Oops I clicked on the feedback link and there was no thread so I made my own. Mind deleting that Bishop?

I really like the whole setup, it's more organized and looks more professional

However, maybe I haven't found it yet, but I enjoyed being able to filter the content by photos, videos, news, etc.

Other than that I love it! Good work guys

LamieJOops I clicked on the feedback link and there was no thread so I made my own. Mind deleting that Bishop?

Done!

And to pre-answer your question, basically we didn't see enough people using the photo/video/news/discussion sorting.

The decision was made to experiment with having people use the actual sections to sort, and the homepage just be an aggregate display of the best stuff.

Mr.BishopAnd to pre-answer your question, basically we didn't see enough people using the photo/video/news/discussion sorting.

The decision was made to experiment with having people use the actual sections to sort, and the homepage just be an aggregate display of the best stuff.

Well regardless it looks sick, thanks for the early present!

Not a fan at all. It looks like something a basic programmer would do with limited experience. The whole content section just looks boring and like it was rushed. And scrolling down to something that on the other home page would of taken me one scroll now takes me a pretty long time (metaphor).

However, I'll say this, I love the top content section. You know the one with arrows where you can click on the next story. The one with the Harvey QnA and chug is done article. I love that. I think that's a great way to showcase the best content from NS. If you could incorporate the best content feature from the new beta and the old icon based homepage into one, where you had the top content then under neath the icons. I personally think that would look sick.

Although, this is all subjective and you get many opinions. Just do whatever you think is best. You're the professionals and have been doing this for the longest. I'm just some kid sitting on the internet trying to get over the fact that it's 35 outside.

How are you guys determining what is in the top large section that scrolls?

ChubbyBoyNot a fan at all. It looks like something a basic programmer would do with limited experience. The whole content section just looks boring and like it was rushed. And scrolling down to something that on the other home page would of taken me one scroll now takes me a pretty long time (metaphor).

Loads of inspiration taken from here - http://www.pinkbike.com/ and http://www.reddit.com/

Trust me, its not that its inexperience, its that its designed to be heavily focused on the text and descriptions.

You will scroll more, but your eye should follow what is there a lot more naturally. Right now in the current layout it stuffs all kinds of content up top, but its very jumbled to actually see what you want to click on.

the gifs are not playing on the homepage only when you click on them. I think i like the new layout though.

Mr.BishopLoads of inspiration taken from here - http://www.pinkbike.com/ and http://www.reddit.com/

Trust me, its not that its inexperience, its that its designed to be heavily focused on the text and descriptions.

You will scroll more, but your eye should follow what is there a lot more naturally. Right now in the current layout it stuffs all kinds of content up top, but its very jumbled to actually see what you want to click on.

Yeah, I know logistically speaking it's a great design. I've just never been a fan of it. However the majority of NS will probably like it.

Very cool, very schwag, I like it! - James White

Diggin this

ChubbyBoyYeah, I know logistically speaking it's a great design. I've just never been a fan of it. However the majority of NS will probably like it.

We shall see!

We'll have the opt-in beta running for a good two weeks before we make any final decisions. That way people can compare their experiences.

kshaughnHow are you guys determining what is in the top large section that scrolls?

Its basically the same algorithm that we have always used for News of the Day and Video of the day. Each night at midnight, it selects one video and one news and adds them in order based on their ratings.

As well, when we have a big NSTV show launch, it will show up as a third item.

the_armidilothe gifs are not playing on the homepage only when you click on them. I think i like the new layout though.

Right now the gifs looked really out of place, so we disabled the playing thumbnails. We can't properly scale them to fit, and they are huge filesize offenders which slowed down loading of the hold page.

Not to say that can't be added back in, but we are trying this way to start.

We REALLY want to encourage people to actually open up content in a new page. Too many people were just viewing/upvoting directly on the homepage. Sweet for a gif, but terrible for photos, news and videos.

Looks really cool and I like the format. But, one big thing that I would really like to see is the video/photo tabs be redone. I find it kinda hard to see the videos and especially the photos. I believe it would be a major improvement if you made those tabs alot like the previous homepage. Where the thumbnails are big and are kinda fitted with each other. Thanks

ChubbyBoyIf you could incorporate the best content feature from the new beta and the old icon based homepage into one, where you had the top content then under neath the icons. I personally think that would look sick.

I support this. The old layout made it so much easier to just scroll and see things. This new layout makes it harder to just boringly scroll the homepage looking for something cool.

Steezy.jpegLooks really cool and I like the format. But, one big thing that I would really like to see is the video/photo tabs be redone. I find it kinda hard to see the videos and especially the photos. I believe it would be a major improvement if you made those tabs alot like the previous homepage. Where the thumbnails are big and are kinda fitted with each other. Thanks

This certainly can be looked at. We are also planning to add the current homepage photo display to the actual photo section of the site. Give some of the subsections a try and see how they flow to you.

FunkySaneI support this. The old layout made it so much easier to just scroll and see things. This new layout makes it harder to just boringly scroll the homepage looking for something cool.

You need to switch your mindset from images to text. The new homepage will give you a lot more information about what something is vs. rely on just a cool thumbnail to attract your attention.

Look for black links. Links turn blue once you've visited them, and then scroll down for black glory.

Not sure how I feel about it. Maybe i just need to give it time but I really like the existing homepage as it is easy to navigate through and has a natural open feeling.

No thank you, I like the normal layout better.

Mr.BishopRight now in the current layout it stuffs all kinds of content up top, but its very jumbled to actually see what you want to click on.

This is what I thought when NS, and the rest of the internet, switched to making things look like they just splattered them all over the page. Flickr did it, google images did it and you guys did it. Personally, I like things in order and stuff like that. My brother says I'm weird for cutting my food into perfect fractions...

I like this new page. They scrolly thing with the news reminds me of the old school homepage. The top content thing is there but not splattered all over anymore. I got used to the old one, but I still prefer things to be in their place instead of differently sized and thrown all over the place. It looks better.

its different, thats all.

I mean its not bad, its just not that different.

but seriously, can we splash some more colors in ns?

i like it, but it could be a little wider. only two articles next to each other is a little...

and why are the discussions and contests different than video and photos?

Like the other homepage better, but I do see what you're trying to do and it will probably grow on me over time. If you do decide to go with this new homepage tho it might be nice to have a date added next to where it says the comments and score.

is there a way to siable the beta ?

It looks horrible , I liked the old homepage a lot better

Just clicked it and can say right away i really don't like it

New homepage looks like old old homepage with like the top news article. not a fan really.

nah, I hate change

I don't like it all, its a supper confusing layout, i love the home page we have now. The way i see it is if it aint broke don't fix it, keep it simple.

It looks nice, but I do like the old layout better. I think the old one is a little easier to navigate, and it looks nicer, but that could just be because I'm used to it.

when the current (or old one i guess) home page first came out i hated it but now i love it, the same thing will happen with this one. One thing i like right away is how you have a lot of random's (the common NSer) content on the thumbnail screen at the top.

my one suggestion is to have is to have a little button in the corner of the videos on the homepage to add it to your playlist without having to click on the video and load a new page. so if you don't have time to watch the video at that moment you know where to find it later.

another thing not really related to the new home page but i think would be cool is if you got a message every time you add a video to your playlist as a reminder or notification.

personally, on the old homepage i would usually scroll through to find new videos this week, and just go into the forums if i wanted to read threads. im not a huge fan of how much more scrolling i have to do now to find videos, but i do think the new layout looks better than the last.

I like the fact its like the older homepages, but I find the current to be simpler. But like every update im sure it will just take time to get used to

Mr.BishopAnd to pre-answer your question, basically we didn't see enough people using the photo/video/news/discussion sorting.

Really? I honestly would have assumed that was a pretty heavily used feature, I know I used it pretty often and was wondering where it went

DrZoidbergThis is what I thought when NS, and the rest of the internet, switched to making things look like they just splattered them all over the page. Flickr did it, google images did it and you guys did it. Personally, I like things in order and stuff like that. My brother says I'm weird for cutting my food into perfect fractions...

I like this new page. They scrolly thing with the news reminds me of the old school homepage. The top content thing is there but not splattered all over anymore. I got used to the old one, but I still prefer things to be in their place instead of differently sized and thrown all over the place. It looks better.

It was all the fad for a while on the internet. When Pinterest blew up, everyone thought that they had re-written the rules of web design using a fixed width column layout, yet ignoring the height alignment. It was every web designers dream, because having everything in a grid that doesn't line up in the backend is a crazy PITA.

The problem is that its VERY heavily reliant on thumbnails. The eye doesn't catch text, only thumbnails - and with the type of content that flows on NS, the thumbnails don't do most of it justice.

I'm relatively confident that even though a lot of people don't realize it, what they crave out of newschoolers is to read text in a list.

maximiliaanand why are the discussions and contests different than video and photos?

There is no accurate thumbnail for those, so they display slightly differently. We can play with this for contests, but forums absolutely do not have a guaranteed thumbnail.

On another note, is this the first time you've noticed the contest module? I find it stands out a lot more, even though its been there for 4 months.

413CrewI don't like it all, its a supper confusing layout, i love the home page we have now. The way i see it is if it aint broke don't fix it, keep it simple.

It is broke. The current homepage has not been doing a very good job at getting people to click on content.

dun.Canwhen the current (or old one i guess) home page first came out i hated it but now i love it, the same thing will happen with this one. One thing i like right away is how you have a lot of random's (the common NSer) content on the thumbnail screen at the top.

my one suggestion is to have is to have a little button in the corner of the videos on the homepage to add it to your playlist without having to click on the video and load a new page. so if you don't have time to watch the video at that moment you know where to find it later.

another thing not really related to the new home page but i think would be cool is if you got a message every time you add a video to your playlist as a reminder or notification.

Playlist idea is solid. Noted.

Also the entire homepage is still made up of the common NSer's content. Everything is open for everyone to partake in. The Splash page is Photo Of The Day, and the slider is made up of News of the Day and Photo of the Day - all of it chosen with our algorithm that is calculated by your upvotes.

ANYONE can make the slider with their content if its good enough.

-WZ-personally, on the old homepage i would usually scroll through to find new videos this week, and just go into the forums if i wanted to read threads. im not a huge fan of how much more scrolling i have to do now to find videos, but i do think the new layout looks better than the last.

This will require a deeper scroll depth than what you're used to. However, you will note that links you've already clicked on turn blue. So you'll look down the list for black links, which will help you track what you have/haven't seen.

In terms of going to forums for threads, that is kind of what we're going for. The homepage is for highlights, going deep into any section and you should try the subsection in the top level nav.

If you're an avid video fan, you should try the top rated videos page - its what an enormous amount of the video fans on the site use. Very few of them use the homepage.

swordsandpensReally? I honestly would have assumed that was a pretty heavily used feature, I know I used it pretty often and was wondering where it went

We spent an enormous amount of time building it into the homepage. As a matter of fact, it was supposed to be a core piece of what made the current homepage so amazing. It seemed to have a few people that used it heavily, but the masses simply never got onto it.

Its not lost, but the people that really like it I would love for them to try using the sub pages for each section for a bit and see how that works.

I don't like change...

I do like the new page but I feel like it might be harder for people to notice videos from more unknown people. with the old home page there were many videos right in the first few scrolls

Mr.BishopRight now the gifs looked really out of place, so we disabled the playing thumbnails. We can't properly scale them to fit, and they are huge filesize offenders which slowed down loading of the hold page.

Not to say that can't be added back in, but we are trying this way to start.

We REALLY want to encourage people to actually open up content in a new page. Too many people were just viewing/upvoting directly on the homepage. Sweet for a gif, but terrible for photos, news and videos.

Would it not be simple enough to grab and display a single frame from the gif? Maybe not simple but I'm pretty sure it could be done. A separate classification would probably be needed though as it could be confused for an actual photo if you go that route.

Having used it for a few more days I've noticed that the list isn't an infinite scroll, I'm not sure if that is a glitch because both columns don't end at the same spot, but I approve of it since you want people to get off the homepage and into the dedicated sections.

In terms of flow and it being natural to read through I would disagree. The first thing I look at is the thumbnail/ title, the second is the media tag. The tag just doesn't seem to be in a great place and I find it hard to quickly and easily locate it> I probably still need more time to get used to it (although it's been 3-4 days and I haven't adjusted yet) and I have no idea where it could possibly be moved without making more of a mess, maybe under the title? Or simply colour coded tags instead of the current dark grey boxes?

I feel like less people will hate this change as the biggest piss off from the other one was the removal of the news feed. I also hope that my criticisms don't come off as me hating it, as I do like it.

AlexhigloI do like the new page but I feel like it might be harder for people to notice videos from more unknown people. with the old home page there were many videos right in the first few scrolls

I agree with you, and a MASSIVE reason we built the 'old' homepage was to get as much exposure for the average person as is humanly possible.

However, a ton of our avid video viewers still used the top rated video display.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/toprated.0/Top_Rated

What it didn't do was bring a ton of attention to the really good stuff. I heard a great deal of complaints 'out in the field' (as I've been doing a lot of lately) where there was too many mediocre edits that made it up there.

This new layout will allow the decent stuff a shot at the gold, but only the best edit per day will make it into the massive scrolling module. The guys that get up there *should* get a nuclear bomb of views on their stuff, which will help out those who are successful.

We take our producers needs very seriously, and that includes any of our program members, staff and the average hungry NS video guy. I know that this will centralize some of that hype, but I think the net benefit to all will overall average out. Less will get in on the party, but the really quality stuff will shine extrodinarily.

PoikenzWould it not be simple enough to grab and display a single frame from the gif? Maybe not simple but I'm pretty sure it could be done. A separate classification would probably be needed though as it could be confused for an actual photo if you go that route.

Having used it for a few more days I've noticed that the list isn't an infinite scroll, I'm not sure if that is a glitch because both columns don't end at the same spot, but I approve of it since you want people to get off the homepage and into the dedicated sections.

In terms of flow and it being natural to read through I would disagree. The first thing I look at is the thumbnail/ title, the second is the media tag. The tag just doesn't seem to be in a great place and I find it hard to quickly and easily locate it> I probably still need more time to get used to it (although it's been 3-4 days and I haven't adjusted yet) and I have no idea where it could possibly be moved without making more of a mess, maybe under the title? Or simply colour coded tags instead of the current dark grey boxes?

I feel like less people will hate this change as the biggest piss off from the other one was the removal of the news feed. I also hope that my criticisms don't come off as me hating it, as I do like it.

Yes, you may be correct that a single thumbnail is the solution for gifs.

You bring up a good point in that currently gifs are lumped in with photos, which was a decision that I defended implicitly for a very long time. However as they've gained in popularity, I've seen a degradation of the hard work that our photographers put in, and a prevalence of gifs inhabiting the space where photos used to be.

We can do a lot with gifs, but we need to start thinking about how they fit into the big picture. This is a discussion for a different place, so lets have it in a separate thread. Note though that we're very free and can do a lot of things with these, but we didn't handle them very specifically with this new design because there is a lot of unanswered questions that I feel need to be addressed before we can come up with the perfect solution.

As for infinite scroll - funny enough there has never been infinite scroll on the homepage... at least not for the 'hot' view. Something is only 'hot' for so long, and once its cooled off enough it drops off the list. What we saw in the previous homepage is that people didn't scroll deep enough to realize that there wasn't infinite scroll.

Views like latest, and top all time definitely have a ton of content in them which will keep loading, but there certainly is an end to it.

Personally i liked the old home page more. Yes the new one is more organized but i enjoyed having everything there and in front of me so that i could scroll through it.

Most of the content that I check out on the site is in the video section. When NS switched to the display it currently has i didnt like it very much (I have always hated change) but got used to it and i pretty much stopped using the video tab up top. It was so easy to see what videos were popular because they had lots of up votes on the very easy to navigate home screen. This new home screen is more involved and I bet it will cause me to view more text based content and go back to using the video tab a little more. I really like the current lay out, this will just take time to get used to. My first thought when seeing the page was, "wow, its gonna take me a little more time to get to the stuff I wanna check out."

Where "Show Me"? I want look pictures, videos, News separately, without mixed.

kind of reminds me of the old front page layout. Not too sure if i like it or not

TCuvMost of the content that I check out on the site is in the video section. When NS switched to the display it currently has i didnt like it very much (I have always hated change) but got used to it and i pretty much stopped using the video tab up top. It was so easy to see what videos were popular because they had lots of up votes on the very easy to navigate home screen. This new home screen is more involved and I bet it will cause me to view more text based content and go back to using the video tab a little more. I really like the current lay out, this will just take time to get used to. My first thought when seeing the page was, "wow, its gonna take me a little more time to get to the stuff I wanna check out."

It actually very closely mimics the video tab, which has always been a very successful page on Newschoolers. I'm kind of curious to see what happens as people settle in and out of it a little more.

AeeehWhere "Show Me"? I want look pictures, videos, News separately, without mixed.

We took it out on purpose, as it got used by a core few but not in any huge numbers. We can put it back in if enough people can't stand the experience without it.

Katcherkind of reminds me of the old front page layout. Not too sure if i like it or not

Yes, it is very much a throwback to the old front page, except powered by our same community-focused algorithm. It takes a dash of Pinkbike as well and sprinkles it into the mix.

I would love to be able to filter pictures, videos and all that on this new homepage. Still diggin' the new home page, not exactly sure why, but it feels more organized and flowy.

Mr.BishopYou need to switch your mindset from images to text. The new homepage will give you a lot more information about what something is vs. rely on just a cool thumbnail to attract your attention.

I gotta say at first I was sorta bummed out about the new homepage because I liked the design of the other one a lot more. But now logically thinking with what you just said here thats definitely a huge plus to this, because I found myself doing this a lot with the old homepage. I'm all for it, just wish the design was a little more exciting.

daddy-dmacI would love to be able to filter pictures, videos and all that on this new homepage. Still diggin' the new home page, not exactly sure why, but it feels more organized and flowy.

In the new year I'll look at what it would take to add the filtering back in. The programmers are on holidays, so they're only doing maintenance right now.

The feeling of organization and flow *should* be caused by your eye having a much clearer path down the page. The current homepage your eye really has to jump around - up, down, left and right. So you don't track as clean of a line.

This one is seeking to have your eyes track in basically the same area, just scrolling down and reading text.

JOTTOI gotta say at first I was sorta bummed out about the new homepage because I liked the design of the other one a lot more. But now logically thinking with what you just said here thats definitely a huge plus to this, because I found myself doing this a lot with the old homepage. I'm all for it, just wish the design was a little more exciting.

I mean a lot of designs of highly functional sites aren't particularly exciting. Facebook, Reddit and Google are all great examples of extremely basic design where the functionality really just shines through.

That is what we're going for.

What I think would be perfect is having the old layout with the top rated scroller at the top. And I'd also like to say that I loved the content genre filter and am sad to see it go. It made me read threads in other forums that I don't frequently check and that was great.

steezysteezeWhat I think would be perfect is having the old layout with the top rated scroller at the top. And I'd also like to say that I loved the content genre filter and am sad to see it go. It made me read threads in other forums that I don't frequently check and that was great.

Definitely can be added back in.

like the idea of a hero slider for top ranking content. dont like the format of ns content vs sponsored content, until you view on mobile. (when then all content blocks look the same)

sponsored content has large thumbnails and not much text. ns content is now the opposite, even when it is a photo/video the thumbnail is only 1/3 width.

that is my biggest gripe. mostly because i see more ads, and they grasp my attention better as i scroll down the page. (ha there is some ammo for your next marketing meeting)

this all coming from the guy who got used to the "new" homepage, really only using the homepage and forums tab for ALL content.

currently on my screen one fold of the "old" homepage shows me about 9 pieces of content to the 4 of the "new" homepage. thus will end up having to click/scroll more to get the same amount of content i was used to seeing up front.

this all coming from the guy who got used to the "new" homepage, really only using the homepage and forums tab for ALL viewed content. and got used to means, whatever you choose i'll also get used to.