A Quick Note On the New-Look Homepage
A few adjustments will hopefully make the site more user-friendly.
No, you're not losing it! Patch looks different today. We did a quick visual nip-and-tuck to the homepage to make it even more user-friendly. And we've moved a couple pieces of furniture. For those keeping score:
* We tweaked some words in our navigation bar to save space (e.g., "Traffic & Gas" is now "Commute")
* We moved the weather icon next to the Patch branding so you can find it more quickly!
* We moved, well, YOU closer to the top! (Our "shout stream" is now front and center to show all your comments off.)
* And of course we prettified a few things.
While the site might look a little different today, we still offer the same robust coverage of everything happening in Oak Creek. That was, is, and will always be our mission. We hope you'll let us know what you think of our tweaks - drop me a line or offer a comment below!
Heather Asiyanbi
8:31 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
You've had a day or so to get used to the new layout. Tell us what you think of it.
mau
11:33 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
Put "What people are saying..." back on the right column with more comments showing like it was before. It would be nice if when you hit "reply" it took you right to the comment not just the story.
Heather Asiyanbi
11:42 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
I'm passing comments and suggestions on so keep them coming!
mau
11:49 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
What happened to the "search" box? I used that a lot.
Steve ®
12:01 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
The comment view is terrible. Unless patch is trying to hide all the crap us jokers say to shield from view from the "passer by".
James R Hoffa
12:28 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
@Steve -
We are indeed a bunch of knuckleheads, aren't we ;-)
BTW: Nice to see that you've received a registration on your trademarked Patch screen name / avatar - very nice!
Steve ®
6:43 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Thank you kind sir. Only cost me €350
James R Hoffa
1:04 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Hoffa's sentiments regarding the 'What People Are Saying...' section, or the 'comment stream,' are similar to the others left here.
Beyond all reasonable doubt, the changes made to this section SUCK and BLOW!!! What in the hell was Patch thinking when they revamped this section the way in which they did? Was the person who made this call drinking heavily when they made such a decision (or perhaps not drinking enough)? Honestly, something had to have been going on to take something that worked well and actually make it exponentially worse! It takes some pretty raw talent to accomplish such a feat!
The new section makes no sense what-so-ever. From top to bottom of a listing, it shows the users avatar (if they have one), then a preview of their comment, then a link to the story/blog the comment was left on, and only then do we finally get to the users name. And if you make multiple comments at a time, it excludes the comment preview part but makes no reference to the fact that multiple comments were left, unlike the old system. This makes the stream very confusing and difficult to use because the spacing between the comment preview and the link to the story/blog is virtually non-existent and they use such a visually similar font that it's difficult to distinguish between the two - especially when you jump from a single commentator to a multiple commentator listing.
James R Hoffa
1:05 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Additionally, the new stream excludes showing the logged in user's own comments that have been left. The fact that the old stream did this is what enabled most of us to effectively track the progress of a discussion/conversation that we were either taking part in or following. With the new system, it's a crap shoot of refreshing at random intervals to check the page for new activity instead of merely checking the stream. Being able to reference our own comments on the stream was a tool that we used like a bookmark so to say. Taking this away is just downright cruel!
Also, separating the user's avatar from their name is just plain asinine - especially given the commonly accepted format for responding to a specific user's comment here on the Patch. For example, I'm Hoffa, so a little pic of Jack Nicholson's character from the 1992 film shows up when I post (my avatar). Let's say I'm responding to a comment Lyle Ruble made. My post would start like this "@Lyle Ruble -" or something similar, as has become the standardized format used here on Patch.
James R Hoffa
1:06 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Under the old system, the stream would show my avatar and name on the same line and then display my comment preview unless multiple comments have been made. Under the new system, the stream display's my avatar and right next to it says "@Lyle Ruble -," with my name only showing up at the bottom of the listing. Under the new system, I'm not sure if it's Hoffa or Lyle that's making the comment unless I really study the listing while under the old system I knew immediately from a quick glance. See how simple and effective it was before and how confusing and utterly stupid it is now? Come on Patch - this is common sense 101!!!
Moving the location of the comment stream from the right hand middle of the page to top center is also undesired, but something I suppose Hoffa could get used to. The format changes made to the section though need to be undone and reverted back to the old system ASAP!
Thank You for your considerations!
James R Hoffa
4:54 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
One more thing I forgot to add to my earlier rant -
The old comment stream contained the day/time stamp of the comment being made. While I could live without this, it wasn't necessarily bad, nor did it take up any unnecessary space, so you may as well restore that too!
Cheers!
CowDung
1:28 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
I don't think that I can add anything that Hoffa hasn't already covered. I agree with his assessment completely.
Steve ®
6:50 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Screw it. Keep it as is and give us a link on the upper bar to where we can read all the comments as they come in thread style.
CowDung
9:25 am on Thursday, April 26, 2012
OK--since it appears that things are getting worse rather than better, it's time to revive this thread.
Are there any changes to the Patch layout that are going to be rolled back to the previous form?
With the new ads, the new "shout stream", which was already criticized as a bad idea, has gotten even more useless. With the 'Patch hometown partner' ad taking up most of the space, there's barely enough room to see that one person has commented.
Can someone please do a follow up and let us know why these changes aren't going away despite the negative feedback from the readers?