Hey All,
As you may or may not have noticed we've applied some changes to the sites homapage design layout today.
The main focus of this update is to bring better article thumbnails next to each post on the homepage.
This hopefully will add some colour to the homepage as well as providing you with an idea about the post before clicking on it.
For articles that don't have images, we will be display the standard icons that we did previously although these have been updated thanks to CJ Sonic.
All the thumbnails on the homepage are clickable so that they will take you to the article.
Other changes in this update.
- As a result of using article images on the homepage, the homepage should now load a little quicker.
- The Labels/Categories under the Article Title have a softer grey to stop detracting from the main article title
- The Author and Post date have also been reduced slightly to better fit into the design.
- In the sidebar, we now show 6 Trending Topics, all colour coded from hottest to coolest.
- The trending topics area has also been tidied up to improve font and line spacing to improve readability.
- The Recent Reviews area has also been tidied up to improve font and line spacing to improve readability.
- The Recent Comments area now shows 6 Comments rather than 4
- The Select Your Show dropdown font has been increased to improve readability
- The Search box at the top of the sidebar is now more visible.
- The Mobile site has been updated to reflect the new thumbnails and icons
- We now show 2 more articles on the homepage
Known Issues
- FIXED: The large widescreen version of the site has some formatting issues in the sidebar. We hope to have these finished later this week, if not sooner.
- There maybe a few minor bugs issues. If you find any, please let us know in the comments below.
A big thanks to CJ for helping me with the Icons and graphics, and to the SpoilerTV Team who helped test and propose changes during our internal testing phase.
We know that most people dislike change, including me, so we don't expect everyone to fall in love the with the design right away. The new design will remain unchanged for 2-3 weeks while we collate any feedback. Depending on the amount and type of feedback we get we may look to tweak slightly any little annoyances or bugs etc.
If you have any feedback, either good or bad or have any suggestions, we would love for you to provide them in the comments below. Please try to avoid feedback like "I hate it!!!!!" and nothing else. If you hate, please try to be specific about it. eg are certain things too large, too small, too bright, too dull etc. The more precise feedback you can give us the better we'll be able to understand the areas we might need to look at.
We do truly value all our readers input and even whilst we may not be able to implement your ideas/changes/suggestions we do record every single one of them and I personally review each one.
So let us know what you think and if you find any actual bugs/errors please also let us know in the comments below.
looks gorgous! congrats to all involved. Love the thumbnails
ReplyDeleteLove it! :)
ReplyDeleteI like it (and I never like change usually), good job!
ReplyDeleteAwesome design, looks good and it's nice to see the pictures/ logos of shows and stuff :)
ReplyDeleteReally great job everyone. Loving the new larger thumbnails as the new article banners. Gives everything a nice consistent feel.
ReplyDeleteMobile version looks good although might want to look at some spacing issues on tablets (I will email you them)
Some thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea but the new images a bit too big for my liking
Also for shows maybe there should just be the standard logo for that series rather than a promo pic -- for example on the first page the pic of Ward and Skye for AOS looks out of place compared to everything else. Stick with the AOS logo like used for the poll.
Whoa!This looks awesome! Thanks for your the hard work you all put into this. Spoiler just gets better and better!
ReplyDeleteExciting to see it finally go live, love it!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your restless dedication to the this website.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the detailed feedback @Lou much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI suggested the splash screen of the show be used as the image like you described
ReplyDeleteYep, just to add that the main issue we had with that in the short term is that we cover 170+ shows, so that would mean having to find, download, resize and upload 170+ images and to hard-code them into the sites template. It was just too much work to do and to maintain currently. Our CMS is not very good at things like that unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI think it looks amazing! Love to see the forward progress. People really appreciate it. Great job!
ReplyDeleteIt's not that I don't like the new design. But design changes now happen very often. Just be careful that you don't change everything to death. I've seen this happening with a lot of sites. Although allo f the changes have been positive so far wether it's the design or contentwise, I hope you don't get lost in all of that changes.
ReplyDeleteYep, totally agree with not changing things too often. The last update we had was back in Dec 2013
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spoilertv.com/2013/12/site-update-new-theme-icons-and-more-to.html
Wow that really does look much nicer. I didn't like it when you first stared adding the icons a while ago but these new ones and the fact that you show the actual article image is very nice.
ReplyDelete+1 to the team
Actually I'm not a fan of using promo pics for thumbnails either, especially if you're trying to pick what you want to click on and get spoiled about or not. It's easy to get spoiled at a glance, I think using a standard logo instead is a better idea.
ReplyDeleteAside from that, I rather like the changes.
nice!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely going to be an adjustment, but I like it!
ReplyDeleteLooks great. Looks fantastic on mobile as well. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mobile feedback. We could not test it as much as we liked due to a limited number of devices we could test so all mobile feedback is great. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteLooks good but I think the images could be a little smaller. Not much, just a little. Rest is great.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Thomas Mech
ReplyDeleteChecked it on an LG G2 and a Samsung Galaxy s4. Looked great on both.
ReplyDeleteThanks I tested on Nexus 5, Samsung Nexus and Nexus 7. So far so good :) Will borrow my wifes ipad later :)
ReplyDeleteLooks good on my kindle too.
ReplyDeleteIt looks OK, but I think that the thumbnails would be better slightly smaller. They do rather dominate the screen at the size they are.
ReplyDeleteCool. If I come across any other devices/models from friends of mine, will let you know the results. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Julia Eason
ReplyDeleteThanks, that will be very helpful.
ReplyDelete- the logos are too big
ReplyDelete- some of them have aspect ratio problems because the pictures are 100x100, but the logo area is wide
- please don't use promo pics as logos, you can get spoilery, use a logo for this category or a logo for the show
It was way better before, with just a few logos that were smaller.
Thanks for the feedback @soryn-el
ReplyDeleteAs for spoilery photos, all the team have been informed not to use major spoilers for their article posts.
Maybe I'm the only one but I don't like the new buttons. Maybe I'm also the only one who still uses a square flatscreen, so the articles looks a bit squeezed. The buttons are too big for my linking. When I enter this site the attention is not on the article anymore but on the buttons. I prefer the old buttons but that's just my opinion and I can see I'm in the minority. :)
ReplyDeleteJust want to say, I do like the new designs, but I think the icons are a little too big and slightly too rectangular. It's not the biggest deal on the main site, but I feel it messes up the mobile site slightly.
ReplyDelete.
Thanks for the feedback @Raven
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Victor
ReplyDeleteWe'll make sure that the thumbnail doesn't contain a spoilery photo.
ReplyDeleteAs for spoilery photos, all the team have been informed not to use major spoilers for their article posts.
ReplyDeleteLooks great on my phone!
ReplyDeleteThanks @Ross May I ask what phone you have?
ReplyDeleteLooks great, thanks for all the good work! I enjoy visiting your site every day! :-)
ReplyDeleteHmm. i'm afraid to say I dislike the large thumbnails, they're just too overpowering, especially as a lot of the imagery that has been done uses very bright colours whereas the top SpoilerTV banner itself is a somewhat more subtle use of shading. The same applies to the trending articles, which draws your eye in far more than the header of the site.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Bob appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteiPhone 5s. I really like it. But I liked it before as well. I'm just easily pleased haha.
ReplyDeleteWow! This is awesome! I really like the larger icons. It makes for a nice splash of color and makes it a lot easier to figure out what the article is about, making for a much more pleasant and easier time going through articles. And I love that there are more articles per page. Again, it makes for quicker searches.
ReplyDeleteI personally never thought that the labels/categories were too distracting and I sort of preferred them being darker so they were easier to read so I would know what shows the article was about but I'm just glad you still have them. It makes life MUCH easier than opening every article and figuring out what's relevant for me. But I understand that you don't want the article headers to be too confusing.
And I'm always a fan of bigger fonts and making things more noticeable so the larger texts and additional colors are a great change.
Every update you have just makes this site better and better! Thank you guys!
For me , I find the thumbnails way to big and would prefer more uniformity in the icons for each of the tv series (like just a logo of the show), but other than that its good.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Arlothia
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @oddball87
ReplyDeleteThe other changes look good but I agree with the others that the pictures are too large and make the homepage look cluttered and actually remove the focus from the title, which is going to give you a better idea of what the article is about. It's just too much on the eyes.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Porochaz
ReplyDeleteLooks phenomenal! Great work, guys.
ReplyDeleteI don't like those changes, not because they don't look good, but because they stretch too much the page. I rather have an option to see those pictures like that, to be able to see them half the size or not at all.
ReplyDeleteI do like the icons used and I can see why some would love it, but for me personally the icons are just distractions.
ReplyDeleteThe photos and icons actually distract my eyes from the text and I need to concentrate more on the text making everything harder to read. Maybe if the icons were smaller it would be easier for me. Not sure.
Plus they seem redundant to me.
They categorize things visually, but all those categories were able to be accessed in other ways already.
Maybe an option to disable the icons?
Looks great Andy! Works fine on my mobile phone too.
ReplyDeleteOn phone looks awesome! on PC they are kind of big but still great!
ReplyDeletethumbnails suck, is there a way to cancel or opt out?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Lord Nikon
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @DarqueMode
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Daniel
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Ron May I ask what phone you use?
ReplyDeleteNot currently, thanks for the feedback
ReplyDeleteI visit the website via iPad. And while I like the idea of thumbnails, some look better than the others. E.g. The cancelation predictor looks nice, and the TV news doesn't look good due to it being too stretched out. And also posts with pictures as thumbnails - pictures are stretched and you can almost not even guess what it is. As for the size it looks good. Overall with few small changes this will look awesome. Thanks for your work :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the detailed feedback @JustMe , much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteAlso when you visit the site on your ipad are you accessing the normal site, or the mobile version? eg m.spoilertv.com
ReplyDeleteForgot to mention that. I'm accessing the mobile site. And happy to help out.
ReplyDeleteThanks nice one :)
ReplyDeleteAlcatel 980-a, Android.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the normal site and several of the images are stretched out for me too. Like the recent article that includes the new poster for The 100. It needs to be cropped or something because the image is taller than it is wide, so it's all distorted in thumbnail. I'm also noticing that a few are blurry, like the thumbnail this morning for the new promo pic for The Mentalist. I really like the idea, but the thumbnails need to be fixed because the bad quality of some of these are really distracting and makes it took like something went wrong.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, much appreciated.
ReplyDeletei really like it!
ReplyDeleteI like the personalized article thumbnails but, as a personal preference, I'd like them to be smaller.
ReplyDeleteLooks awesome! Great job. Even cleaner and easier to navigate. Looks good on mobile as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't like change.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @Bruce_F We hope to run a survey in about a week to gauge in a more controlled manner the feedback, but it seems at this stage that people would like a slightly smaller thumbnail.
ReplyDeleteOnce we've collated all the feedback we'll be in a better position to apply some small tweaks :)
Me neither :)
ReplyDeleteGlad it looks good on mobile. Would you mind @denverdean if I asked what mobile device you have?
ReplyDeleteIt's a bad idea since some of the thumbnails (like from posts with promotional photos) will contain some spoilers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @grizzly115 . We've told all our staff not put make the thumbnail image a major spoiler.
ReplyDeleteGreat new layout :) Really like it, sent DarkUFO an email - could someone pass this message on to him, cheers all
ReplyDeleteMy two cents...
ReplyDeleteMobile version looks GREAT on my iPhone :-)
I love the new design but the thumbnail pics are a bit big when using my laptop to access the website and I would prefer one pic per show simply because it makes it easier for me to scan the home page looking for one design versus trying to look at the pic and see if I recognize the actors. Of course, this is easily avoided by just going to the show specific site. But, if you do decide to go with one pic per show based on the feedback, I can image the amount of time it would take to gather the pics, get them into the proper file type and size and then hard code them would be a serious drain on your time and energy...so, my suggestion to that would be to utilize us. You give us the pic parameters (file type, size, content, etc) and we submit them to you. As admins you make the decision of which pic to use (or if you can't decide, make a poll out of it!) and then you can do the programming. Still a lot of work, but at least we, your fans, are doing some of the upfront work for you. Again, just a thought.....
Thanks for your hard work and for actually soliciting the user opinions!
Sometimes when I'm watching a video here, it stops/ends before it actually finishes.
ReplyDeleteWay to big, before was fine, I don't need to be distracted, I want to read the title and know what I'm looking at is new information, vs looking at Icons and deciding.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the detailed feedback @Emma Much appreciated and helpful.
ReplyDeleteHi, please use the feedback form if you are having specific problems with something on the site. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback @NiceGuyVan
ReplyDeleteLooks Amazing! Love it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, can the 'Promo Pictures' icon not be actual Promo Pictures but just the title card of the show? I like to keep some of my shows spoiler free and I do that by not clicking on the link. Now with an image of a Promo Pic beside the link and spoils the episode
*I understand this is a spoiler site but there should be an option on what spoilers I want to see