Radar Redesign and New Features
OK, how do you like it? (P.S. Be sure to refresh your browser. Shift-reload.)
We've been noodling for a while on a redesign of Radar. Our initial design was thrown together in a weekend, and we've lived with it happily for a couple of years. But it really hasn't given us the framework we need to pull together all the related activities of our group. You see, Radar isn't just this blog, it's a whole group at O'Reilly focused on the premise that "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet."
Our radar bloggers are also typically our conference chairs; they help bring leads and do additional diligence for our venture fund. Our group organizes foo camp and now publishes the Release 2.0 Newsletter. We have built a technology trend data warehouse and publish research reports.
Part of the goal for the site redesign was to create more room to feature all these activities, and bring them together into a single framework. Kudos to Brady Forrest, who led the effort, George Humphries and Matthew Woodruff who created the new design, and Gabriel Williams, who did the hard work of actually making a design into a working site.
Speaking of new features -- the first issue of Release 2.0 is now available -- and we're finally set up to take new subscribers. It's a bit of a nail-biter to take over a publication like Release 1.0 from someone as respected as Esther Dyson. We hope you like our take on the mission of the newsletter. This first issue is a bit of an introduction to our editorial philosophy as much as it's a real working issue. As I wrote in the press release:
Our blog, the O'Reilly Radar, focuses on the disruptive innovations coming from "alpha geeks" and other early adopters. Our newsletter, Release 2.0, will focus on the business impact of those innovations.
So many of the innovations we've been deeply involved with over the years -- from the commercialization of the internet to open soruce software and most recently Web 2.0 -- have gone from being the playground of enthusiasts to the workhorse of big business. In the past, we've tended to abandon these technologies as they moved toward the mainstream. With Release 2.0, we're hoping to continue to provide insightful thinking about the future to entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate technology strategists.
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Comments: 32
[03.02.07 12:10 PM]
William,
The old CSS is probably still in your cash. Do a full refresh (shift - refresh) and things should look better.
[03.02.07 12:11 PM]
nice! the font is much too small though.
[03.02.07 12:22 PM]
the font is insanely small. Insanely. It's so tiny that it is making me insane.
[03.02.07 12:44 PM]
Everything surrounding the content looks great. The content itself looks crappy. Bad font choice. Try Georgia, Tahoma, or Trubuchet MS.
[03.02.07 01:05 PM]
I like it
[03.02.07 01:23 PM]
More subtle, less distinctive. Anyway I'm here for the content, which I will continue to read happily if it has a bigger font. I guess your designer is 24 with perfect eyesight.
[03.02.07 01:27 PM]
It looks nice. A redesign seems like a good opportunity to make sure you're using standards-compliant, accessible markup:
[03.02.07 01:28 PM]
Previewing doesn't work:
Build error in template 'Comment Preview Template': Error in tag: Error in tag:
[03.02.07 01:32 PM]
meh.
Also, w(hy)tf is release 2.0 so expensive? never heard of it. seems like business folks should read it. not necessarily readers of radar. Perhaps that's why it's so expensive?
[03.02.07 01:40 PM]
Walker -- that's exactly right. Like Esther Dyson's Release 1.0 newsletter, to which it is the successor, it is aimed at business people.
You can think of its relationship to O'Reilly's publishing program a bit like the way the Web 2.0 Summit relates to the Web 2.0 Expo. One is a very high priced business conference, with a focus on business networking and business content. The other is a hands-on technical conference.
The Radar blog is a front-end to both our business content and our technical content -- a look at things on the horizon and what they mean.
[03.02.07 01:51 PM]
Honestly, I don't like it. Readability is really bad - font-size too small, bad font choice and the line-length should really be looked at (for good readability, 12 words per line is the best approach). I'm also not a big fan of the "left borders" for comments.
That being said, it's good to see the radar change look. Refreshing a brand's image every once in a while is important.
[03.02.07 02:05 PM]
One bug I noticed when clicking through from my RSS reader:
There is no live link back to the home page to see other entries. The logo isn't a link (should be) and the "Radar" in the upper left isn't live (should be). I had to edit the URL to see the front page.
[03.02.07 02:16 PM]
Ditto to the font size complaints. Why on earth do you think you know better than me what font size I find readable? I fired up the DOM inspector and deleted the following rules:
body { font-size: small; }
#left_col p { font-size: 0.85em; }
The result looked better, and (more importantly) I could actually *read it*. I don't know why anybody thought that reducing the user's preferred font size by over 30% would be a good idea, but it's not.
[03.02.07 02:33 PM]
My 2 cents. Some nice touches, but the old design did a better job in bringing across the feeling of tech an innovation. This design seems somewhat bland.
I am totally with the others on the fontsize and line-length. Not very readable.
By the way: The favicon is still in blue, which does not fit in (or is this still my cache?)
[03.02.07 03:27 PM]
You have a zillion easily-avoided validation errors (showing yet again that technology pundits are incapable at technology), and what exact date does "03.02.07" represent?
[03.02.07 04:05 PM]
Liked the old look better. And yeah, these fonts are just way too small.
[03.02.07 04:16 PM]
Is it just me or is the font size way too small?
I mean like way, way way too small.
Really bad, hard to read.
[03.02.07 06:40 PM]
hmmm. my first instinct is to miss the old design-- but i'm willing to give it a while to test whether i am smart or just curmudgeonly.
2 suggestions:
- don't stop at just the latest 3 posts. maybe go to 5 or 6?
- move the "recent posts" up earlier in the page sequence.
[03.02.07 08:33 PM]
Some suggestions:
- Keep the photos of the post's author. It adds humanity.
- Please don't impose a small font size. It makes the website hard to read. Thankfully my aggregator strips out your CSS.
- Either add permalinks to the comments or adopt the technique in this blog: http://burningbird.net/diversity/to-those-who-say-it-doesnt-matter/#comments where all the comments are numbered. This would be helpful given the quantity of valuable discussion that takes place in Radar's comments.
- Please, please change the background colour to something other than plain white. It hurts my eyes to see so much of the screen turned into an arctic tundra.
[03.02.07 09:26 PM]
It's awful. The font is to small, the font color makes that problem even worse and the width of the text makes both of these things even worse.
Even the headings around the age are too muted. In fact, the whole color scheme is too muted really.
[03.03.07 02:31 AM]
There is a good amount of White Space - and the Gray fonts and borders blend in well.
One suggestion would be to change the fonts - try the VERY Readble and attractive
MS Reference Sans Serif
(also, the comment preview is not working)
BTW: Submitted this to Battellemedia Search Mob - so more comments will be coming
[03.03.07 07:09 AM]
Absolutely no doubt that it *looks* better. Is it easier to read? Nope. I'd up the font size a smidgen, as others have suggested. I have no problem with small fonts myself, but I have a really good screen.
Joe's being a bit harsh, but he has a point about the date - I think most countries apart from the US will put the day before the month - we certainly do here in NZ.
I think it's great that you're leveraging your expertise, staff, data and contact networks into adjacent areas of the market with OATV and Release 2.0 - best of luck with both of them, you deserve every success. And I can't help but wonder - what's next? :-)
[03.03.07 07:48 AM]
One more reason for loving RSS;)
[03.03.07 02:08 PM]
There should be next/previous links at the top and the bottom of each posting. I want to step through a nd catch up every now and again.
I tried to search for "etel" and got an error page.
And yes, the fonts are too small...
I tried to preview this comment and got an error page...
I'm using Flock on OSX if that makes any difference...
[03.04.07 12:51 PM]
Hmm. good attempt at redesigning the navigation, but I think it needs an extra dose of Krug to make it obvious that the subcategories *are* subcategories.
You are also getting into some subsite confusion. Consider that you have the following two URLs with nearly duplicate content but different looks:
http://radar.oreilly.com/conferences/
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/
Beyond that (and the legibility complaints already noted by others), the look is OK, but seems a bit denatured and sterile compared to what I'd come to expect from ORA.
[03.05.07 04:41 AM]
Where are the links to the archives?
[03.05.07 09:20 AM]
Hey, I just want to read the next blog entry, but where do I click? I used to just click on the next or previous link at the top.
As for the font size, I concur with those that are disappointed. Didn't you do your homework on ideal line length?
Awful navigation and readability means awful design.
[03.05.07 09:23 AM]
I agree with the previous negative assessments. I enjoyed the bright colors, large font, and much shorter paragraphs of the old design.
With all of the thumbs-down feedback, makes me wonder if something like ConceptShare (www.conceptshare.com) will one day have a place between readers and designers, not just designers themselves.
[03.06.07 02:58 AM]
The favicon (http://radar.oreilly.com/favicon.ico) is still release 1.0
[03.06.07 04:32 AM]
This design is more aesthetically pleasing but I prefer the previous design for its usability. In the new design when I go to just your blog entries Tim (http://radar.oreilly.com/tim) I don't get to see the latest post you made. Shawnpetriw highlighted the next previous navigation problem. In the previous design, it was obvious. Another thing that was obvious was the links to the other bloggers at Radar, now this list hides behind a not-so-obvious Radar Team Tab. I share Modred's peeve about archives. Bernstein is spot on about the Krug dose comment :)
[03.23.07 11:14 AM]
Why have the post comment form ask for my URL if you're not going to display it?
Shouldn't my name link to my URL?
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William [03.02.07 11:58 AM]
Well, for me on Linux using Firefox 2.0.0.1, there is a wee problem - everything is centre-aligned, there is no text styling past bold, and each page element is stacked on top of the previous. It looks horrible. Growing pains, I hope?