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The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:36 am
by lilbuddhaman
Warning this is a rant!
For those who listen to internet radio, the homepages of these sites can be good or bad. CBC radio 3 was in my opinion the absolute perfect setup, from initial page load you had access to all the major features of the site in neat, pleasing tones. Scroll down a bit and you had very useful page elements, a "users listening to now", which had 4 artist's pictures with track/name and would constantly update as other people pulled them up. Another was their "R3-30", their top 30 tracks of the week, listed all with vital info.
Their new site, which is really just an incorporation into their other CBC radio channels, is flat, dull, dead looking. Gone are the pleasing colors, replaced with the "apple look" (white bland tones). Gone are the easy to see/use links, gone are the intuitive controls. It seems like the typical "corporate strategy to increase page clickthroughs", it just seems like they took an incredibly friendly and accessible site and simply killed it.
Here are some screenshots to compare them, though they aren't "my" view (as the old site was changed over before i knew about it being killed), but they give you a little bit of insight on what i'm talking about. On a 1920x1200 screen the older website filled the page with much more content (and less dead space side to side).
old:
new:
This isn't as bad as the AP or Gawker redesigns, but ugh....website redesigns are so often poison.
Opinions, thoughts ?
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:45 am
by derFunkenstein
#firstworldproblems
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:49 am
by lilbuddhaman
derFunkenstein wrote:#firstworldproblems
If you would like to view or participate in religious, political, social, economic, or other flame attracting off topic (non-tech) discussions, then please go to this thread on joining the R&P forum and read the first post very carefully. To discuss this method of running the R&P forum, please use this thread.
Any R&P topics that are posted in the Back Porch will be moved to the R&P forum.
Kevin
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:51 am
by derFunkenstein
#backseatmodding
my point is, it's a website redesign heralded as "the death" of something nobody has even heard of in the first place. Big **** deal. Also, 1920x1200 is not the norm. The norm is quickly becoming 1366x768, since that seems to be what all the entry-level machines come with. Crying that your luxury monitor doesn't get to see anything extra is the definition of #firstworldproblems.
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:16 am
by cheesyking
derFunkenstein wrote:Also, 1920x1200 is not the norm. The norm is quickly becoming 1366x768, since that seems to be what all the entry-level machines come with
Also, if you've got 1920x1200 WTF are you doing with your browser maximised? I think I've only seen about 3 sites that can handle that kind of res without leaving big empty strips down the sides.
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:18 am
by derFunkenstein
cheesyking wrote:derFunkenstein wrote:Also, 1920x1200 is not the norm. The norm is quickly becoming 1366x768, since that seems to be what all the entry-level machines come with
Also, if you've got 1920x1200 WTF are you doing with your browser maximised? I think I've only seen about 3 sites that can handle that kind of res without leaving big empty strips down the sides.
++
I have 1920x1080 on my desktop, and I never have it maximized. I'll drag my Chrome window to the left so it gets tall and pins itself to one side, and i'll drag Thunderbird to the right and do the same. Then make Thunderbird narrower and Chrome wider, and voila. Two windows at the same time.
That's also possible for any number of applications.
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:21 am
by lilbuddhaman
And the other things i'm "crying" about are insignificant ? Unappeasing colors/tones, content lost, access to parts of the site harder to find, etc ? Not worth commenting on? Do you like all of these crippling redesigns that are happening to sites? This site went through one that was certainly jarring at first glance, but they had the hindsight to 1. Give options for color that mimicked the old site 2. Give an alternate format that mimicked the old site but with the improvements of the new one. Too often sites just throw in a generic template that is supposed to fit multiple facets of their site (gawker) when it doesn't fit the content itself.
deleted edit: nevermind this part about posting to post, was thinking you were sweatshopking
and no, I don't view the site at 1920x1200 maximized, I used probably half of it, but even at that window size, the new site shows big fat bars on the sides compared to the old. You guys are focusing on completely the wrong parts of my post... there is more to a website than the aspect ratio, FFS
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:42 am
by pikaporeon
I've been pretty indiffernet to the redesign, but then again I only really listen.
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:28 am
by Chaseme
With the launch of CBCMusic this change is logical. If they want a unified look from web/iOS app etc is going to get dumbed down for sure. The original look is fantastic that's for sure, but we're talking CBC here. The news page changes for the worse every 6 months.
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:30 am
by derFunkenstein
lilbuddhaman wrote:And the other things i'm "crying" about are insignificant ? Unappeasing colors/tones, content lost, access to parts of the site harder to find, etc ? Not worth commenting on? Do you like all of these crippling redesigns that are happening to sites? This site went through one that was certainly jarring at first glance, but they had the hindsight to 1. Give options for color that mimicked the old site 2. Give an alternate format that mimicked the old site but with the improvements of the new one. Too often sites just throw in a generic template that is supposed to fit multiple facets of their site (gawker) when it doesn't fit the content itself.
I just think you're exaggerating because you don't like change. That's pretty universally true of all people, myself included. I mean, "crippling?" It's not like we're talking about debt or a horrifying car accident here.
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:06 am
by lilbuddhaman
derFunkenstein wrote:I just think you're exaggerating because you don't like change. That's pretty universally true of all people, myself included. I mean, "crippling?" It's not like we're talking about debt or a horrifying car accident here.
You do realize that not all words are meant to be taken literally, right? The functionality of the new site compared to the old is "crippled". Since you apparently have never visited the site, nor even heard of it, I'm wondering what value your input on it even is. You started off with an inappropriate comment completely unrelated to the discussion, then continued by focusing on the window size rather the bulk of the complaints. Since the site is now down you have no real good way of comparing the two; but I think had you been able, you would be able to clearly see the legitimacy of my complaints. (maybe try the archive.org wayback machine?)
Do you have anything to comment on topic, or just opinions about me personally ?
Re: The death of CBC Radio3's website
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:12 am
by derFunkenstein
isn't this thread all about you and your feelings? I'm out - enjoy your blog.