It’s been about a week since we launched our new design.
Based on the initial feedback most of you seem to like it. If you haven’t checked it out yet please do so now and vote on it below.
If you’re thinking about custom design for your site as well, I highly recommend you Kai Loon. He is by far the most talented web designer I have ever worked with. Also a very reliable one. He created some nice free WordPress themes as well.
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Aibek Esengulov
The guy behind MakeUseOf.com. Follow him and MakeUseOf on Twitter @MakeUseOf. For more details check out MakeUseOf about page.
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Old theme was good, but I like the new one even more.
The new theme is very clean and uncluttered. Kudos for a fresh new design!
not bad, as long as the content is good then i don’t really care.
I like the new design as it provides a modern layout of the site that is easy on the eyes and simple to navigate.
Dunno, is the square over the MakeUseOf.com logo supposed to make it look like a tab? Perhaps a shadow or something would help it.
That’s the part that looks really odd to me. But I like it otherwise.
Oh, and the alignment of the text on the feed box. It looks so off-center. And maybe the number of subscribers should be white.
took me a moment to get use to it.. but honestly I can’t remember the old design.
Generally I like the new design. The right column are well structured and easy to overview and the site as a whole seem more clean and professional.
However the actual content area needs some work. The page hierachy isn’t as well-defined as it could be. Perhaps a more notable header (larger and with more margin to the top) would make it more clear. Also the content just above the comment area (which works fine – just as the footer) seem a little too dominant. The “subscribe” bar should be moved to the right column and the Digg, RSS, etc. icons should be smaller.
And finally, as Shannon points out, the tab-design of the MakeUseOf.com logo doesn’t seem right. Perhaps removing the tab feature and just letting the blue line continue below the logo would help.
Doing great team! Keep up the good work and I like the new look. It’s nice to change things once in awhile.
Change is good.
Very nice, only thing for me is the share (digg…) icons, their large size give a disjointed feeling to the posts and everything under it like these comments
I like the new design… clean and easy to navigate. I also love the site so thankyou.
I want to start by saying I LOVE the content. I check MUO all the time. I love the new design, however, I find the page overwhelmingly WHITE. I think it is easy to follow and easy to read, but all that white… I don’t know. That’s all I’ve got.
Keep up the GREAT work!!!
I agree with Attmay… I love the site and all of its writers. However, the new design is a bit sterile, almost. I don’t dislike the new design, but I didn’t have any problems with the last one.
First I look this design I dislike it because it is not catching the eyes,now I more like it as MUO loads faster and easy for content to read ,old design was also great.posts of MUO are awesome keep up your good work.
I usually read via RSS, but I click through on articles I find interesting to see the comments.
The new design looks a lot simpler and cleaner than the previous one — I very much think it’s a significant improvement. Kudos!
My vote goes to the new theme.This simple and clutter free.
Like Shannon said the square or frame over makeuseof.com looks like a tab and so the importance by viewing is less. Stronger frame or shadow woelb be worth a try.
The new one is clearer. For the old theme, I never understand the three tabs on the top, until the new theme.
The new layout is definitely cleaner with all the clutter gone. More importantly, the content is what I look for. And, that’s still the same
I voted “yes”. But there is something that I really dont like about this new design. The font size.
I use a small screen monitor, so the text appears to be too small. So, I increase the text size; but then, everything becomes unaligned and its a mess.Buttons overlapping article text, etc.
Its not that bad, but still, maybe you could fix this and make the site friendly for people with small screens. BTW, I use Firefox 3.
I like the new design, but I don’t like how on the main page when your reading the first paragraph it cuts off mid sentence, sometimes even mid-word. I thought it was funny how MakeUseOf switched to a cleaner, more spacious layout at the same time LifeHacker switched to a more condensed one.
It’s a bit narrow for those of us with wide screens. I don’t have a widescreen per-se, it’s just large, but there is a butt-load of whitespace on the sides. If you could make it dynamically-expanding, that’d make me want to visit more often
I like it, very clean and uncluttered, however the lack division, even through more prominent separating lines makes it a little overwhelming. The eye isn’t drawn to the article area like it used to be, it makes it a little confusing with out any focal area.
It looks too similar to a lot of other websites that have just recently remodeled (ergo lifehacker, gizmodo, engadget, & mashable).
not bad..
=)
nice job bro
love the new design, the old one was the reason i barely visited this site
Thanks to everyone that voted! It should be pointed out that the site design is not completely finished and is still a “work in progress”. Little things are still being tweaked here and there.
Everyone’s comments on how it can be improved will be seriously considered. So please keep leaving suggestions!
Thanks again.