Mothership
Posted by Gina Trapani at 9:28 AM on December 13, 2007
Our friends at the Lifehacker mothership have launched a slight redesign today, with a new site header, and Pacific time post timestamps. We hope you like it, but don't forget to come back to us here at Lifehacker AU. :)
Tags: announcements | in brief | tbrief

Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Bryan Price
Posted 7:46 PM 12/12/07
Nevermind! The squirrels just weren't up to speed it seems. :(
Bryan Price
Bryan Price
Posted 7:45 PM 12/12/07
Hmmm. Comments aren't posting now?
Bryan Price
Bryan Price
Posted 7:44 PM 12/12/07
Yep, it looks pretty odd. I do most of my reading from the feed, so it's not like I'll see anything you do on a real regular basis.
Bryan Price
R J
Posted 7:43 PM 12/12/07
I third, fourth, fifth the above motions!
Lifehacker seems knackered and skewed.
But then, who likes change anyhow!!
R J
ckincincy
Posted 7:39 PM 12/12/07
Looks very bad. I never visit your site (RSS feeds and all), but this looks bad.
ckincincy
Phil
Posted 7:39 PM 12/12/07
I'll second the "seems off-balance or something." I don't care for the way the headers run into the third column, which is mostly whitespace.
Browsing using Safari on Leopard.
Phil
bryan139
Posted 7:13 PM 12/12/07
The more link in my "My Most Recent Activity" page doesn't seem to be working for me...
to be quite honest, I kinda liked the other look better. This one just seems off-balance or something... i dunno.
bryan139
hector7g
Posted 9:02 PM 12/12/07
Aside from the lack of symmetry, I think the new header is cool.
However, I still have a horizontal scroll bar on the bottom the screen (visible when using my laptop's small screen). That's been present since the last major redesign.
Also, the comment preview window isn't showing up. [the preview is especially handy when using html]
hector7g
jumbobob
Posted 8:55 PM 12/12/07
Looks bad on my widescreen monitor. Way to the left. And, why Pacific timestamps?
jumbobob
bnosach
Posted 8:40 PM 12/12/07
yep, agree with above commenters: LH looks non-symmetrical with that header so narrow.
bnosach
kenna989
Posted 9:37 PM 12/12/07
@Amanda: I love that face behind the logo, I wish I could see more of it.
kenna989
ceejeemcbeegee
Posted 9:33 PM 12/12/07
While y'all up late coding, can we get some embedding comments around here?
ceejeemcbeegee
Amanda T
Posted 9:26 PM 12/12/07
I hate that face behind the logo, with the horizontal line-gradient. When I read this in google reader, I came here really hoping that'd be gone. And HOLY ADBLOCER BATMAN. whoa.
Amanda T
jdoree
Posted 9:10 PM 12/12/07
I agree with the thumbs down on the new design. Big, blocky header with big ugly square advertising on the right end. I feel like I'm in being bombarded with ads.
jdoree
Binks
Posted 10:55 PM 12/12/07
Where DID the face behind the logo come from? That's one story that I've wanted to hear.
I assume, with the Pacific time, and the Austrialian site that seems to have started within the last little while, that Lifehacker is trying to get more regional?
Eh, I guess I could do without hearing about Grand Central every week and a half... of course, the Canadian market is so tiny that we'll probably get our own Lifehacker site when the Leafs win the Stanley Cup...
Binks
voyagerfan5761
Posted 10:18 PM 12/12/07
Yeah, liked the old wide header better. This one just doesn't look right for some reason...
voyagerfan5761
moontear
Posted 1:54 AM 13/12/07
Well what to say... Somebody didn't do his/her testing correctly.
Whole layout messed up in FF 1024*768 resolution, see [www.picoodle.com] for example.
Layout is somehow skewed at 600px or something and the rest gets floated to the right (comment symbols etc.)
moontear
Gonzie
Posted 3:21 AM 13/12/07
where'd my comment go!
i said it looked bad too
Gonzie
Ghostlove
Posted 2:41 AM 13/12/07
On my 1440x900 widescreen, it looks terrible. Sorry.
Ghostlove
Greet
Posted 4:02 AM 13/12/07
I don't like it either. (1440*900 too)
It's very off-balance indeed, and I feel like I'm being bombarded with ads too. But anyway, the header itself is cool and I like that, but it should be more to the right, or something.
Greet
Kafka
Posted 6:04 AM 13/12/07
I'm not a fan. Looks too busy. I have a clock in my system bar to tell me what time it is.
Kafka
cmattmiller
Posted 5:58 AM 13/12/07
Hit the undo button :D
cmattmiller
Rhayader
Posted 5:50 AM 13/12/07
Meh, looks a little strange. I don't really care though, I read items through RSS. This design does seem slightly less space-efficient and seems to take an odd shape with a widescreen monitor.
Rhayader
coreypob
Posted 5:12 AM 13/12/07
I agree with most people that it feels skewed and off balance with the header only taking 2/3s of the top. Throw on the fact that it's blocky and it just doesn't work for me.
coreypob
Gordon
Posted 5:08 AM 13/12/07
Yeah. Sorry. Not good. The boxes that split across the top, with the banner and the advert just look... forced?
Glad you made more room for more ads though (cynical, moi?).
BTW, why do *I* care what time it is in San Diego?
Gordon
ispytodd
Posted 6:09 AM 13/12/07
needs more moving ads. I only see 3 vista ads and the large lh gina/san diego banner when i load up on my lil ibm x40. what's up with the bold san diego centric time thing?
ispytodd
WatchingTheNet
Posted 6:05 AM 13/12/07
Lifehacker may want to add an eight entry to the list in
"Lifehacker's 2007 Software Superlatives" as The Most Likely Website to Force You To Use RSS.....ourselves"
WatchingTheNet
A3sthetix
Posted 7:01 AM 13/12/07
Anyone using Ad Block will think this site looks horrible. I'd rather sacrifice the look of the site than have to put up with advertising.
I think the header should extend behind the ad. That might make things look better.
A3sthetix
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
Posted 8:30 AM 13/12/07
Thanks for the feedback, everyone.
If you're using Adblock, it will look off-balance. But we're an ad-supported site, so we don't design for Adblock, sorry.
San Diego time is where I'm at, so that's what gets listed. I agree that's not TOO relevant to you, the reader, but post times have to be in some time zone, so it might as well be mine.
Also, compared to most blogs in our category? We don't run that many ads. Compared to these two examples, anyway.
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor
agrainofAlt
Posted 9:26 AM 13/12/07
I'm fine with the layout (who cares, really)- but it should be noted that as most of the readers of this Lifehacker are technopheliacs , we have widescreens: meaning that about 1/3 of our screen on the right is stark white space.
agrainofAlt
the_boffin
Posted 9:25 AM 13/12/07
I would prefer, like others, to have the header stretched all the way across the screen
the_boffin
Fr3d.org
Posted 5:35 AM 13/12/07
It only takes about half the page on 1920x1200, see [www.fr3d.org]
And is there no comment preview function? :\
Fr3d.org
silentmajority
Posted 4:15 AM 13/12/07
One principle of effective web-design is: provide the user with as much real estate as possible for:
* what they want
* what they need
* what will entice them to stay on your site
On my 1024x768 laptop, the header and the article title take up more than 50% of my screen. I have to scroll to see more than a few lines of article text and have to scroll to see any of the links that might take me to other places on your website (and thus earn you more advertising revenue).
Web readers have historically been adverse to scrolling, _unless_ what they first see on the screen is of sufficient interest to entice them look for more. Your header does not do this.
I would suggest going to a greatly reduced header size and a greatly reduced font size for the Article Title, so that your reader will see more of the following:
* more of the article
* more of the Read More links
* more of the Keyword tags
Hope this helps.
silentmajority
mpffffhhhh
Posted 12:56 AM 13/12/07
me too... rarely on the side, always via rss, but it looks odd for me, not well balanced.
mpffffhhhh
nstillo
Posted 10:09 AM 13/12/07
Great to have the info at the top of the post instead of at the bottom
nstillo
krisvek
Posted 2:03 PM 13/12/07
Sorry, thought of something else to comment on...
So far as the number of ads go, to me, it doesn't seem excessive at all. Three ads total, and they're all at the top, and not mixed in with the article or comments. I'll tell Adblock to allow ads for this site so long as it stays 'polite' like this.
krisvek
da5id_nz
Posted 2:02 PM 13/12/07
I agree that on the Recent Comments page (when you click your name at the top of the page) you can't get back to the particular thread you commented on. It used to have the link title you could click on
da5id_nz
krisvek
Posted 1:58 PM 13/12/07
Doh, forgot to say what 'looking funky' meant.
White-space column on the right-hand side, likely due somehow to the wide-screen issue. Also, the reply, report, etc buttons for comments are justified to the right... I personally think they'd look better on the left, under a person's comment. On the right, they're just sort of floating out there in the void. Or, you could give comments some sort of background color to distinguish the box/boundary a little better.
I can email you a screen-cap if you want.
krisvek
krisvek
Posted 1:54 PM 13/12/07
I turned off Adblock and checked again, but it still looked funky. I'm using Firefox on a laptop (wide-screened), resolution at 1280x800.
Without getting in to the politics and opinions of ads and Adblock, figured I'd let you all know that I clickied a few ads for you while I had them up. If that does anything more than simply loading them.
krisvek
Dan Butcher
Posted 2:09 PM 13/12/07
Has the search box been added to the header in this version of the site? I've had a hard time finding it in the past, and I like that it's prominently displayed now. And though I read through rss most of the time, when I'm trying to find an article I remember reading, I search the site rather than my feed, so I visit the site at least once a week, if not more.
Regarding San Diego time, wouldn't it be better to have PST added to the post times, instead of displaying your local time in the header? What matters to most readers, I think, is knowing when the post appeared, as opposed to the current time in some other part of the country.
Dan Butcher
KMT
Posted 12:59 PM 14/12/07
Um, sorry, somehow I got an "@KMT" when I meant "@DAN BUTCHER." Again, all credit to Dan for that comment, I am just agreeing with him!
KMT
KMT
Posted 12:57 PM 14/12/07
@KMT: "Regarding San Diego time, wouldn't it be better to have PST added to the post times, instead of displaying your local time in the header? What matters to most readers, I think, is knowing when the post appeared, as opposed to the current time in some other part of the country."
Ditto that--I couldn't have said it better.
KMT
KMT
Posted 12:54 PM 14/12/07
Hope it's not too late to add my 2c...
I don't care for the new redesign, but I can live with it. It's the content that matters more to me. The new design does distract me from the content, however, for many of the reasons already iterated above.
That said, I am reading the posts as a feed via Thunderbird. Others have said that the new redesign doesn't matter because they are reading feeds, but in TB, the new design is visible. Also, I am subscribed to the ad-free feed, but I get all the ads anyway. (If I click a post's link to view it in FF, AdBlock Plus does take care of the ads.) I understand that LH is ad-supported (and therefore not designed to look pretty with ABP), but why is there an option to subscribe ad-free if it can't be utilized? Or, is there something about the way TB works with feeds that I don't get? (I admit, I am not the most knowledgeable on the subject of feeds and feed readers...)
Oh, and I second/Nth the desire to bring back the comment preview; I liked that.
KMT
R J
Posted 4:58 PM 14/12/07
Ads? Ads? What Ads?
Trusty Firefox 3.0b1 + AdblockPlus + Filterset = No Ads.
Ads? What Ads??
:)
R J
midbach
Posted 8:20 PM 14/12/07
Hey! More space for ads!!
midbach
josephers
Posted 8:05 PM 14/12/07
@R J: firefox 3.0b1 + iGoogle with Gmail and Hotmail gadget = refreshes every milisecond = horrible = back to firefox 2.
Anyway, this design looks really lopsided. =P I like the header, but it needs to be longer.
josephers
hector7g
Posted 3:42 PM 16/12/07
So I guess the comment preview thing is gone for good with this latest redesign? Too bad. (But I still like the new header)
hector7g
voyagerfan5761
Posted 1:42 AM 17/12/07
@hector7g, KMT: Yes, please bring back the as-you-type comment preview!
voyagerfan5761