Welcome one and all to the new TTAC. Take a moment to look around and you’ll see that in addition to a new logo and some graphical changes, we’ve made some functional upgrades as well. For one thing, we finally have a customizable Google search window. We have also integrated a Facebook Connect feature which will allow you to log in using your Facebook profile, and we’ve made it easier to share your favorite TTAC posts using Digg, Twitter, Facebook and more. You’ve probably also noticed our new “Featured Story” bar at the top of the page by now. We have more cool new functions coming down the pipe, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we’re back to deliver all the news, commentary and analysis you can handle. Thanks for bearing with us during the upgrade, and enjoy!
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I’d be curious to know how many of the readers do/don’t know where the illustration for this post came from.
Yes, I do. FWIW.
The pic is from the Fox show The Simpsons, of course
So far, so good. Nice new look, sweet new logo. Seeing the logo a thousand times on the right side of the page might get a little old though. Overall, this looks like a nice step forward. Looking like the pros these days!
Can’t say I’m a huge fan of the logo. And there may be some bugs in the software because the TTAC home page is just a list of links. When I click to a specific article the formatting comes out ok.
Maybe it is just the crappy ol’ browser (IE6) I use at work.
The featured article bar at the top is cool.
Like the look,like the logo-great job.
Site seems to be bouncing between the mobile template and the full browser template.
Thank you, the site finally works well on mobile devices! I now have another train, plane and taxi activity!
I liked the look of the old TTAC a lot. In fact, I told a couple of people to look at TTAC to show them how I thought their websites could look. Very professional, and easy to read.
I don’t like the new look much. I’m sure I’ll get used to it. But to me, it’s worse, not better.
I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the new look. But I also have to admit that it might be down to the simple fact that it’s new and the fact that it still appears to be somewhat buggy…Maybe it’ll grow on me…But right now the best part to me is the fact that the layout of the articles have basically remained the same.
The only constant in the universe is change. Everything changes; it’s inevitable. Those who don’t like the upgrade will eventually get used to it. So far I really like it.
I have a question though. What happened to yesterday’s Concours post? I didn’t get a chance at home to look at all the pictures because the post crashed my old and slow home computer. When I went to look at the photos this morning at work (superfast broadband connection and lightning quick processors at work!) it had mysteriously disappeared.
Not a fan of the logo, but otherwise I would say it’s a step up. The new editor for comments is a huge step up.
Not so much. But then I dont like change. When I log in the bright blue is great however.
Monty: it’s coming back soon with resized images. Thanks for your patience!
+1 on the layout bouncing between standard and mobile templates. Glad that the site is more mobile friendly too.
I’m not a fan of the new logo or the fact that the News feed doesn’t show up in the right column like it used to (maybe I’m missing something?).
That said, change is sometimes difficult, and you’re never going to please everyone.
I’m still debating on whether or not i prefer the new design – just seems like the new layout lacks the graphics of the old design and being a visual beast the more graphics the better
I like it. I like it a lot. The new logo is great, the new design looks great.
One suggestion: ditch the stupid green highlighted text ads. They make it impossible to actually read any of the content if you happen to accidentally move your mouse over them. It’s not helping the image at all.
Even though I am using a desk top, the web site forced me into the mobile version. At first, I thought the site was hacked.
New logo looks cartoonish. It has an infomercial, Billy Mays whiff about it. I think the ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ logo will misled newcomers to think this site has quick ‘yay or nay’ capsule car reviews and not the actual in depth analyis of the industry.
New logo looks cartoonish. It has an infomercial, Billy Mays whiff about it. I think the ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ logo will misled newcomers to think this site has quick ‘yay or nay’ capsule car reviews and not the actual in depth analyis of the industry.
Maybe a logo using the “scales of justice” instead of the thumbs would look better and indicate more in depth analysis.
We have more cool new functions coming down the pipe, so stay tuned.
Especially given that TTAC is very much an an automotive site, you might want to correct that to “down the pike.”
Haven’t you heard? The Internet is a series of pipes/tubes.
I like it. It’s clean and well thought out. I suspect that’s because I’m a big fan of change.
Blog text needs to be a point larger. No I’m not 80.
Cher Marcel: Press Ctrl-+ — that is, the Control key and the plus-sign key simultaneously — and hey presto, it’s fixed!
If that doesn’t work, then first switch to a better browser, and then press Ctrl-+ .
HTH!
Hey thanks for all the in your face advertisements I don’t need to see.
TINSTAAFL
The logo is definitely a step backwards, though it does seem to make the ads stand out more, which was maybe the point of the exercise. Can’t see how the Twitter/Facebook connection is much of an enhancement, either.
Big shoulder shrug overall.
Overall I suppose I am okay with the change, as long as the overall direction and tone of TTAC remains the same. (I depend on you guys to sometimes be the devils advocate to the overly optimistic reporting done by some other auto journalist sites.) However when it comes to your new logo, I am not a fan. It does not really infer what makes TTAC different, and it seems too derivative. (Look at the logo for one of my favorite shows, Pardon the Interruption, and you will see what I mean http://espn.go.com/i/espnradio/podcast/images/pti_600x600_sponsor.jpg about being derivative.) I understand that you have to brand yourself, and a logo is important to that, but I think this attempt shoots and misses.
P.S. Maybe I am missing it, but how in the world can your define links on here? Your auto-formatting wants to include the preceding word in with the url as part of the destination address. I understand you have to do things to avoid spam comments, but providing some sort of easy to access link bracketing system would be nice.
Mom told me not to say anything if I didn’t have something nice to say.
So as long as you think that logo looks good…
And yeah, I liked the old site design better, too, but it’s your livelihood, not mine.
Desperately need the next article/ previous article nav buttons back
Not a fan of the logo, everything else looks like a fine evolution. Now I need to track down a clever ironic picture to fit in better. Cactus with snow sounds like a winner.
I hate the new logo. Looks cheap and tacky. I like the logo-less old TTAC header better.
Where is the list of recent news articles that used to be on the right-side column? Miss that.
I like the ability to reply to specific replies. It’s much needed.
Shame not to see RF on the editorial masthead. It’s. So. Wrong. Anyway, Edward, you misspelled your own name.
Looks great and the new features rock.
Perhaps it’s because it’s new, but it could be improved.
To me, I prefer the old way of having alternating posts in different colors. Something that improves readability. I think the ads have gotten to much space, whichs makes the site more visually disparate, further decreasing the readability. It’s too “airy”. Too much white space all over the place, making things be further apart. On the right margin, I don’t like the alternating ads and boxes with “latest car reviews” and so on. I’d like to separate content from advertisements. Perhaps have the ads in a separate margin to the far right?
I don’t know, I prefer a more visually cohesive look.
There are a number of issues with the roll-out that need to and will be addressed with the tech folks at VS. Edward is sick with the flu. The timing of this transition is not ideal (when is it ever?). Your patience and forbearance is requested.
I liked the old layout much better.
In an attempt to provide some hopefully useful feedback here are the things I dislike about the new layout:
The “featured stories bar” across the top, takes up a lot of space and looks cheap and cheesy. I’d rather just get straight to the posts and have featured/segmented content links along the right side as it was and some still is.
The “More Posts” links under the main text of the post, also takes up a lot of space and just means I have to scroll further to get to the Comments section which I enjoy reading. These links don’t add anything to my use of the site except the extra scrolling so they’re actually taking away from the experience.
The new Avatar boxes and the dramatically larger commenter name bar. I can understand why people like having avatars and such but these new boxes and bars take up way too much space between the actual comments themselves. The old tag for user name and posting date in 12-point font wasn’t anything special but it had the effect of emphasizing the content of the comment rather than the identity of the commenter. It also minimized the amount of scrolling necessary to read the comments. As you can probably tell by now I really don’t like to scroll down huge webpages.
The new logo. Did We even have a logo before? If so it was better than the new one.
And finally, I don’t dig your twitter face tubes so I consider that a waste of screen real estate too. And if one of those icons ambushes me when my mouse pointer moves over it, so help me god, I’ll be right annoyed. I absolutely hate it when those things launch a whole box of links in front of the text I’m trying to read.
damn, just lost the mobile view and the dektop v ersion just crawls on my handheld.
I think most will become accustomed to new logo…no worries unless you’re buying a hat or something.
The scary part is the avatars; what used to be a simple site fostering intelligent discussion among adults has now pulled a “Car and Driver” by making the poster more important than the post. Well-worded comments don’t need hood ornaments.
And I swear by stripes on my Mini, the first time I see an smiley-face in a comment it will mean the 12-year olds have arrived and I’ll be outt’a here.
And just like that, its back. I did note that I can now use numbered and unnumbered lists, which is going to make being a pedant much easier.
Oooh. Nested replies!
Hey it’s true, nested replies!
I still don’t know how my picture go there… is it because I use Wordpess for a number of my own sites? Did it somehow get crossed with ttac?
Has anyone else had a picture appear?
Sorry. Not digging it.
I agree with lots of other posters on the following:
– New logo is cartoonish.
– Avatars lower the IQ of everyone posting.
– Too much at the top of the page. Everything above the “Home” bar needs to go. It’s very cluttered and cheap-looking.
– Having alternating colors on the posts was very good and easy to read. Too much white space.
Aside from that, not bad. I can deal with the extra ads in between articles. I like the Google search and featured articles. 0.02
If this site was a car we’d be talking of 0 to 60 performance of about 12 seconds and lateral acceleration of about .35g’s. TTAC has always been the worst performing of the sites I visit daily and if it wasn’t for the unique content, irreverent writers and wonderful users I’d have left long, long ago.
Stop all development work on new features and design “improvements” and get down to the more difficult and serious work of making this site a world class performer. BTW I’d guess that your web stats would take a big leap forward if the site was consistently fast. Just my 2 cents…
I like
-Simplified, Word-style comment box. No more puttering around with HTML.
-Clean, professional appearance overall.
-Staff window helps newer members such as myself.
-It’s changed, but not radically.
-Replies to comments now get indented and sorted. Finally!
I dislike
-The loss of alternating-color-background comments. As someone else mentioned, helps the readability.
-New logo. Rather brash, visually aggressive, and a little tacky.
-Where’s the recent comments box?
I’m indifferent towards
-Featured articles bar. I just dig through the site’s archives for what I want to read.
-Avatars. Sure, I’ll use one, but if they get axed for some reason, I won’t lament them.
-Ads. I use the Ad-Blocker Plus add-on for Firefox, so I never see ’em anyway.
Overall, a pretty good update.
I’m glad that you’ve retained much of the look of the former design. That was a real strength of the last version. The new post editor looks pretty good, too, although I haven’t used it yet.
Put me in the camp that dislikes the logo. A lot. It cheapens the site, in my view. I’d retain the old one unless you find a better one.
One continued deficiency is the lack of numbered posts, which make it easier to reference other comments in the discussion threads.
I can live with the avatar feature, although I probably won’t use it and they do seem to dumb down sites. One thing I would add would be a private messaging system, which I suspect would get a lot of use and would help to build the community aspects of the site.
Long time lurker. Just had to create login to say – hate the new logo. Looks very trashy, in a 1970’s sort of way. On the plus side, it seems like there has been more editorial content lately.
The Aztek of logos. Did someone run it by Ebert first? He owns the trademark, IIRC.
A couple of more points to add –
-I personally liked the “most recent comments” feature that appeared on the right-hand side. I would suggest bringing that back (although hopefully without the bugs found in the last version.)
-I just noticed the nested replies button. I dislike this feature quite a bit, as it tends to make discussions confusing when the comments aren’t in consecutive order — I’ve never seen a blog or forum where it doesn’t make things worse . I would rely upon the numbered posts feature, instead.
-Along with displaying the number of comments posted to a thread, it would also be helpful to see the handle of the poster who made the most recent comment.
Thanks.
Hot:
• comment editor
• nested replies
• maintenance of white space
Not:
• the logo
The new logo looks cheap and irritating. The comments are hard to read as well, liked the old format much better.
Best wishes though on the new site, content is still good and readable.
Sorry guys. HATE the new logo. Looks way too cartoon-ish and cheap.
The features of the comments editor are a marginal improvement, but HATE the new display of comments. Way too much scrolling. And why do we need avatars?
Can we go back to the old way, please?
Like the look of the site, the logo… not so much. I know TTAC’s rather difficult history with it’s logo, hopefully this logo is a stopgap until a professional one can be designed…
I tried to load my own image as an avatar but get a “directory not found” error message. Obviously some people have their own pics working. Did I do something wrong?
Same result here.
I just created a new user and was able to load up an image (remember, it has to be fairly small under 10 Kb). Or, you may use a general site like Gravatar.com (what I’ve done) which will load your avatar at whatever site uses them.
SERIOUSLY? THAT’S THE NEW LOGO? After weeks and weeks of voting, b&b input, back and forths, voting again, resubmissions, round sixes, and THIS is what you come up with? Was all the b&b’s sweat/input/time for naught? When the h3ll was this submitted? Sorry to sound harsh, but it’s disappointing. You can call it sour grapes if you want, but I swear it’s not – were there a logo I liked, I’d tell you. This one looks cheap (as mentioned above) and I 100% agree that it looks like a car judging site. You don’t judge movies (with your Roger and Ebert thumbs up/down – oh, and the thumb is too fat in relation to the fingers) you report on the car _industry_. This is a HUGE mistake. You’ve lost everything that was the soul of this site in one logo, congratulations. I’m sure the friend of your new overlords designed this (maybe their kids, I dunno), but whomever did obviously doesn’t “get it”. I look forward to your reply/silence/deletion.
The logo contest was at the behest of the old company. This was done by the new one without our input. We hate it as much as you (all) do!
We feel your pain. SNL’s throwaway gameshow logos are better than that. Tell your masters we’ll click through more ads if we aren’t blinded by that abomination.
I’ll wait to comment until the site design settles a little and I’ve used it more. With the exception of the logo, nothing dreadful noted, but I agree with Pch101 that nested replies aren’t helpful.
For what it’s worth:
Thanks for keeping the site clean. It looks like it uses a bit too much whitespace in the vertical direction, but otherwise it’s nice to see it stay simple.
+1 on the above about bringing back the alternating colors on comments.
The text box doesn’t properly break paragraphs in Opera. Carriage returns are eliminated.
I don’t understand the logo. You guys always seemed follow the saying: “dichotomy is the tool of the cretin”. Thumbs up/thumbs down thinking is way too easy to really get at the truth (or provide good criticism, for that matter). I thought (hoped) you all would frown upon such simplemindedness.
And: italicized words are cadaverous to me somehow, like the undertaker’s beautician was trying to bring them to “life”. The logo has a ’50’s diner quality about it that’s unsettling.
But as long as you’re happy and the content is good, no worries.
I assume that the links across the top of the site are other VerticalScope sites. If TTAC now features a link to “AutoGuide.com”, why doesn’t AutoGuide.com feature a link to TTAC at the top of its page?
Ok, after using the new site a little more, let me give you a more detailed feed-back:
Logo:
Not a fan at all. I don’t think it fits the TTAC brand. I think it’s just not simple/clean enough. There’s too much going on with the thumbs and the slightly upward angle. Looks cheap, not classy.
Featured Story Bar:
I guess I still need to get accustomed to it, but it might just work out fine. Good idea and definitely worth trying.
Comment Box:
Usability has improved a lot, but there are two things that bother me. First of all, the box is somewhat smallish and I can’t customize its size anymore as I could before. Secondly, the space between two lines is too big when you press enter.
Nested Comments:
Also not a fan. I can totally see how people like this feature and I guess I’m in the minority here, but it makes it more complicated for me to follow a discussion. Usually, new replies always showed up in the bottom, so I could scroll down and continue where I left off. Now comments can pop up everywhere. But I guess this is a minor point and I could get used to it.
Avatars:
Unnecessary if you ask me. But I guess it’s also one of those features that you can’t do without in this day and age. But you should try to find a way to make these headers smaller once more (maybe by integrating the avatar into the actual comment?) There’s simply too much empty space in the comment section.
Social network stuff:
Again, I could live without it, but it doesn’t bother me all that much. One thing though: The facebook button is a little too saturated. The blue doesn’t work at all with the general color theme. Maybe you could desaturate it a little bit so that it’s like the other buttons (digg, reddit, twitter, etc.)
Well, I guess it’s a mixed bag after all. Generally, while I personally probably won’t use any of the new features, I think they’re probably still an improvement of the site. The two main things that bother me are the Logo and the visually bloated comment section with all this unused space. The general design is (and always has been) great though.
Edit:
Ok, another thing that I just found out by posting this comment: I really, really like being able to see all comments on one page. There’s nothing more inconvenient than having to click through the comments. If some people prefer that, fine, but please give us at least the option to see all comments on one page like before…
I like it fine, still pretty clean. I’m not here for fancy web design.
That said, you need a favicon.
I held back on commenting so that the site can stabilize after the upgrade. I am not experiencing any formatting or functionality issues on this November 9th evening.
I like the new functionality and especially like the top navigation. The professional look and feel of the whole site is there… but doesn’t come across. With due respect to the designer and the design process, the site’s potential for a professional look is overpowered by that logo design. It’s completely out of place. Here in Quebec we have a word that perfectly describes the logo’s effect on the rest of the look: “kétaine”. Loosely translated, it can mean “kitshy”, “tacky”, “cheesy” and “embarrassing” sorta all mixed in together. The look and feel of it makes me think of a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in a rectangular state. A honky-tonk piano and out of tune banjo are playing.
I say this with empathy, as I am going through a new logo design process for my own company, so I keep in mind the various pulls in getting the logo right. Which is why my words aren’t even harsher. I’ll close by saying: this logo got it wrong. I urge you to quickly embark on a replacement.
Kman – what’s your company? You not getting anywhere with your current designer? If you need help, you can email me. You can see some of my _old_ work at http://www.constructviscomm.ca
Keep in mind I haven’t updated the site in over 5 years :-O Currently a Creative Director at another agency, so this site needs a refresh – coming soon ;-)
You know whats even worse? Being a graphic designer / photographer and trying to come up with your own name/logo. I’m still searching and havn’t come up with anything remotely compelling that makes any sense. Good luck to us, I guess?
I thought thumbthing seemed different today . . . .
testing paragraphs in html<p>
new para</p>
<p> another para with a line break after it <br> line after line break</p>
My last post came out as ONE BIG PARAGRAPH. Not even *I* would want to read it.
New para without html markup.
Last para.
Ok, I’m calling a formatting problem in the posts.
New para
Two carriage returns… see what this gives….
Two returns.
I held back on commenting so that the site can stabilize after the upgrade. I am not experiencing any formatting or functionality issues on this November 9th evening.
I like the new functionality and especially like the top navigation. The professional look and feel of the whole site is there… but doesn’t come across.
With due respect to the designer and the design process, the site’s potential for a professional look is overpowered by that logo design. It’s completely out of place. Here in Quebec we have a word that perfectly describes the logo’s effect on the rest of the look: “kétaine”. Loosely translated, it can mean “kitshy”, “tacky”, “cheesy” and “embarrassing” sorta all mixed in together. The look and feel of it makes me think of a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in a rectangular state. A honky-tonk piano and out of tune banjo are playing.
I say this with empathy, as I am going through a new logo design process for my own company, so I keep in mind the various pulls in getting the logo right. Which is why my words aren’t even harsher. I’ll close by saying: this logo got it wrong. I urge you to quickly embark on a replacement.
Ouch … multipage comments do suck. And no navigation (e.g. page #s or even comment #s) make a bad thing worse.
Oh! Big one! Put me down as well for definitely wanting ALL POSTS ON ONE PAGE. No “next comments” and “previous comments”.
How the heck do I remove my avatar? I never uploaded this… I’m suspecting it’s because I use WordPress for my own sites, somewhere, somehow those configurations got crossed?
At first I was angry because I don’t like change. Then I took my meds and my world became balanced.
Hugely tacky logo – and that after all the submitted logos you got a while back? Tons of white space between everything meaning you have to scroll for ages to get from the top to the bottom… A step backwards for sure.
Functionality, so far, appears to be a positive improvement.
However, and let’s not try to fool ourselves here, the new logo sucks.
Whoever designed it should give up any hope of becoming a graphic artist and proceed to their plan B.
I wondered why I couldn’t access the site from work yesterday afternoon for about 3 hours. Didn’t get a chance to check it last night.
Yes. The logo. Awful. Horribly secretarial. Very clipart/wordart feeling. To make matters worse, the application of it at the top of the site is atrocious. It shoves everything important down about 150 pixels. That whole area needs to go, along with the monstrosity of a “logo”. EDIT: Disliked the logo enough to create a filter rule in adblock plus specifically for “logo.gif”. The layout looks much better without it.
I assume the annoying list of links at the very top of the page is something you have been mandated to include, which is a travesty. It looks incredibly cheap. The list of stories under the home bar seems… out of place. Random. No explanation as to why it is there, or what its purpose is. Its not redundant, but it feels redundant.
The new comment system feels fat and bloated compared to the previous one. This is due to the avatar image area, mostly. Scrap that, go back to the alternating white/yellowish of the previous. However, the nested comments feature is handy, but it looks like it needs some tweaking. Nested comments are “breaking” out of the right side.
Alot of things to get used to here. Some of them are a nice addition. Alot of them just make the site appear to be going the way of the car industry. Add more unnecessary stuff. Add bloat. Make it bigger. Bigger is always better, isn’t it? [/sarcasm]
LESS IS MORE
Where’s the URL or widget to switch back/forth between desktop and mobile views?
I can live with the redesign and learn to accept the logo. I want to continue reading the site, so I don’t really have too much choice in that regard.
My greatest desire is to see the return of the previous/next navigation buttons. Without them I find it more work than pleasure to read the site on my Blackberry.
I also noticed the “mobile interface” showed up for a while on my desktop computer on the afternoon of the roll out, but when I went to the site from my Blackberry it was gone. How do I get to the mobile version? I find the standard site is barely usable on my Blackberry now.
Rob, what style of previous/next navigation are you referring to? Do you mean from the single post view, ie when you click through from the main page?
Unfortunately the mobile skin has been temporarily disable because some non-mobile users we’re experiencing problems where the theme would switch back and forth. We’re looking into the issue and hope to have it resloved soon.
Well, not too bad. I’m willing to let things evolve, AS LONG AS you put next and previous at the bottom of each news item’s individual page.
As it stands now, I have to have the main page open in one tab, open a new tab for the item, read it, close it, go back to the main page and select the next news or editorial item.
Tedious.
As for indented comments, etc., etc, the old way with alternating colors was great. The site tried separate pages of comments before, and that was voted down. All comments on one page please.
The logo looks like a couple of rooster combs at right angles to normal, not hands. Well, maybe they do look like pre world war 2 comic book hands. But you knew that already….
wmba, we’re working on adding this to the theme please be patient. Thank you.
Since the logo has been adequately covered…
I am always wary when I hear “cool new features’ as if we were all in 8th grade. I’d put clean and simple over latest cool stuff any day.
And remember, it doesn’t matter how the site looks. If it turns into a manufacturer’s shill site, it’s over. Inside Line, Autoweek, Car and Driver, Road and Track all have the exact same stories on the exact same day with the exact same pictures. If you turn into another site that lives off what the manufacturers feed you, it’s over.