Quoting EA CO AS (Reply 240): Please change Airliners.net's page design and layout back - I am not a fan of this new design in any way.

I agree 104%! I do not like this new look. I vote to have it changed back.

Quoting AirframeAS (Reply 258): I vote to have it changed back.

I agree with you and the multitude of others. Change it back to the way it was.

I know my voice (and all others for that matter) won't make any difference, but I *HATE* the new site. The colors clash (the "classic" blue and this new navy blue?!?), the page is even more confusing than when you made everything backwards a few months ago.

It looks TRASHY, it looks CHEAP and I do not want to be a part of it. My 500+ photos will not be a part of it either.

What the hell was wrong with the old one?

Remember when Coke introduced New Coke??? Can we please at least host a www.airlinersclassic.net with the old site???

This centered text is just assenine too.

Andrew

Quoting TedTAce (Reply 249): .

We may not see eye to eye on everything - but I do think I take a relatively pragmatic approach to things. Also, the fact that I am in the IT field does give me a rather different perspective about DM's operations - and I'm fairly forgiving of issues.

Tech issues exist. Could they make a problem-free website? Certainly - if they had years to do it, and 10 times the budget. Fact is: They inherited this legacy infrastructure, and now are having to build on top of it.

Within the Information Technology field, anyone who can successfully turn around a crumbling legacy infrastructure - to make an upside down layer cake into something stable and well designed - is worthy of respect. They managed to keep the forum and photo database, and expand capacity - and good for them. The DM crew working on this site has been trying to implement new functionality and capacity - on a structure built 10 years ago, without any conception as to how big it would grow to become.

This is a common dilemma in IT - as companies - both internally and publicly, have to expand and grow their infrastructure - while being bound by old legacy limitations, and must engineer their ways around them. Some have been more successful than others, but I digress - this is the hardest job in IT - to turn around a crumbling infrastructure and keep it all operational at the same time. Think of their task in a more architectural way - replacing the foundation and structural supports of the Empire State Building without taking down the walls, electricity, and keeping people at their desks - without interruption. This is the kind of thing people in my field are tasked with daily - and within the constraints the DM team has had to deal with - they've done an excellent job.

And - from an IT perspective - these things are always noticeable to the users, and there's always some pain in transitions - but they need to happen, or the entire infrastructure will crumble. And could things be handled better? Probably. But again - in the IT field - communication with your users often takes a back seat to keeping the fires under control. It's just the way it works.

Quoting AndrewUber (Reply 259): I know my voice (and all others for that matter) won't make any difference, but I *HATE* the new site. The colors clash (the "classic" blue and this new navy blue?!?), the page is even more confusing than when you made everything backwards a few months ago. It looks TRASHY, it looks CHEAP and I do not want to be a part of it. My 500+ photos will not be a part of it either. What the hell was wrong with the old one? Remember when Coke introduced New Coke??? Can we please at least host a www.airlinersclassic.net with the old site??? This centered text is just assenine too.

Totally agree! Please bring back the old design. No offense!

This site is all about taste and style which the old design had. The new one just hasn't, sorry!

[Edited 2008-05-29 15:04:15]

Absolutely atrocious. Can't believe they changed something that was simple and effective into this monstrosity.

I thought I'd clicked onto some dodgy site that a 15 year old had designed.

With IE7 the forum is not usable. Text is centered and underlined. Is that a bug or a feature? With Firefox 2.0.0.14 it works fine.

One word to describe the new homepage: DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!

Who came up with this horrible design ????

Of all the posts I have noticed I think this (slightly out of context) best sums it up.

Quoting SmokinL1011 (Reply 259): use this site as a de-stresser,

Quoting SmokinL1011 (Reply 259): This new look is

Quoting SmokinL1011 (Reply 259): nerve wracking.

The old look was kind of like, ok, here's our website, here's the space for top photos, there are the most recent posts, there are the photographer's choices.

the new one is

LOOK WE ARE AIRLINERS.NET

HERE ARE THE TOP PICTURES!!!

HERE ARE THE TOP VIDEOS!!


That's freaking stressful!!

I hate it.

alot.

can you have an option to use the new homepage?

Having browsed around the forum a bit now. I think the quality of the site is really poor. The presentation is very scrappy on a lot of the pages.

It really is a step back, and very amatuerish. I would not like to see how much you paid for this as it is all money wasted.

I strongly suggest you go back to the old presentation. I know you will want to justify the work put in to change this but that would only be exaperating a wrong decision.

Is it me, or does it look uncanny similar to MSN.com?

As far as consultation goes, there should have been a clear link on the home page to the opinion thread. Half the problem is people weren't expecting the change.

As for the new site; the front page is too cluttered and the old color scheme should be an option instead of the delights that are the red and green! There is bound to be resistance; I think we're collectively quite protective over the site and I dare say we know what's best for it.

I'm afraid it looks pretty bad - the colour clash on the discussion forums is horrific, the front page is confusing to the extreme and, particularly galling for me on a slower machine, it's horribly slow to load pages. Considering opening many tabs of threads on airliners.net was never a particularly fun experience for my computer, this might just push my PC over the edge. That's the big one for me; I can just about cope with it looking a bit unprofessional, but if in addition to it hurting my eyes, browsing is slowed down to a crawl, I'm not sure I can continue using the site.

i don't like it and if i weren't a member already, the design would – no offense – offend me and hold me off putting 25$ into this site. well, that being said, i would like to offer constructive feedback why i don't like the layout & design:

a) i'm a hobby web designer and developer myself and even i could do something better.
b) the colors don't really fit together. everything blue-ish + red text + green buttons. no way.
c) pseudo web 2.0 style does not look good: either go full web 2 with trebuchet ms or helvetica used ... probably verdana but good lord, not arial! especially not in the menu. the menu should be bigger. and if you use trebuchet ms or lucida grande on the body menu you simply cannot use arial in the menu. this is one of the biggest mistakes one could do in modern web design.
d) round edges of boxes OR plain squares but definitely not both!
e) the rounded edges are not cut properly. they are some kinda pixeled.

F ... the most important point ... the layout simply sucks. sorry. the old layout was simple, straight to the point and very user-friendly. the new one screams "too much info!" because you can clearly see everything and the average user simply has trouble getting the IMPORTANT things on the first glimpse. i dont care if 1,276,564 photos are online ... this info is definitely not the most important thing your user wants to know.

sorry, by all due respect, if this site really stays that way ... i regret having put 25$ into a site (the first site i actually paid for!) this aweful.

i don't intend to offend anyone. it's just that this page looks like utter sloppiness to me. why don't you guys take good site designs and layouts as your inspiration? if you clearly cannot meet today's graphics skills, please get a good layout from a professional web agency that already handled good web site projects. the site just simply looks like pure programmers tried to play around a bit with photoshop.

i hope you take this critic constructively and not as an insult. i honestly loved being on A.net but the new design simply takes out the fun.

Regards,
Flo

What's this centering text crap? Searching through photos now is VERY difficult when every reg is in a different location. And now some things are centered, some are not.

The airliners.net community did NOT like the "new site" when it was shown to us a while back, we gave very detailed posts about what we didn't like. You didn't fix any of it, you just changed it to this new BS and we STILL don't like it.

The new homepage sucks. It loads so slowly and whats with all the underlining? What was the need to change? The old page was simple, effective and very easy to use, and loaded quickly. This new page SUCKS. CHANGE IT BACK!!

I just need to say I don't like the new frontpage design...

One thing I miss very much is the old design's great overview for the top rated photos. I think that's important because it is THE great thing of airliners.net

I'm a fairly new member, but I've been reading the forums for many years. This is a terrible move--it's much more confusing than the previous one, and the finish looks cheap. While the old page was clean, easy, and immediately showed some grandeur, the new one looks tacky. I guess we could get used to the new site, but I would LOVE an option to use the old layout. It also takes much longer to load.

I don't mind a new layout, but it should be an improvement.

N867DA

Ugh...The new page is crap, sucks, and just plain no good. Please bring back the old homepage!!!!

Can't say I can see any benefit in the new design, though I only come here for the Civil Aviation forum I did enjoy the old photos layout on the main page, I just changed my url to take me straight to CivAv and skip the front page.

The "new" blue isn't appealing and the optional page colors are absolutely awful and pointless.

The center justify for the additional postings is mind boggling.

Sorry guys & gals, I'm sure you worked hard on getting the new layout into production but it just doesn't inspire me, more of a turn me away than draw me in change.

Quoting Siren (Reply 253): the fact that I am in the IT field does give me a rather different perspective about DM's operations

Why ? I'm in the IT field too, and I can recognise incompetence where I see it. First thing - you build what your customers want, not some arbitrary rubbish you just feel like squeezing out. And you test what you build to make sure it works, before inflicting it on an unsuspecting public.

The blue clashes fiercely with the aquamarine, but users can, for some reason, change the color to one of five other totally hideous, clashing colors (except the grey). The disparity between the header width and the width of the content wrapper is jarring. The 16-18 point search form field is way too big. There is too much of the old design (which was better than ANY forum design I've seen, from a clarity and useability standpoint) to blend with the new.

I'm really disappointed. Really disappointed that this would be done.

Right now, in a meeting room, someone's saying "People fear change, and there's always an outcry when the look is redone. Just wait. They'll have no choice but to come around." All I can say is that A.net went from being the best looking, slickest aviation site on the web to 5th place.

Mark

I don't mind much of the look, but PLEASE, get rid of the massive search bar at the top of the page. When in the forums, there's a search button right underneath it, if you want photos you go to the photo section when you get to site. It takes up such a large amount of space, if it was about half the size I wouldn't mind but it completely dominates the entire screen when in the forums.

The whole site design is down the tubes. This is absolutly unacceptable. If DM really is for profit, then shouldn't they at least be able to do something worth while for the site.

The homepage design is cluttered and poorly designed, with little attention to text and the likes

The forums are all messed up, like the centering and underlining bugs

Theres a lot more to say about the management, but I won't say anymore since most seem to already feel the same way I do.

VTBD

Edit: and I forgot to say that it's slower than hell, I'm using IE7

[Edited 2008-05-29 15:23:21]

To be honest, I think this new website really destroys much of the credibility and identity that A.Net has developed over the years.
When I browse to airliners.net now, I see a myspace-esque assault on my senses, lots of bright colors, big pictures, ads, information...and while that may work for myspace very well, I don't understand how that corresponds with the ideals of Airliners.net.

A.Net stands for the highest quality in aviation photos, it stands for knowledgeable people, discussing aviation in a civilized in pleasant manner. When I think Myspace, none of these terms come to mind.

I understand Demand Media's intentions on the redesign, to attract new viewers and page hits from the casual observer, but I've always found A.Net to be occupied by the more intelligent, interested crowd of folks. If someone doesn't stop and say "wow" at the top photo of the day, even when it is slightly smaller, they probably aren't the type that will contribute to the great atmosphere here in the long run.

I feel that airliners.net has now lost a much more distinguished personality than the one it conveys through the homepage now.

I HATE the new site change it back to the previous one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are so many posts coming in here that most will get lost. But I will try:

Many will recall this thread where the community gave detailed feedback on the initial proposals for the home page changes.

Can someone please tell me what, if any, of that feedback (the latter suggestions receiving broad support by those who inputted) has been incorportated into what we see now.

I, for one, was led to believe that this feedback would be seriously considered. So if it was not deemed appropriate to act on it I would be interested to hear the reasons why.

Paul

Lets just have all 65,000 users ask really, really nicely.  

Demand Media
1333 Second Street, Suite 100
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Telephone: 310 394 6400

PLEASE BRING BACK THE OLD PAGE.

Quoting KPWMSpotter (Reply 277): When I browse to airliners.net now, I see a myspace-esque assault on my senses, lots of bright colors, big pictures, ads, information...and while that may work for myspace very well, I don't understand how that corresponds with the ideals of Airliners.net.

Agree 100%. Please get rid of this and revert back to the old scheme. It worked so much better.

Can we please have the old format back? At the very least until this one is usable, this is getting freakin' rediculous. I would also like to see the option to veiw in "classic" or in the new Myspace insired format.

-Dan

Nasty, nasty, NASTY! I can't believe I'm paying to be on Myspace.com...errr Airliners.net.

I'm sorry to say, but this design is really, really bad. Pretty soon I'm going to have a damn seizure just looking around. Bring back the old homepage!

Please.....

  

Quoting JGPH1A (Reply 271): And you test what you build to make sure it works, before inflicting it on an unsuspecting public.

If you want it to cost 3-6 times as much. It worked in their staging environment - you can only weed out the true weaknesses of any system under a production environment.

This isn't 'incompetence'... it's back to the whole layer cake analogy. They're doing what they can with the infrastructure they have.

Do we think this is a fair summary of the reaction to the changes??:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airliners.net#2008_Redesign

Maybe too kind!

Quoting Siren (Reply 285): If you want it to cost 3-6 times as much. It worked in their staging environment - you can only weed out the true weaknesses of any system under a production environment.

Do you work on systems that companies actually rely on ? You can't just whack it up on the Big Test System and hope for the best ! Completely unacceptible. When your system has to be able to handle 30,000 transactions per second 24/7/365 everywhere on the planet simultaneously, that kind of wishful thinking just doesn't cut it.

Quoting JGPH1A (Reply 288): Do you work on systems that companies actually rely on ?

I run the IT infrastructure for an airline. I think I know what I'm talking about.

When you have budget constraints, you do what you can in the staging/test environment. However, the only way to successfully test load is to roll it into production...

I think it's goddamn awful!!! It looks way too confused. Change it back, please.

Whats with the centered text! Oh, and can we PLEASE turn the blue down? Its so hard on the eyes...

Quoting Imiakhtar (Reply 29): Another thing, what's it with all the text being underlined?

Quoting AsstChiefMark (Reply 136): Why are forum messages underlined? It's hard to read and very annoying.

INDEED! All our comments seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Quoting Cadet57 (Reply 291): Oh, and can we PLEASE turn the blue down? Its so hard on the eyes...

You should try the red.

When I first saw this, I thought I entered into a hacked website.

I think that moving from a mostly text front page to a mostly images is a good thing, This is a photography site after all. The problem is, this is a huge mess. Too much stuff going on, no harmony between the modules and a insanely MySpace disorganized feeling.

Maybe if DM uses a Beta site, like.. airliners.net/beta or such, and play around it, it'll be better. But the current page, is very misleading. do not follows on Airliners.net quality and heritage, its hard on the eyes, and very difficult to navigate and to figure out what exactly it is.