As a regular reader and moderately active participant on the Guardian sports blogs, I was really disappointed with their new UX makeover. Normally I can’t be bothered to comment when companies change things because UX is my day job, and I feel people should pay for my opinion. However, their new layout annoyed me so much I just had to post… :)
“The new blog layout is horrible.
Even when there were more than 300 posts I never had to wait for the page to load (even though I am in South Africa with a Stone Age internet connection) because it was all just text (and maybe one photo in the article).
What is the benefit of splitting comments into separate pages? Sure, it makes sense on message boards where people post photos and graphics over a long period of time and you could end up with incredibly long and heavy pages to load, but that is not the case here.
I can’t understand the point of adding a page loading progress bar either. Have you just discovered AJAX and wanted to show off? One of the most annoying things in the whole world is watching progress bars, especially when I know that I’m having to wait longer to get to the content as a result of the progress bar being there in the first place!
Shortening the article with a ‘read more’ link is another step backwards. I want to be able to refer to the article while I’m reading the blog posts. If I click ‘read more’ the whole page loads again and I have to sit and watch the loading progress bar again. Ditto for the comments - I don’t want to have to click ‘see more comments’ and load the page again - I just want the comments to be there!
These changes get in the way of what I am here to do - read articles, the associated comments, and possibly write something myself. This was a very simple and easy process before the new system.
Changing any well-used system is risky (even if the original architecture is flawed) because you are messing with something people are used to using - they’ve worked out how to use your system and they’ve learned to live with it. if you change things, there must be immediate and clear benefit for the user (such as faster page loading). I am struggling to see the benefit.
I’ll probably get used to the added waiting time, the clunky layout and its associated frustration, but the danger is that when I’m busy, it might just prove that little bit too frustrating and I’ll stop reading the blog comments (which are often more informative than the articles themselves), and stop posting.
This can’t have been the desired outcome your UX team had in mind.”
