Hi folks,
We're now about 10 days into the new site design, and I've heard some mixed feedback. Understandably, this is a big change for everyone, and we're all still adjusting to it. I have yet to get a chance to follow up on this post where we laid out the cover, but several other sites have done so. For example, this Detroit Bad Boys post follows up a lot more on the site elements outside of the cover, and this CougCenter post has a ton of useful graphics to help spell out the front page layout. Also, there's this SB Nation United FAQ that I have yet to link.
I did, however, want to say a couple things with this post. First, I wanted to provide an update on a few things that our product team has done already to improve the sites. Our team has focused on four key areas since last week's launch.
Mobile: One of the major goals of this project was to have one site that worked to scale on all devices, rather than a separate app. Early on, many folks noted that the load time on mobile was taking too long. Our product team has heard those concerns, and we have therefore streamlined the mobile web layout to make it easier to quickly scan. Hopefully, this has helped improve everyone's mobile experience. I, for one, have been able to load the site on my phone much faster than a week ago.
If you are still having trouble loading the site on your photo, let us know here and by emailing support@sbnation.com. We continue to make this our top priority.
Auto-updating new comments: For about a week, new comments weren't showing from the homepage. I can happily report that is no longer the case. New comments should pop up right next to old comments. Again: if this isn't happening, please let us know.
Fonts and shading: As you've probably noticed, we've made tweaks to the different fonts, font sizes and shading on our posts and in our comments section. Once again, if you have any suggestions, let us know.
Making the site more readable on older browsers: We continue to make progress with Internet Explorer 8 and 7 in particular. There is more work to be done there, but for those who are forced to use those browsers, we hear your concerns.
Secondly, I want to stress that making this new site as readable as we can is also the job of us as editors. Sometimes, an issue with the layout may simply be an issue with presentation. We have a lot of sections that we're figuring out where to place. We have a lot of different front-page layouts that we can use. We have a number of posts we're putting out that we want to feature. We also want to keep the river as close to reverse-chronological order as we can to maintain some of the blog feel that you all know.
All this is to say that the presentation is meant to be fairly consistent. The cover has the stories we want to feature in a given day, such as Andrew's unbelievable media day post. The river follows a reverse-chronological format and may occasionally include sections pinned to certain slots. StoryStreams will be used to track developing news stories such as the John Wall injury and is another way we can group content together. From there, it's just a matter of figuring out what cover layout works each day and which type of stories look best where.
That's an organic process, and we want your constructive feedback on that. We also want your constructive feedback on other things that we can tweak. Our support team is listening, and has made several adjustments already based on your response to the redesign. This is the space to provide more feedback and note any other bugs you have. All we ask is that you are constructive and forward-thinking, because that will help us make the site better.
Finally, I want to stress again that the content and the emphasis here remains the same. We are still committed to providing top-notch Wizards coverage and community for fans by fans. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe in SB Nation United's core mission and what it will do to all our sites. I've seen how many long hours our product team works to make sure that our communities are as good as they can be. I've seen how hard my fellow SB Nation full-time editors work to meet the same goal. Communities like ours are the core of our network, and that will never change.
Thanks to all of you for reading.