Pros and Cons of latest CSS-Tricks redesign

[Matt]

Hey Chris,

I love that the CSS Tricks website is a work in progress and different designs are rolled out.

I would really like to hear your thoughts on the latest design (that appeared today), pros and cons, and why it came so soon often the last redesign, which I loved.

My 2 cents is this one is a little less readable and user-friendly than previous versions, but that is just my preference.

I’d love to hear the other side and what was the driving force behind it.

Cheers

Matt

[Paulie_D]

TBH….Chris just likes change.

Most of these changes are performance driven, making the site load quicker with less overhead

I’ve seen several iterations and, initially, I’ve hated every change…but I get over it pretty quick. :)

[Matt]

Thanks for the answer.

My reaction may just have to been missing a media query when it launched, as it is a lot more readable now the articles on the homepage are 1/3 not 1/2 across.

I’d love to hear about some of the performance gains. One of the most educational video series I have ever watched was following Chris’s “Big v10 Redesign Project”

[Beverleyh]

I like the new design, although I’ve only seen it on mobile at the mo as I’m currently on my jollies :) …that translates as ‘vacation’, for non-Brits.

One thing that I would suggest, as a small improvement for helping mobile users to get around more easily, is a “back to top” link, or a repeat of the “Forums >> Category” breadcrumbs, right underneath the last post in a thread. Currently, it’s a mammoth scroll job to get back up to the top of the page when there’s been a conversation going on.

[Atelierbram]

This design works for me, I like it a lot. SVG line-icons look so much better in negative (light on dark) than in positive; it makes them glow, certainly with colors on the icons on hover. Text labels for the icons are there when you need them. Big header type is great, typography/web-fonts overall is very readable to me.

On hovering the user replies/topics pages here on the forum I did noticed some blue links lacking an alternative inverted color (, inheriting the dark color from the hover styles for thea element, let’s it disappear in the dark background).

[keithpickering]

This design is huge, and this is coming from someone who loves big web design. I had to zoom out to 75% to not feel like I was using a 640×480 resolution, but there’s no max-width on the container so now everything is too wide.

I appreciate the fundamentals of the design and I admire the constant search for improved performance, but these designs really need more testing before being rolled out live.

[Author]

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