A brand new [H]ard|OCP

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I think it looks great, the layout is very logical, and appears as is it will be easy to navigate... using semantic xHTML and CSS is great for performance and compatibility with all browsers... all good things. ...and I like his correct usage of the word "pedantic" in the closing sentances. :)
 
First impression: I'm lost.

Then I waited and looked for a few seconds....and I disliked it more. Why are articles getting so little emphasis on the page?

After even more time of looking at it...it's not that bad I guess. Different headline names would have made that transition faster for me though. :)
 
Am I the only person who likes the 1st edition, 2nd edition stuff?

I always look at what edition is there so when I go back later I know where I left off. I'm really gonna miss that.

Also as a lot of people have been saying the top looks kinda cluttered.

Overall a nice change.

-Matt
 
is it just me or does it look A LOT like anandtech's site just with the hardocp colors?!?
 
Where can I learn more about this sIFR thing? Your description implies that, if I have Flash enabled, then the news items will be printed in Flash so that the font shows up correctly. Won't that significantly increase load times?
 
i love this - simple ebcause [H] has need a face lift for SOOO long, and this is it

the new look is much more cleaner, crisp and neat, - the seperation of areas i think will welcome in ALOT of new people as people will not be intimidated to say post a new question in a section with many complicated situations.


I dont have anything negative to say except perhaps the option for multiple color schemes to chosoe from [H] is so dark and dismal at the moment :(
 
very nice! cant wait to see this up and running

oh, and that screenshot is like a blast from the past, i remember those articles :p
 
theHeat said:
So it's going to be tableless? I'm not entirely aware of what xHTML is. If it's going to be strictly CSS, what are you doing about a Content Management System? I love tableless sites, but the downsite is the lack of Open Source tableless CMSs.

I like the layout, but it's a bit too dark/gray for me. It could use more white IMHO.
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I absolutely *HATE* white backgrounds and black text sites. I can't stand it. I like the darker black background, light colored text like it is now, plus the way the new one is.
 
Lethal said:
Just a minor thing, but under "Latest Articles" I think the [H] in the subcategory titles should be the traditional red instead of grey. :)
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The full extent of how the branding will be incorporated is yet to be seen in this static page.
 
thore said:
how about an acctual site suggestion... at the very top, [H] news [H]enthusiast [H]enterprise [H]consumer [H]consol [H] gear

you know... branded stuff , hats t's ratpads...

ok.. so its more of a buisness move, but hey, i need a new mouse pad

thore
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For marketing products, when / if that happens, we can use unsold banner inventory or text links. I do not want marketing to be seen as a content focus.
 
M1ster_R0gers said:
I like it. My question is how much news is being planned on moving through one main area? Judging from what is laid out at least 4 daily articles would be fitting to keep the content fresh.
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The main page at hardocp.com will carry the news as it does now with a few changes. Gone will be "editions," so all entries will have their own news posts. Each news post will carry a classification as to the section(s) it is to appear in. So the the main page will carry ALL the news it does now, but say you are an IT that gives not a shit about the rest of the tech world, you might simply bookmarke the [H]Enterprise page, where server and networking reviews would be, along with only news items pertinent to that content. Also, I see each subsection having its own announcement section so we can "sticky" items of interest that we think deserve attention.
 
Something new while retaining fine points that made the old version a winner and is functional! That is darn good website engineering: It looks great (I especially like the fine mesh grid in the background) and retains a familiar feel; I don't think it looses anybody either, to the contrary, all sections stand out well. This contrasts to recent site re-vamps like Anandtech and *cough* Tom's Hardware. I still go to Anand every day, but I rarely go to THG anymore...their redone site just lost me. Way to go Haiku!
 
laserdemon said:
well i guess im going to have to go elsewhere to get my tech news.......J.J.

Looks great, good idea, looks smooth and very usable. Here is a question though, what kind of load times are we to expect on this, not everyone has broadband?
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Load times are looking to be much faster than they are now due to a superior page design with load times in mind during coding.
 
Ok, big reply. Please read:

The front page of the site has two main purposes:

1. To serve as a CONTENT PORTAL to 4 brand new [H] sites.
2. To act as the main new page encompassing news from all 4 sections as well as other misc. news items. Basically exactly as it does now.
​

The 4 new sites aren't new "sections" they are entire sites unto themselves. They will have their own domains, like enthusiast.hardocp.com that you can bookmark if you don't care about the other stuff. The 4 sites will not be content filters of any kind, they will be entire properties, with their own staff. I didn't fully communicate that in my original post, I figured Kyle would have shown up and elaborated on that, but I am beating him to it! :)

While some are calling the top content redundant, I think the main point is being missed; the top 4 "features" are not about recent, they are the standout articles from each section. The lists below it are the chronological content releases. So it's not redundant at all, it's about promoting the biggest work and also displaying at a glance the other content that is existing on those sites. Both sections serve a different and distinct purpose. While it is sitting very tight, it's a conscious decision because I really didn't want the news pushed down any further than it already was. I had toyed with the idea of making the Featured and Latest lists collapsible but that idea was shot down and in retrospect it's the right decision. The goal of the homepage is primarily portal. There will be various flavors of RSS feeds and other filters to get to the news and content you want. It's not taking an extra step, it's simply making it all far more structured than it is now.

As for getting rid of the editions, I understand that some rely on that and I will have a strategy for showing what you've seen and what you haven't. But honestly, if you're a huge news junkie, use the RSS feeds. And I don't say that as a solution to the issue of dropping editions, I say that because it's 2005 and RSS is prolific for a reason.

Colored "Themes":
These aren't themes. They are brands. While the homepage and enthusiast will use the classic [H] colors and brands, the Enterprise, Consumer, and Console sites are entirely new properties. Their color schemes won't really be thematic representations so much as they will be brand standards for those properties. It's not something we're doing just to make a visual distinction between sites, we're doing it because 3 new businesses are essentially being started.

Gonna respond to some specific stuff now:

Optimus said:
Very nice screeny. ;)

As far as [H]Console color theme goes, I would suggest something to discourage fan-boyism;
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If anyone knows this, it's me. I worked on all of the shacknews stuff and all of the speakeasy gaming properties as well as work for gaming publishers and developers. The console are will be taken care of in this regard.

NO TABLES! wow. What software do you use to lay it out using entirely css? MX2004 doesn't seem to deal with all that absolute css positioning nicely (certainly not with the ease of dragging table borders around that I'm used to)
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The front-end is going to be coded entirely by hand. No editors or other superfluous crap.

much cleaner.

just ditch the star trek-esque font on the news titles.
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Oh no you just didn't diss on Zekton.

Deviationer said:
is it just me or does it look A LOT like anandtech's site just with the hardocp colors?!?
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Pardon the bluntness, but you're out of your fucking mind!! :eek:

Where can I learn more about this sIFR thing?
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I'm glad you asked!
here!

I hope this clears up a lot of the issues in the content structure of the homepage. And so far the response seems to be overwhelmingly positive which I am very relieved about because these are absolutely the hardest projects to work on; long time loyal audiences, major expansions, very strict brand guidelines, crazy redneck who I have to bill at the end of the day.

Oh one more thing!!

To the guy who asked about having a search input box right on the page: I had suggested that very early on but it was decided not to do it and to keep the search it's own page. Again as I worked on the page I ended up agreeing with this. The only stuff that should be on the page is stuff that NEEDS to be on the page. This is how we maintain structure.

Keep your comments coming, this is all very good. I really appreciate it.
 
fbiguy said:
I love the layout, it'll save alot of website jumping (between your four sites).

I agree that the plain ol' black for the background is a bit dark, but i could fly with it for a bit to see if i adjust.

...and oddly enough, i remember that extortion story, haha.
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The main page and [H]Enthusiast site will remain true to their roots. The three other [H] sections will have their own colors branded as we realize that maroon and black are not exactly mainstream. :)
 
the contrast of the white font in the headlines and latest articles section makes it look busy, if you made that yellow or gave the optiong to not have all the latest articles then I think it would look cleaner

also everyone i know uses this site in 1600x1200 so if the width is limited it would just be wasting space on the sides of the page, if you dont want scalable sizes thats understandable but atleast have an option or a way for us to scale the width higher than 1024
 
Thartek said:
I just checked out the shacknews site, and I have a question. I use a PDA to check [H] more often then not, and IE on the PDA can reconfigure the page to just 1 column. [H] Looks great on this in the 1 column mode. The shacknews site didn't work on any of the views, except the regular desktop mode which requires massive side-to-side scrolling. Do the standard used on the new site allow it to be shrunk down like it can be currently? I know you're going for a fixed with, but it's the IE program on the PDA which actually does the shrinking. Do you have a PDA with Windows Mobile 2003 SE available? If you don't, I could try it if I had a link to the new site. I would imagine I'm not the only one that reads [H] on a mobile device and ease of reading is key.

But otherwise, I think the design looks great. The new fonts for the headlines were a great idea: unique and eyecatching. A bit of brightening couldn't hurt, but it looks good.
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It has been the plan now for about a year to do specialized versions of our webpage that would be placed under a subscription basis.
 
clockworks said:
Wow. It looks a lot more readable and pleasant to the eye. Thumbs up.

edit: Forgot to ask if the forum will also be affected by this? Also, the buttons at the top ([H]Forum, Search, Archives...) seems small, I would recommend to make them a little bit bigger.
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Forums are not changing.
 
Deadguy said:
also everyone i know uses this site in 1600x1200 so if the width is limited it would just be wasting space on the sides of the page, if you dont want scalable sizes thats understandable but atleast have an option or a way for us to scale the width higher than 1024
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While I understand your desire to have an option to scale easily if you're running a higher resolution, it would lengthen production time on the sites considerably and be harder to maintain and the payoff isn't worth the effort. You speak of wasted space, but wasted relative to what? You're not making anything easier or more convenient for yourself by having text stretch out across the screen. The illusion is created because you don't have to scroll but in reality it's much harder to read and it's less predictable to view. Tons of research has been done on this. These standards exist in the print world for very good reason.

I run two monitors, each one 24" wide running 1920x1200. I rarely ever have my browser bigger than 1100 px or so wide. The only way I would consider alternative scaling methods is if there was an overwhelming response in support of it. Well, by me I mean kyle and I because he has final say and he's in strong agreement with my position on static width right now.
 
Mohonri said:
The featured/latest articles area immediately reminded me of gamespot. I sincerely hope that the rendering won't be like the rendering for gamespot (ugh--seing flash animations jump back and forth between areas on the screen for 30 seconds while the browser tries to figure out where they belong makes me sick). I agree that the "Featured Articles" and "Latest Articles" seems a bit redundant, since I visit the site at least once a day. It looks like all the articles are articles [H]ardOCP publishes, as opposed to news snippets from other sites. I can see how difficult it is to strike a balance--how much news from each of the four sub-sites do you put on the main page, and which ones go there? Where do you draw the line?

Overall, it looks great. A little dark for my taste, but I understand the branding thing. The fonts look nice, but I'm not a fan of eyecandy on websites (or in my OS. But in games....hoo yeah). Eyecandy too often means larger fonts, which leads to less information on the screen, which I can't stand. But that's just personal preference.

Is there any chance of having a search box, instead of a link to a search page? For all I know, the "search" button could open a little box like we see on the forum, but being able to search from the main page without going to a separate page is a Good Thing.

Other than that, I like the navigation bars, although an "RSS" button/link next to the "Links" button might be a good idea.

There's obviously been a lot of effort and thought put into the new design. It will take me some time to get used to it, but it's definitely a significant improvement. Keep up the good work!
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Honestly, I don't visit Gamespot (unless we are in their news :) ) so I am unsure of your exact issues. As for advertising, you will see more widely used forms of advertising used in the NEW sections. The [H]Enthusiast and main page will stay as it is. Enthusiasts do not like those more intrusive forms of advertising and I promised years ago that we would never utilize them, and we will not use them on Enthusiast pages.

I see your points on redundancy, but MOST readers do NOT visit HardOCP every day and those are the folks have to target as well.

Change always sucks to some degree...on this side of the fence too.
 
I like the new layout, but everyone at [H] should be prepared for some grumblings at first. People do not like change, it is a sociological fact, as it decreases one's comfort level. It will take some people some getting used to, particularly the absence of the "1st Edition, 2nd Edition", etc......... But definitely DO keep the "posted by" and "time" blocks on the bottom of the news articles on the front page. Me, like many others, have used the "1st Edition, 2nd Edition" as markers to see what's been updated.

Maybe you can implement something where the latest article (besides being on the top), has the "posted by" and "time" blocks highlighted or otherwise stands out to signal a new update. Just a thought.
 
joecool234 said:
Is it possible to simply show the titles of headlines and have (+) sign to expand content? Without having 1st, 2nd edition, etc., I think the news looks a little too busy.

Oh, and another suggestion...get rid of those "Latest Articles" boxes. They should only be shown on each portal.
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No, the news content will be as is, I think a collaspsed listing of headlines would be really too busy and turn it into nothing more than an RSS feed.

The Latest Articles boxes are NOT changing. It will be how we mainly market the rest of the site. It is just that simple. The Latest Headlines box is there for those that visit more than once a day. This will allow you to check news without having to wear your scroll button out. :)
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
loooks great! you've been using this layout for a while now :p ?
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Actually you are right in a way. Since our second site design in 98, HardOCP has looked bascially the same, and that is something that I have very much put as a priority with every change. I always wanted our core readers to open up there browser and see the new site and KNOW that they were still home even though there was a new coat of paint.
 
My Complaints. Take them worth a grain of salt.

- It is not easy to read at all.
- It would break horribly if the font size gets increased.
- I have to scroll to start reading content. (if every page follows this format)
- This might be personal but the font is distracting, all of the [H]* stuff is hard to read.
- The tabs not being the same size is kind of annoying, but I can deal.
- The search / forum / archives / etc.. navigation is really small and almost looks like an afterthought. Perhaps a better place to put these might be nice, they just don't look like they belong where they are.
- The latest articles need to be defined somehow.. with all that text in there it makes it hard to distinquish different categories. (possible to turn these off through customization?)
 
About page load speeds and rendering:

I can say with full confidence that this site is going to be fucking FAST.

For one, the use of flash will be more or less transparent. You wouldn't even know there was flash unless I told you. Even right-clicking the text wouldn't make it obvious. And it loads through java script in a very slick manner, you won't feel the load at all.

The images are going to be sprited. What does this mean? Take a look at www.shacknews.com and now take a look at: http://www.shacknews.com/images/masthead-sprite.png

Basically the homepage of shacknews is only 3 images. Even though it looks like a few hundred. What I do is load one master image and then use CSS to grab the coordinates I need and place them on the page. This saves the server and bandwidth and makes it load faster on the client. With this technique, everyone wins.

When I implemented it on shacknews, bandwidth dropped over HALF and apache hits went down to 25% of what they were. And since the layout is all parsed on the client-side, the page render feels almost instant. Go ahead and keep clearing your cache and loading shacknews, it's a graphically rich site with tons of mouse hovers and other crap and it loads in a blink. The only lag in loading is the ads, which I have no control of.

I'll be using that same technique on the new HardOCP, except I've advanced it quite a bit since shack and I have some newer tricks and I'm pretty sure the new site will render faster and more cleanly than almost any other site you visit.
 
djskankho said:
I have 2 suggestions/gripes.

First, the news is too far down the newspage. I'd like the news, or at least the top story, to be the first thing I see when I go to the news page.

The second has to do with the four major sections. As it stands, I don't think [H] updates content often enough to warrant four different sections of the site. I would expect many more articles if this were to happen. Also, I feel that tabs aren't the right visualization for this structure. I would think a less obvious division of sections might me more useful but with certain icons or other visual idications that your in that section and the ability to sort on those sections or view all at once. Somewhat of a slashdot kind of approach to the way the site is sorted.
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First, I appreciate your thoughts on this, but that is not going to happen. We do have the latest headlines feed running on the left margin that is above the fold. That should let the folks that visit multiple times a day get a quick glace without having to scroll. :)

As it stands, you would be correct. In order to support these new sections, we would have to hire say maybe 15 or 20 people.....and that is already being done.

I will disagree with you on the rest of your thoughts. Slashdot is simply a forum and that is not what we are going for in any way, shape or form.
 
not to be a complete geek, but isnt that the same fontset that star trek uses...lol
 
NiViK said:
not to be a complete geek, but isnt that the same fontset that star trek uses...lol
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No, they use Eurostile. Zekton is relatively new.

Oh and to echo Kyle's comments about Slashdot being a forum - he's absolutely right. Plz let's not compare this to slashdot ever again. It makes me cry.

Slashdot is a cess pit.
 
JethroXP said:
As for doing away with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc editions of news, I'm not so sure. I acutally rely on those. I read [H]ard|OCP about 10 times a day, and each time I visit I do a quick scan of the "Edition" number to tell me if there is anything new posted. If you must due away with it, perhaps consider some other sort of visual cue that would allow frequent readers like myself to instantly determine if new content has been posted.

I also like the idea of RSS feeds. And you really need to talk Kyle into doing some Podcasts.
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Being able to do RSS and sub-section news properly is going to require we dump the "editions" model. Yeah, I am still a fan, but doing editions and trying to realize our content goals are not on the same track so editions will be sacrificed for the greater good. :\
 
chrisf6969 said:
neat looking, but I don't like the idea of possibly having to navigate more to get to everything I want to see.... I like how now I just scroll down 1 page to see the new stuff.
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What is "everything" you want to see exactly?
 
BTW, in case you guys haven't realized it yet, there is a major push to fill each new brand ([H]Console/Enterprise/Consumer) with a ton of new content. To accomplish this we have been expanding operations.

I just opened our Austin office, which will be responsible for [H]Consumer, and have it 75% staffed.

You can see pictures here:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=955345
 
haiku said:
For one, the use of flash will be more or less transparent. You wouldn't even know there was flash unless I told you. Even right-clicking the text wouldn't make it obvious. And it loads through java script in a very slick manner, you won't feel the load at all.
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How will the site do for accessibility concerns?
 
Torgo said:
I'm going to focus on my area of speciality and my apologies in advance for straying a bit off-topic. On the subject of Hard|Console... well, this takes me by surprise because I remember Kyle for years saying that gaming wasn't going to be a focus for the main site because Shacknews fit that bill nicely. I guess I'll have to talk to Kyle off-line and see what the plans for that section are, because I've got some input if he'll have it from me.

Color themed sections: It smacks of Slashdot, but they totally did it wrong. Good lord, have you seen the retina burning colors of their gaming section? (Well, that and the editor there is a nitwit.) It seems that the colors haven't been chosen for these sections, but I'd be really, really subtle with anything. Since HardOCP lacks a logo/mascot and a distinct font, the brand is basically identified by color and brackets. Now sections are mucking with the color.

Note to Kyle: If you're going with a redesign, I'd say this is the perfect time to get with a marketing company and come up with a new logo/font and introduce it with the site redesign. Definitely strengthen the brand. That's just my opinion and others may think it's good enough as it is now.

Hard|Console. Wow... just can't get over that.
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First off, it is NOT "Hard|Console." It will be branded [H]Console. Too many people have problems with the "ocp" part of our name and many of the rest just get confused by the "hard" part. Seeing that the enthusiast community took to our [H] branding and really made it our identity we thought that staying simple and carrying it over to the other sites would be the simplest way to do it. If I had it all to do over again, I sure as hell would not have named this place "HardOCP" as it is the one thing I actually regret. Then again, when I named it that, I really did not think more than a couple hundred folks would ever visit.....

[H]Console will consist of console hardware and add-on hardware reviews and modding as well as console game reviews. It should be truly a console gaming site. Three editors are working here currently and there will be content depth when the site launches.

[H] will continue through the branding and we have yet to establish the colors yet, but we WILL BE ASKING YOU GUYS for input on those as well.

New logo? No way. The "[H]" has been more than we could have ever asked and is now a registered trademark as well. As for the design, I think we have the right man for the job already. If you have specific advice on fonts and design, please share them, but I think it is unfair to say we need to hire someone when we have done exactly that.
 
doh said:
How will the site do for accessibility concerns?
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It won't be a concern. This is why I do things in Semantic xHTML and CSS. Things that people can't support will deprecate. Well, in theory :)
 
NiViK said:
not to be a complete geek, but isnt that the same fontset that star trek uses...lol
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lol - looks close!

Oh hey - speaking of which, maybe on April 1st you guys could do the site up in Klingon font. lol babelfish will really need to get on that klingon --> english convertion tho... lol ;)
 
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