The long-awaited redesign has come. I have tried to make use of some of your suggestions, such as putting recent comments on the sidebar (see “Site redesign coming “” any suggestions?“).
And yes, my old figures and pictures are now too narrow — but, on the bright side, new figures will be bigger and easier to read! And the ad no longer interrupts the flow of the posts.
We’re probably not going to be making any more major changes anytime soon, but comments are welcome!
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Love the new design! Just finished your book and amazed at how accurately you predicted the politics of the past few years. I feel this should be required reading for ALL of our elected reps! Perhaps you should consider an update and re-release with current info. I’d certainly start gifting copies to family and friends! Keep up the great work Joe. It’s nice to know there are those who still ‘fight the good fight’!
Thanks, Andy.
Now that it lists “recent comments” on the sidebar, I may make more comments here.
I may do another book, which would probably be a collection of posts.
I think the redesign is great, except for one aspect. The block-like blue background just seems a little old fashioned and unattractive. It doesn’t really convey much of a ‘green’ feeling. Perhaps something a bit more flowing and smooth, with fading hues perhaps, would fall better in line with the sustainability theme of this blog.
I know it is of little importance, but I’m sure it would be the easiest of things to change. It just makes the site look a bit amateur to me. My 2 cents.
Hey Joe,
Read your blog everyday. But the pure initial reaction can be described as weird. In terms of the colors on the page, it seems like it’s a step back into the 1990s. I agree with the previous poster (?). The green color was a major bonus and this now makes it harder to read and visually not as attractive.
I’m not from one of those ‘keep it as it always is’ crowds, but I felt the previous layout was a good way that you stood out from the other blogs and pages.
Thanks
Oh God, is anyone but me having adjustment problems? Oh, shock, shock! NO I DO NOT LIKE THIS MR SAM I AM.
But I suppose I’ll get used to it, just like when I was a newspaper columnist (a long time ago) I got used to typing straight onto the computer keyboard instead of writing out longhand and then transcribing.
*chokes back sobs*
Joe, it’s nice that I won’t need my reading glasses. I can read this from across the room!
Joe, I will still obviously frequent the blog because it’s a great resource, but I think the old design was much better. This one looks dated, isn’t as streamlined in its presentation of information, and does away with the better color scheme. And it looks cluttered.
Anyone else agree?
I also liked the old green theme and your old (Verdana?) font but this is fine. Utility-wise I’ve got no problems with it!
Actually, I’m told the old design was, well, old and dated.
This seems to load quicker on my iPhone
One major issue – please correct it! There is now too wide of a reading page. 20 words across a large screen is hard to read comfortably. The old width was just right.
(Computer screens should be “portrait” not “landscape” to accommodate our normal reading pattern, but that’s another issue…)
At first, I was concerned that I had gone to a fake climate progress site. I don’t care that much about the graphics – this one is just fine.
What is the enhanced utility of the new design? How does it make accessing information from previous posts easier? What about links to to other sites and climate information?
I think these are the more important questions, and would take some time to evaluate. In other words, I value utility of beauty.
I read your blog every day and really like the new design, but the color of the post headlines seems a bit washed out and is really hard to read. Maybe try a darker shade of green?
I know that you know how to spell “indispensable”! But the blog currently doesn’t.
“The indepsensable blog” — Tom Friedman, New York Times
2 thumbs up! The colors look good.
It took me a moment to get used to it, just because the levels of personal chaos in my life make even the most trivial changes unwelcome.
But I like the new design. I find it easy on the eyes, the color scheme is calming, the text is easily readable, and I find the overall presentation uncluttered and direct.
I’m not a fan of the new design. Sorry :)
I see a “Submit Comment” button here, but I thought that there used to also be a “Preview” button. Did it disappear?
As a web design professional and regular reader, my initial reaction is that the new site looks fantastic. The old one WAS dated, and this one looks much nicer. I was worried the redesign would add lots of clutter like Grist’s did, but it’s very clean. Pat those hard-working CAPAF web designers on the back for me!
Perhaps you should consider an update and re-release with current info.
I 2nd this. I thought your book was one of the ones that got things pretty much spot on and pitched just right.
May be you should try serializing it for a paper or magazine.
The new design is going to take time to get use to. Reserve comment till next week.
This format makes more use of the screen so it is a positive step. The headline date disappears when the full article is opened however.
it’s pretty.
the relationship of the page elements is a little muddy, meaning it’s not easy to tell one sidebar section from another, and body text seems to flow into the sidebar instead of wrapping to the next line. the blue sidewalls are invisible at window widths less than 1000px, leaving the left margin uncomfortably close to the wall. even with the blue to help the eye, the space between the sidebar and body text seems tight.
the text line is longer (by 1/3) but the spacing between paragraphs has shrunk relative to leading. paragraphs and blocks are harder to distinguish. (100 characters is a long line. this puts max for easy reading at about 75.)
the alternating shading for comments … indents and shading on other sites generally mean comment threading relationships. i have to keep telling myself that the indented comments are not responses to the comment directly above, and that interferes with reading.
but those are all a few pixels here and there. general feel is comfortable and insider-modern.
excellent.. good space made better.. a small thing I know but your numbered comments are high value..
Hi Joe,
I like the new design.
The recent comments section in the sidebar is nice, but it gets even better if you use a little WordPress plugin called GetRecentComments, that puts a small excerpt of the comment in the sidebar.
Heh, I like the design. It looks like a cooling trend on a noninterlaced map from a GCM model.
I like the lack of green. I’m so over the need for anything environment oriented seemingly needing to broadcast itself in shades of green. You certainly don’t need the greenwashing.
I like the new design! I find the colours much more pleasant to the eye (and if it is old fashioned, can’t we just call it ‘retro’ and make it fashionable? ;) )
The only thing I’d change is to have a clearer divide between the posts in the front page
Joe,
Generally the new design looks good. I like the graphic design on the top banner… it looks, I dunno, “serious”. But, like Hansen says about Waxman-Markey, there *is* a big flaw:
While the old layout of content on the left and “menu column” on the right worked all right when the page was only filling half the screen, now that the page fills the whole screen that approach induces eye strain and, worse, fosters distraction from the main articles. Every time my eyes track to the end of the sentence, instead of instantly wrapping around and down to the next sentence in the article, they want to go wandering off into the right column with all it’s petty variations.
This is only made worse by the fact that the menu column now takes up more of the entire page, as a percentage, than it did in the old design. That makes no sense to me. It’s all about the daily current content.
Please, swap the columns. The links, comments, ads and all the rest belong on the left side of the page when the page is filling the whole screen like it does now.
Urk! I just noticed there is NO “Preview” for comments? Not good. I’m a terrible speller and always preview several times before committing to post a comment. Please bring back the preview.
It’s odd, but even though the new design has more screen space, the pages seem more cluttered, not as open and focused as they did before. Maybe widen the left and right margins or something.
One minor quibble. The text seems smaller on the screen that it used to. And it isn’t as bold… or black… or something. It appears kind small and a washed-out almost gray. Not great for my tired old eyes. Kick up the font size and if the text is not set to true black then do so.
However, I am looking forward to charts and graphs with text large enough to actually read without pressing my nose against the screen.
I hate there blue blocks in your background, aside from that its great.
Nice and clean, easy to read – apart from the busy background. I’ve tweaked the design for my own preferences (wider, plain background, other minor stuff) if anyone wants to use it – install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108 and use this code – http://pastebin.com/m2cf981b2
Disappointing to see ‘Preview’ removed and no comment notification – I know several people requested that, and it’s not difficult to add.
And still this silly policy of sending any comment with more than one link to moderation – it just stifles discussion for no good reason – even if you are hit with Viagra spammers, they gain no benefit because the links are ‘nofollowed’.
admin -> Settings -> Discussion -> Comment Moderation [change number of links]
Looking sharp, Joe.
Comment previews will be back (I think)!
Loving the new redesign Joe! It’s easy on the eyes.
I agree with the other posters that while to blue is nice, the block design looks a bit dated…or perhaps it’s now retro. Am I really getting old enough to remember things that are now coming back? I also agree that the green text, as well as the text on the gray (even numbered) comments, is too light; a simple switch to darker colors would fix that. I’m personally not a huge fan of stark-white backgrounds, but most people like them, so I think that works. Unlike other posters, I like the wider design. I use a smaller laptop with higher resolution, so this comfortably fills the space and is a readable design. Unless this can be adjusted to each person’s monitor, this will always please some and upset others, but I’ll record my vote for this width ratio and text size. Shame on all those people with big power-hungry monitors! :)
liked the old one MUCH better – this is super retro…
Joe,
A couple more:
1. there are two ‘title’ tags in the code – there should only be one
2. it would be nice to have a favicon so that we can quickly spot climateprogress tabs in the browser
will take some getting used to – but i like it….change is always difficult! (…particularly of the climate sort…)
You can boost readership and comments if you linked the commenting system with Facebook Connect, and/or an open social variant.
People who comment on your post are then also broadcasting their comment to their friends — in their feeds. (e.g. gawker, etc.)
Like the bigger font but the headings are pretty plain vanilla. Need more graphic separators between articles and sidebar items. The lack of graphic elements really make the site look dull compared to the old design.
And the blue boxes should go – shouldn’t the site have a green color scheme given the topic?
Still loving the content tho,
…darth
The redesign looks nice, but you could look into a “fluid” layout that lets a person expand the size of the posts without compromising the size of the sidebars. That way a person with a bigger monitor can expand the posts to a very wide size but your sidebar stays the same width.
I’m glad you are finally on Twitter. Also, you could add a social tag on each post so people can share them however they wish.
I read the side nearly every day. I actually had to double check the URL several times, I thought I hit a spam page.
Honestly Joe, I thought your site was already top-notch in visual branding. Strong, bold, and carried the message without effort. The new site is confusing, somewhere between WIRED digital meets too much white-space canned design.
In my opinion, you’ll have better audience retention with a less generic design.
On reflection, I like everything except the masthead. I would put the subtitle on the right, underneath the title. It should either share the same background as the title, or be backed by a uniform color. I would also drop the “blocky” graphic in favor of something smoother, simpler and bolder. (On the other hand, if this is meant to represent the grid squares in a climate model, its meaning should be made more obvious.)
One other thing that would improve the layout is a thin gray vertical line just to the right of the comments.
While I think I preferred the overall design of the old site in general, the new site is amazing on mobile devices!
“We’re probably not going to be making any more major changes anytime soon, but comments are welcome!”
In other words, feel free to whine uselessly because you’re not going to pay attention to any but the most trivial issues? I’m sure you don’t mean that, but the wording is unfortunate.
[JR: Actually I was just trying to be as straightforward as possible. I'm not a very visual person so my judgment on these matters doesn't count for much, but CAPAF's IT folks will definitely look at the comments and we will discuss possible changes. It is very unlikely such changes will be better.]
The new one is OK; I have no major problems with it. I like the old one better, thought it was more distinctive and readable.
Also, I’m interested in what people have to say so i keep track of replies to my comments by pasting them all onto a big document with links. common dreams makes that easy with a personal account page and a tracking tab that leads you to all your comments and says whether there are new posts on the page. I’ve tried to copy my comments here and elsewhere in the new format and can’t now; every time i try it jumps to the top of the page and selects the whole article. Is that you or me?
The new design doesn’t work at all with Opera 9.64 (the latest). All I see is the top strip of what is probably the new logo (maybe a satellite picture?, says Climate Progress on the right although only the very top of the letters are visible), and then the page footer (About…, (C)…).
The rest of the screen is a blocky blue L pattern.
No articles or useful content of any kind.
If I select ‘View / Style / User Mode’ then the content appears but most formatting is gone.
It won’t display on my windows vista laptop running opera browser, which allows magnification for easier reading.
bill
My (oldish) version of Firefox shows even less than reported by the Opera user. Unless I disable style-sheet use, the page shows nothing but the tiled background image.
Won’t work for me in Opera or Firefox. :(((