Back in December 2006, we asked for your feedback, suggestions and what you would like to see improved on the site. Many of you obliged us with your time, gave us invaluable suggestions and offered some quick tips for improvements.
We made notes, and have been diligently trying to put that into practice. Ideacodes, a design firm I highly recommend, who designed the original site, re-tweaked the design for nearly a month, before we settled on the one you see. I asked them that we have to keep the best features of the site – layout and colors – and at the same time simplify the site.
The biggest complaint was about the sidebar clutter, and we have tried to address that in this revision. While polls have not gone away, they are understated. Rest of the elements that proved to be distracting has been eliminated. We have tried to balance the commercial realities with the design aesthetic.
The other big complaint was that “comments” were not that obvious, and people had a hard time finding them. We made it our top priority and addressed that issue, hopefully to your satisfaction.
One big change you will see is right up top. There was a suggestion that we should create a simple navigation bar for all the sites in the network. Some of the readers wrote in and said that there were too many tabs.
We came up with a simple and obvious taxonomy.
Web, Voice, Mobile and Broadband!
The Daily that is a new name for our reporter’s log of short posts about interesting news developments. You can see the five most recent log items in the little block in the middle column.
Other changes are subtler – fonts have been changed to make the site more readable, especially for our readers who are on Microsoft’s Windows platform. Another requested feature was “Print This” button, and we have added that as well.
So that’s it – let us know if we have followed your instructions and if you are pleased with this revision.
PS#1: Archives, E-Mail This and other small features will be rolled out later this week/weekend. And in case you are interested, my personal blog, Om Daily has gotten a makeover as well.
PS#2: Emily, Max, Chancey, Joey and Barry – thanks for all your hard work and making this release possible. You have my eternal gratitude and admiration.
Looks good! Good work taking advice and putting it into action.
I don’t know . . . Why is the main column so narrow? It’s definitely narrower than before. I’ve got a 2-inch wide left-hand margin in my browser. Is this designed for 800X600 pixel display or something? It hurts the readability on my widescreen monitor.
Jesse
The design is for the 1024 X 800 size monitors and the main column is down by about 10 pixel. If you make your browser smaller, you would see that the gap is not that much.
I think it was trying to balance the size and usability. We will fine tune this as we get more responses and feedback.
Your point is noted.
I also feel the main column should be more wider.
Yay for finally getting it launched! This turned out pretty good. Cleaner and faster. 🙂
Is the India section dropped in the new design ? Or will you roll it later ?
Amit,
India section is still in place and there are no plans to ever drop that. It is just so that we have consolidated on the four top level categories and then everything else is pretty much the same. All Rss feeds etc would work. Notice the “categories” at the bottom of the post.
Cool!
The site looks better.
Good job! Looks much better.
Please widen the main body, its too cramped, there is a big area of space on the right and a little bit on the left that isn’t being used
Pat,
what is the monitor size you are using? if we go any wider we are going to cause problems for folks who are using the 1024 sized monitors.
We are going to work on getting this “main column” size issue fixed asap. Need to do some creative thinking there.
Om,
Thanks for the update on India section. That’s just one of my favorite category here and quite happy to see that it will stay. Best.
How to create a navigation bar??
I didnt know there was an RSS feed for the India Section… Where can I find it?
Never mind I made a yahoo pipe
Looks very clean and it makes sense (IMHO) to give the reporter log its own mini-site, and new name. The only thing I’d consider is removing the top banner ad. It looks a little odd compared to the rest of the page – though I’m sure there are other reasons for keeping it out there. Nice work on the mini redesign!
Definately better, but I really want to see some different fonts than just ‘Trebuchet’ all over!
Very nice – I like. 🙂
overall its good, although
– i liked the gradient tabs, rather than a navigation bar
– i liked the wider main column
– i liked the fact that i could digg it as soon as i reached the end of the article instead of having to scroll back up to bookmark it
Om–The new redesign looks great. Feel the love, baby.
Yes main column is just abt 50% width which is too small (1024×800 resolution).
Daily, recent posts section can be put below ads, making two column layout and wider main
column.
If you see, currently, all the space below the ads till the end of page is simply wasted.(empty)
Plus in comments area the name, date and time should logically be below speech bubble. Bubble is pointing noone currently!
Where is India category? I couldnt find it.
Amish
om, how do i get in touch with these guys? can you please mail me their id? i tried the online mail form, but havent had any response for the last two days…
hey! the guys at ideacode wrote back! great people! thanks OM and everyone. nice work!
Like the new site Om; nice job. I agree with some of the other commentators about the main column being too narrow.
One more request though, I would like to see a section where you could probably publish the most popular stories(based on user comments or no. of hits?) across the GIGA network on this main site, rather than browsing through all of them to find pieces that are interesting! (if possible, of course)
Om,
Nice redesign, but I still think I liked the old one better. Love your magazine for the uniquely international coverage – keep up the good work.
I haven’t been able to find the India section since the redesign. I don’t use RSS – is there a link anywhere to this section?
The India section was one of the unique things on GigaOM – it had one of the best coverages of one of the world’s most interesting growing markets. Can we have it back please?
Thanks
Odo