design is bad. It's really frustrating to use and really overwhelming when the page loads. If I find a website overwhelming, how is someone less comfortable with online media going to feel? While I'm all for staying current and fashionable, change for change's sake is not the greatest idea. (See BMW's iDrive--which I used to have to train customers to use, and C/D's "screaming yellow" redesign two years ago.)

Case in point: A video to show people how to use your website. This is an Aztek-ian level of boneheadedness. There is no way a website is user-friendly if there is a (real or perceived) need to provide a video on how to find things.

Love your blog posts, Donna, but...Sheesh.