A few small changes to the front page this evening. If something's glitchy, tell us in the comments, or email.
1. The list of Gawker sites, now a round dozen, is in the sidebar, each with an illustrative thumb and a link to a recent hot topic.
2. The thumbs on the front page are of fixed width, now, for consistency as the eye moves down the page.
3. And the 5pm roundup, of the most popular and most discussed stories, is a little easier to understand, we hope.
Design Tweaks
6:51 PM on Wed Apr 16 2008
By Nick Denton
772 views
34 comments








Comments
Denton, what determines the order of the sites in the site list?
(I don't know why I care, but I do).
these sites used to show up on my phones browser just dandy, now they show up all funky and unreadable. any chance that this will be fixed? i cant make it through class or work without my gawker.
@RocketRockit: I think it's the site with the most recent TOP story that gets priority.
I like it! One change I would make though would be having the site name and the picture link to the site's frontpage rather than the story, and just have the story description link to the actual story.
I do miss the links at the bottom of every page too, but this is a more than worthy replacement. design-y
@valarmorghulis: You can click on the site name to go through to the front page.
@TinyLightning: What phone do you browse on?
the io9 thumb has been freaking me out all day. also, were Wonkette, Gridskipper and... that other one... jettisoned just to make a pretty new sidebar?
I like the sidebar alot. Now I'm going to say something freaky. It's kind of newspapery.
Nice job, Mr. Denton.
Even though the bloody io9 demon is freaking me out.
I've noticed one glitch Nick. There seems to be unending coverage of some Julia Allison person who is completely uninteresting.
@Nick Denton: I noticed that, I just thought it was more intuative to have the pic go there as well. I'm kinda strange like that though.
I also just noticed that clicking on the pic doesn't actually take you to that story, but to a list of stories with the associated tag. Right-clicking on the sitenames to open in another window/tab no longer works either (although it works fine for the tag and pic)...I'm starting to feel like I'm examining the site's teeth though so I'll just shut the hell up now.
mr. denton, it's really lovely! and I see you're delighted with it too; tossing commas about the place again, are we?! oh sir, yes, you're right to crow! it's glorious!
shall I just sweep the excess commas up, then?
I miss the links at the bottom. After I've read everything on the front page I usually use those links to jump to one of the other gawker blogs so it's mildly inconvenient to have to scroll all the way back up. They don't take up much space...
@bourgeoisie: I forgot to say, that I do really like the new sidebar. Very handsome.
The thumbnail size normalization was desperately needed.
Can we work on that header next?
Admirez le leche-culisme!
The site looks sterile, Nick. Open your mind to the generative possibility of blunt criticism.
The site looks sterile, cold, stark, and uninviting.
The eye scans the page for human warmth, a sense of wonder, for something that says "greedy musclepig."
Where are the images of muscular Marines arm-wrestling in the nude?
Where are the high-resolution photo spreads of tattooed bodybuilders wrestling with naked Marines?
Add a few jockstraps and a little baby oil to this site and the design and layout will take care of themselves.
If anybody in tech is reading this, please help, Wonkette will not update, not since 5:01 pm, we are in Philadelphia covering the debate starting at this moment, please somebody kick the machine, anything, there are five posts that haven't appeared.
^^^
Uh oh, I hope Gawker Media offers warranties...
@Ken Layne: I hope that someone gets your message in a Gawker.
Two design suggestions:
1. The hed on the led item could be bigger or otherwise more prominent. Currently the lead item's hed ("design" is being overwhelmed by the matter to the left of it. In other words, the home page needs one element that says "this is where the content begins."
2. The horizontal rules separating items could be more prominent (darker, larger font, something like that).
Just thoughts. Overall I like it very much.
awww, poor fleshbot - I find it hard (teehee) to believe there are no top stories over there
@Nick Denton: Probably won't get a response this late, but I browse it on a Palm Centro. Higgledy-piggledy all the time.
@bourgeoisie: i love the sidebar for the opposite reason--I jump around as my fancy leads me, so this is perfect for me.
@Ken Layne: Maybe that's because there's... no Internet! Aaaaaugh!!!
[www.southparkstudios.com]
Dear Nick, I have a glitch. Every time I click on a headline to view a story, I get a fucking coupon for Chili's on my screen every single freaking time, at least twice until I get to the article.
I don't know if it's a virus (but I have a mac! They don't get viruses!) or something, or if it's some kind of advertisement you guys have worked out with Chilis, but it's fucking annoying.
Well here's a weird thing. Right now, the Defamer link has the pic from the Jason Segel nudie story. But the link text says "Bruce Willis"! Are y'all instituting some sort of new bizarro blind item clue thing that we should know about?
@misssgolightly: Sounds like the work of Doubleclick, or some other equally miserable internet marketer.
Is that a sidebar in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
@bourgeoisie: I agree. While the new sidebar gives a nice visual push to the other Gawker Media sites, it would be nice to also include the old style unobtrusive footer links, which were very handy for those of us who frequent some of the other sites. The need to scroll back up the page for those site links is just a teensy weensy bit annoying...;-)
@Nick Denton: Could we have the mini jumps back at the bottom? The sidebar is attractive, but when I'm finished reading a post, or posts, it's nice to jump right from the bottom.
@Nick, I browse Gawker (& Gizmodo & Lifehacker) regularly on a BlackBerry Curve. The pages format very nicely, but I have to scroll past a significant number of peripheral images and text to get to the content. For mobile platforms, would it be possible to change the Top Stories to text only, reduce the ads to a few thin banners, move the Gawker Team roster to a separate liked page, and move the GawkerMedia roster to the bottom of the page as text-only links? Incidentally, the ad images are bigger than the screen's size, so I don't even pay attention to what I'm looking at most of the time. Also, the commenting feature doesn't work with or without JavaScript turned on. Thanks!
i'm all for the continued facebookization of gawker media! friends of friends!
using a Blackjack. Windows mobile 6
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