Welcome to the new Boing Boing!
The new look comes from Jemma Hostetler of Studio Sans Nom. Her redesign is cleaner, easier-to-read, and built to incorporate additional new features that we'll be adding to Boing Boing in the near future. The redesigned logo and new character mascots were created by the fun-loving folks at eBoy, a collective of awesomely talented pixel-pushing artists from Germany and New York.
We're also happy to be reintroducing comments to Boing Boing, a feature we reluctantly dropped a couple of years ago. At that time, we lacked the resources to manage the comments, and felt that a lousy comment system was worse than no system at all, so we pulled the plug. We've never felt good about it, though, because our readers' comments added a great deal of value to the blog. To correct this, we hired a terrific community manager to oversee the conversations: Teresa Nielsen Hayden. At her own blog, Making Light, Teresa has proven herself to be a wonderfully wise and talented tender of online conversations. Teresa worked closely with our designers to develop a commenting system that supports the Boing Boing community while preventing noise from drowning out the signal. "We want this new community system to make Boing Boing even more fun and informative," says Teresa. Under her supervision, we're sure it will be.
Our third major change is the launch of a brand new blog: Gadgets.boingboing.net. While Boing Boing has always covered personal technology, the four of us (Cory, David, Xeni, and I) believed a critical, intelligent, optimistic, and selective blog about personal technology and consumer electronics would be a fine addition to Boing Boing. But who could we trust to oversee a tech blog that the four of us would want to read? Actually, it wasn't hard to find that person. We went straight to Joel Johnson, a former Gizmodo editor and founder of Dethroner. Joel is smart, funny, knowledgeable, and curious about technology. He was our first, and unanimous, choice to run Gadgets.boingboing.net. And we're grateful he agreed to come on board.
We'd like to thank the happy mutants who helped make this major relaunch possible. These folks went under the hood and untangled the mess that Boing Boing's code had snarled into, and created an elegant, powerful system that positively shines. Federated Media's Jonathan Schreiber and Ivan Kanevski did an amazing job of dealing with the technical aspects of the redesign. Our beloved system administrator Ken Snider worked his magic on the server side and made sure all changes to the site wouldn't impact the speed of page reloads or clobber us with high bandwidth costs. David Jacobs at Apperceptive upgraded Boing Boing to the newest edition of Movable Type, and designed and implemented the new comment system to Teresa's specs.
Special thanks go out to the gang at Federated Media: John Battelle, Chas Edwards, Josh Matison and everyone else that contributed a significant amount of time and hi-octane mental effort on making this relaunch a success. We're grateful to all of you for everything you've done. Extra special thanks to FM's Jason Weisberger for endless advice, encouragement, and, well, adult supervision. Thank you!
We hope you enjoy the new Boing Boing. Let us know what you think by clicking on the "discuss" link and adding your thoughts.
Congratulations! The redesign looks great.
Sigh. Make it harder to read through everything, great. Oh well. All good things....
Long live BoingBoing! I think I likes the older format better.
- Andrew
Looks pretty!
FIRST!
Ok, someone had to do that. :)
Nice new look. Congrats.
Your clock is off.
Yay, comments!
...oh, come on, someone had to say it.
frist psot!
Yay! congrats Boing boing! I've been reading the directory for years now, it really fits my way of life.
err, I suppose I'll get used to it, but could you maybe add in a way to decrease font size?
Perhaps a left margin or some padding would be nice?
...I fear change.
It looks nice! Glad comments are back, even happier that Teresa Neilsen Hayden is in charge...
Yay indeed !
I believe in evolution, and evolving is surviving... This is great news for the many years ahead !
My favorite site on the net
Looks different than the last iteration, but as long as the info's still the same, great stuff that we've come to expect, I'm sure everyone'll still be happy. :) Congrats!
I CAN HAZ COMMENTS!
w00t! comments are on! Thanks boingboing! Now I can leave snarky remarks and corrections with ousing the suggest a link interface...
(that planetarium timepiece you posted last week WAS NOT A CHINDOGU btw ;)
You should move the discuss link to underneath the article.
Otherwise, really digging the new design :-)
Outstanding new look! Now with comments, again. Finally!
oh hai
i IZ in Ur Comnts
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kepping ya memez alive
I'm really happy to see the comments back!
Very nice redesign, left hand formatting makes for an easy read. Having comments is like a dream come true. I remember hearing about the redesign a few months ago and when commenting was mentioned I wanted to shout for joy! Now if I could just get the registration to work, I'll have to work on that one.
wow. this is going to be fantastic! looking forward to having a great community here with all you info-loving-folks
huzzah!
Comments for everyone!
Hooray! Comments!
It looks like any other blog now, I'ts already losing my attention.
Glad to see comments back. With TNH moderating should we expect frequent dis-envoweling?
good to have comments for sure... will probably save floods of emails to the boingboingers too!
Very good. Congratulations.
the archive page is currently broken. i guess that it's a work in progress? are there any plans to import all that legacy content into the new look and feel?
Comments! Hooray!
Congratulations on all the changes. Things look good. Great choice for a community manager, too.
Congratulations! Great design. Love the resurrected comments feature.
Hmmm... i dunno... seems I'm one of the early birds. Comments: GREAT, Design: hmmm... i actually liked the old logo better...
Now excuse me I HAVE TO EXPLORE
I like it. It looks really clean and nice.
But what I liked about the last design was that it was roughish and fun. I'll probably get used to it soon.
Outstanding! You've made my mornings even better, I always say 'the day don't start until I've had my cup of Boingboing!' Love the comments (a bit obvious that) and the page is easier to read, much coolness is had by all.
yay, comments!
by the same token, i immediately noticed a couple of bothersome things you should consider tweaking.
1. because of the narrower content column there's a lot more scrolling required. bah.
2. discussion link is more effective at the bottom of the entry.
Cheers!
i appreciate the large type from a usability standpoint, but it is a bit harder to scan the site.
i second (or maybe third by now?) the suggestion to add a font-decrease option.
the design is super awesome by the way. much less clutter, and the adverts are so much more managable this way.
kudos!
It looks like the upgrade broke the site's formatting via distributed boing boing. No love for the firewalled.
I love the new logo redesign! But I feel like the page is too squashed now, it looked like a lot less can fit on the main page... Love the comment option, but maybe it should be put at the end of the entry instead of the top?
*is still a fan of the old boingboing but is open to trying out this new layout*
On one hand the design is an improvement and is obviously very professionally done and polished, but on the other, lots of other blogs have done something similar already. Now BoingBoing looks a dare I say it, a little generic and doesn't have the rough edges 'zine style of the old.
Oh God, comments. BoingBoing has comments.
Oh Happy Day! (Oh Happy Day) Oh Happy Day! (Oh Happy Day)
Looks good. Keep up the good work.
I will miss the Old format. Sorry but the new font looks like a million other blogs now (literally). The value of comments is debatable, after all you did post responses conservatively in a few cases.
It's like a Doritos or Lysol label makeover-- decided to be an improvement by management but no one would have complained if you left it alone.
Nice job on the redesign. But you should do something to style links differently. If you have link-underlining turned off in your browser (I do), they look no different from the rest of the text.
omg now i have to wait for all the comments to load too?!? dear god
I can't say I like this design but I like the fact that we can comment again
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I can't say I was excited about the new look. Less efficient, and the headlines don't stick out as boldly as before. Does seem more bland, and more like other blogs out there. FWIW, my experience visiting boingboing is now less enjoyable than it was before. It wasn't broke, don't fix it.
Hooray for comments! Thanks for bringing them back - I've often wondered how BoingBoing could call itself a 'blog' without them. As far as I'm concerned, a blog that doesn't allow comments is just traditional broadcast media by another name.
The new "design" is much harder to read. Actually, close to impossible. The type choices and headlines bleed together in a way that fights readability. It is why people should PAY for professional graphic designers- as opposed to free favors from ambitious friends with little or no talent. You need to find someone else- or go back to what you had-- it was better.
WOOHOO! That's all
The new design looks good. Looking forward to all the other new features. And, thanks for bringing back comments!
Good stuff! Always glad to see an oldschool publication continue to grow in current times. I may not always like comments, but I like to be able to leave them =)
This is harder to read, please insert a margin to the left of the text at least.
MOD THIS MOD FACES!!!!!
sorry... had to
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that the font is far more difficult to read. I've tried resizing it past the point where it gets bold just to see if that makes a difference. I thought serif fonts were harder to read on a screen in general. Does anybody else find this?
Meet the new blog, same as the old blog.
looks great. Good to see Joel on the team!
In addition to the nice outdoor life, there are lots of great restaurants in Boulder!
I'm using Safari 3.0 and the new layout is horribly broken.
I really like the new font and layout, but the titanic add space and smaller content space is really pretty aggravating. i love me some boingboing, and am down with the whole add space is necessary thing, but to have the awesome content undermined to this extent is no fun. trust me hp man, ze goggles, zey do nothing.
Bacn
Very, very cool. I've missed comments, and am really happy to see them back!
HOLY CRAP THANK YOU.
Three years on reading this website, and lately it has made me want to kill myself. This is soooooooooo much better, that it is almost overwhelming.
Change is scary, but this is wonderful. Really like the Gadgets page. Okay, okay, I have to say it: I just love you guys!
AnonyDave
LongLive BoingBoing!
Mark do you have any speaking engagements in Boulder, Colorado, or are you just visiting for a small taste of that Rocky Mountain High?
Hate the new formatting. Only 5 or so posts fit on the first page. Boo.
Like the content, hate the layout.
Wow ! What's happening ? Digg and now BB ??? Is this some kind of design revolution ?
Style looks good, but I agree that links need to be made to appear obviously as links. Thanks for adding the comments!
Aesthetically, the change isn't huge, so I like it. (I hate having to relearn how to navigate a site.) However, I love that comments are back.
Wonderful redesign! Boingboing and digg in the same day.... make sure to say hi to the flatirons for me!
Much harder to scan down- the headlines don't stand out nearly as much, and the left border is sadly missing.
Massively worth it for the presence of comments- congrats on the upgrade!
Is there any rationale on not using some user community comment rating system? I think browsing slashdot at +4 or +5 or reading highly rated comments on reddit tends to work well and is automatic. I guess I just really don't trust a single subjective human "tender of online conversations" to be fair and unbiased.
nicely done, congrats boing-o-nauts.
Change is always good, but this is actually harder to read than the old Boing Boing.
PS: YOUR TEXT IS HUUUUGE!
Not sure I care much for the re-design, honestly. Looks like a lot of wasted space on the right, even without AdBlock enabled.
Still, a comments section is nice. I imagine you had a lot of trouble with it before-- here's to hoping it works out this time around!
You should consider the innovation at HackerNews for comment policy. Allow users to mod comments up and down. In addition, have oracle users whose mods count as truth. Users who approximate the votes of oracles matter more. Low modded comments go unseen by default. In this fashion, you can have a few people guide a community to stay on the right track.
http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html
Also, it is essential that you allow threaded comments.
There goes all my free time.
Very nice work guys!
All this negative space on the right side of the layout is a tad disappointing.
As I scroll down the numerous daily links, I can't help but question how the added empty white space is an improvement.
I've been reading for a long time. I'd like to say that I miss the old format, but it would be a lie. The new look is truly sleek and modern, giving a fresh, and yes, more easily readable design. Congratulations on the upgrade, and thank you for comments!
Excellent design!!!
very clean and easy to read.
:D
I like the redesign. However, since we are all used to reading web sites with a left-hand margin and the content on the right, having the content on the left is very disorienting.
seriously, adding comments back is great. that was always the biggest thing lacking for a site that supposedly promoted the openess of the internets.
but... BUT...
this design looks like every other damn page on the internet. is it clean? yes. is it new? NO.
it's harder to read through because it's designed to be a one article page. like the nyt site or something.
so good and bad, but bad outways.
I don't really like the serif font for the heads and body text mixed with the sans for the posted announcement; it's somehow distracting from the otherwise clean new look. Thanks for the comments section.
I just want to say THANK YOU! I am so glad to have a comment section back on this site. And I promise, I will resist the urge to shout "FIRST!" every time I find the possibility!
~Longboxes
ps - "FOURTY SEVENTH!"
pps - sorry, had to do it once! ;-)
Yay, comments are good.
New layout is also good.
But serif fonts are bad.
OH NOES!
The conflict, it's immense.
Looks significantly less cluttered than the previous incarnation, which didn't start that way, just got crufty over the years.
Really happy to see comments come back!
I preferred the previous design. It was much easier to read, and a much better "traditional web" design. This web2.0 design asthetic will be dead in another two years, and this will be a prom night haricut.
ZOMJ hax!
Nice redesign.
I was going to suggest that the font size should be bigger, but I see that an Anonymous commenter above wanted it smaller, so maybe it's a happy medium.
I'd also echo the comments above that suggest moving the "Discuss" link to the bottom of each post.
Also, comments are great!
The new font is uncomfortable - I'm reading it firefox under XP.
Please include more than just a handful of articles on the front page.
RRenaud, having seen her work her magic over at Making Light, I suspect Teresa's job is going to be less making sure insightful comments are more prominent, and more making sure that trolls are contained and flamewars are doused.
Editors: I have a (somewhat) related question. With the reenablement of the comments section, will we continue to see important and insightful comments edited into the main post?
Good luck from Poland!
I am addicted to your site for some time :)
b
Yes, yes,
and yes !
darnit, now my customized de-Xeni greasemonkey script is broken! but, hooray for comments. design is decent, even elegant - and surprisingly un-masturbatory, coming from prate. One suggestion for comment system: implement a "featured comments", "best of", highest-rated type system. comments sections that have some kind of auto-filter, although aren't fair, make for infinitely better reading in a signal-to-noise kind of way. I don't have all day to read through 30 pages of incoherent rambling. know what I mean? :)
Redesigns are like haircuts; it takes a few days to decide what you really think. Yes, there's a lot of lost space on the right, but it feels like the main text area's about the same size as before. And as already mentioned, it's not a dramatic change, so we can all just ease into it. I confess I'm a bit neutral on the comments--I've pretty much broken myself of the habit of reading very long threads, because I'm often annoyed when I do read them--but the prospect of disemvowelling is enticing.
Beautiful, readable...very fine job.
Even the unicorns will look nicer! Nice work, BB team!
I don't know how I feel about this yet. I do agree with threaded comments and implementing the slashdot system of karma points, user moderation, and meta-moderation. Good lucks.
Hm, typical reaction to going to Boulder, I suppose :P
Boo! I fear change.
I posted a poll about boingboing's new design on pollsb.com. Check it out:
http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/1837/boingboing-s-new-design
I think your choice of Joel is a great one--I followed him from Giz to Defamer. Congrats to BB and to JJ.
Is it just me or is the entire right half of the page Yahoo advertisements?
Truly outstanding news... the perfect way to celebrate the new day rising from last night's eclipse.
Thanks, I really needed this.
Much less cluttered, I appreciate that. And the comments, too!
I like the redesign. Smaller font size would be great.
Is there anyway to have more content on the front page? I liked how long the old page was.
Looks good guys, as with all redesigns, time to take a deep breath and give things a while to sink in.
Oh, my boyfriend and I were just talking about you yesterday Mark, and we live here. Maybe we need to get together and have a chat.
Aside from the comments, which are awesome, I'm going to have to pan the redesign. Don't fix what isn't broken. The previous design was easy to read, and I'm not taking to the realignment.
Don't fall into a Diggtrap, wherein you throw out the system that got you popular in favour of a "refresh" that turns out to be flawed, but you stick with due to the psychology of previous investment.
Again, comments awesome and long overdue. RIP old easy to read format.
As a dedicated RSS feed reader, the redesign won't have much impact on me *except* that the return of comments may drag me out of that backchannel.
I'm curious why you chose to manage your own user accounts instead of using TypeKey, particularly since you're already using Movable Type, so users wouldn't have to create YA username/password for a web site. I like having slightly more identity than being Anonymous and creating & managing logins at each individual site is a disincentive to participation.
http://www.sixapart.com/typekey/
Post-Preview: oh, and no HTML support in comments (but thank you for the Preview button!). Bummer, particularly the lack of linking. You're autolinking URLs like the one above so I'm not clear on the benefit of disallowing em's, b's, i's, a's and so on.
w00t!
...thought adblock or [shit!] surfcontrol at work was messing with boingboing -- so glad to see i'm wrong! redesign looks great!
Glad that BoingBoing has begun to embrace participation. Needs a little padding on the left side.
I love Boing Boing.
I don't love the lack of padding, the huge wasted space on the right, or the nasty serif font.
Tough call.
I dig it! Nice, clean, easy to read.
Keep up the good work, fellas!
You'll get over it
Although you've cut the main page to a few articles this is a godsend for dial-up users. I was using the RSS to pick and choose what I read, now i can check it at least daily without having to wait for aton of images to load.
thank you
Wow, looks great! Congrats!
I agree with the comments that the discussion link would be better at the bottom. But yeah, awesome! I usually read BB through Google Reader, but I know I'll be bouncing over here more often with the addition of comments.
I agree with those who say it needs a little sumfin sumfin on the left side, such as another sidebar.
I LOVE that comments are back!!
Viva Boing Boing! :)
Sadly my favorite site now looks like everything else out there....
To bad, to bad.
Besides that, keep up the good work.
Wow, BoingBoing has a site? I haven't looked at anything but the RSS feed in 3 years.
This is better. Not good enough - but better.
;-)
Hooray to You supernerds.
At least make the pogo-girl jump up and down like the last iteration when the page first loads. I miss that!!!
Oh my FSM, now I can say "I Love boingboing" on BoingBoing!
Also, nice design, and cool new blog (welcome Joel!). Thanks!