[KBCraig]

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I'm still missing MacCentral, the url of which I still use to connect to your site.

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I too still use that old url and miss the old "MacCentral" as well. I do not even think of this site as "MacWorld", but as "MacCentral". /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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+3.
I always type "macc", the autotype fills in the rest, and I hit return. I've often wondered if the MW folks keep track of how many people reach their site via maccentral.com.
I like the look of the new site, but I prefer the old site's "feel". I'm not worried about the ads, but it is important to keep all headlines posted in a column, with a timestamp. This site is about breaking news, so I want to know that I'm seeing all articles posted within a certain time frame, without worrying about delving off into sub-menus to find them.

[toor]

I'm with the people that get there via MacCentral and like the current site ( though a color change can't be all bad ). And, I'll second the question on do you track the MacCentral hits?

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Not that I have to remind most people of this, but Macworld doesn't appear magically out of the blue. If we don't make money from advertising, there is no Macworld web site. Which would make it much harder for readers to get much Mac news from us.

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From that I'm to assume that you're losing money on the current site and ads?

[mrbach]

Does this mean we can have MacCentral back one day? I favour the bullet list of news. I dont want a magazine layout. If this is the future of MacWorld on the web, then it's one more site off my list I guess.

[booga]

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As I mentioned in the article, you'll have the option to set All Stories as the default in the tabbed news window.
You can have it all. Every story we've posted lately in one single tabbed window.
- cp

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I hope you don't feel that you've addressed our concerns with this option. (Your flip comment about "You can have it all", which obviously is far from true, leads me to believe you do.)
There are still very legitimate concerns about how much information is readily visible without scrolling on a typical screen on the news page of the old vs. new. And even the news page looks like a cheap link-farm news aggregator site rather than a news site with any original content.
It would be a pity if MacCentral moved to that design. I'd miss visiting the site. The compact nature of the news article listing all on one screen in high-contrast, bold fonts is pretty much where most of your visual currency resides. The new design eliminates almost all of what's good about the current one and replaces it with some pretty colors.

[bigpics]

I'll.... ...uhhhh.... ....adapt.
But I agree with the general tenor of the criticisms. I see zero stories without scrolling on my iBook. Way too many rows of links I'll never click as I come for the news.
And it may be an illusion because of the shorter lines, but you seem to be using fewer words in the headlines, making it harder for me to know if I want to read a story in the first place, so you're making the most important feature on the site both harder to access and less informational. And the two columns of stories are inherently less visually organized.
One suggestion: If you put the time of the story right at the end of the headline you'd gain about 10-12 characters per headline.
Another suggestion: You said the forums weren't up yet, so I didn't try, but I'd like to see elements like "multi-quote" tools for replying and numbered posts to make it easier to get back to one you've scrolled past. But please, no outline style threaded multi-level tree structure thingie. I just visually give up on those right away.
Overall: busy, conflicting/competing design elements and styles that I feel attacks you rather than invites you, ads too visually prominent -- I have clicked on unobtrusive "ad-sense" ads on the web, but I long ago trained my eye to avoid even seeing anything loud and flashing as soon as I ID it as advertising -- it's so MySpace or early PornSite -- so making them bigger and harder to ignore only makes me more likely to want to leave the site for somewhere my eyes can concentrate on editorial content, not more likely to click on an ad which has already offended me by getting in my face.
Nothing except a few features are presented to you, so you have to figure out how to "operate the page" before you can really use it for anything but those features -- scroll, press a black button or a grey one or press a text link, etc. And then pressing Mac takes to a screen that only shows you one thing without scrolling (and I saw a total waste of pixels before that when I pressed iPod. Was that an ad? A design element? All that top of the screen space to just display the word "iPod"?
The Yiddish word for the overall visual schema would be (excuse the semi-phonetic spelling) "ungepached."
So clearly lots of work has gone into this, and many ideas are on display, but I really don't care for it. Still, not to worry, deliver strong news and review goods even through all this whiz-bang widgets, hard to avoid ads, latest web cues stuff and I'll still be here. And will.... ...adapt.

[Jason Snell]

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I hope you don't feel that you've addressed our concerns with this option.

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If we thought we'd addressed your concerns, we'd have launched the site without a public beta. You don't do public betas if you feel that you're done with all your work and you're not interested in hearing what people have to say.

[Jason Snell]

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Does this mean we can have MacCentral back one day? I favour the bullet list of news.

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You will never "get MacCentral back."
A straight headline list on Macworld, now, that's another story.

[DonC]

I came accross a very nice video recently, which shows my feelings on the new site design. The old MacCentral design was the original iPod package, right now we are in between, the new design is the Microsofted final design of the package.
Enjoy "What if Microsoft designed the iPod package"

[funkboy]

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I'm still missing MacCentral, the url of which I still use to connect to your site.

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I too still use that old url and miss the old "MacCentral" as well. I do not even think of this site as "MacWorld", but as "MacCentral". /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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I also continue to think of the site as MacCentral and just typed that in to access the site. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
My main goal of visiting the site is to get the quick fix of headlines. If no headline interests me, I will move on.
The only way to please a lot of us news junkies is to somehow have lots of headlines displayed (not more news stories than you currently do in a day, just displaying more of the headlines that you have available on the home page). Since you need to pay the bills, putting a tiny icon or ad right beside a headline is probably the number one way to get me to click.
And show more headlines /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[tomtom]

I currently favor looking at Macworld (MacCental) on the iPhone/iPod touch platforms.
That says much for easy to read lists.
If you de-emphasize lists in any way over today's model your readership might find RSS or iPhones a more attractive option. That might result in less of the important front page advertising.
I read a lot of news including much Apple and technology related news. However, Macworld.com is one of the few sites I visit through the front page.
A site makeover in my view is needed. Take care.

[tomtom]

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You will never "get MacCentral back."
A straight headline list on Macworld, now, that's another story.

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Don't say this with so much certainty.
It might just happen: fueled by someone else, using the time of change over as the opportune moment.

[Siman93]

It's just an idea but I think the new website would look really great if you changed the colour of the background and 'Macworld' picture each month, just like the magazine.

[wupher]

New colors are fine, new navigation is fine.
Small non-bold headlines, advert density up, additional type faces introduced: All 3 are BIG usability don'ts. Ease of use has been sacrificed for the myth that more ad space equals more revenue.
I personally found the single list of the latest 3-4 days of stories to be the most efficient way to get mac news. That is the primary reason I kept maccentral bookmarked and the main reason I visit macworld. Without the ability to see all the headlines for the past several days at a quick glance in type large enough to read, I sincerely doubt you can compete for my screen time.
I will miss macworld, but there are other sites that understand that to sell ads you gotta provide the content the way people read it.
I predict that within your first few days of implementing this beta, complaints will rise and may artificially inflate your hits. After the first week however, I predict hits will begin to fall off.
Why? Simple rule of web design: When you make people pay more effort for the same or less benefit, they spend less time on your site.
Guys, go to amazon.com and buy a couple good books about web usability. This "cram more in" style of web design may be popular for ecommerce right now, but should never be applied to NEWS.
Sorry to be so stern, but I too do this for a living and if I pulled this crap on my customers, I would be out of business in a hurry.
Thanks for reading my message, please give it some serious thought.

[romzburg]

I also prefer the single column list of stories, and also don't like to scroll down to see it. I think it is the single most important page element based on comments here, and on my own usage.
Suggestions:
Move the current featured article (All-new Macworld.com open...) to the middle column.
Move the "Latest News, Reviews..." list up to take the place of the featured article. This puts it back to top left in the body below the banner ads, the most important position on the page. (Go back to single column list for that. It is very user-unfriendly to be in 2 columns when I want to quickly see what new article titles have been added since I was last here 4 hours ago. I can scan a single column easily.)
Move the 2 article links currently in top middle. Put one below the featured article, and put the other either below the "Latest news..." list, or make it smaller and embed it in the list, like you do currently with "Ramjet" ads (and whoever else.)
Basically I think many of us use the site in a similar way, which is that we first and foremost look at the list of "Latest News, reviews..." list. Since that is how we use the site, the home page design should reflect that.