You can probably tell that we have made a major change from our previous blog template. So, the most important for us right now is to get your feedback, because we always want to see if there are any plausible changes we can make to improve your blog reading experience. We do have to admit that we might not be able to incorporate everything that you mention, but we try our best to see if it makes sense!
Anyway, give your feedback please!
Here are some of the reasons for the template change.
1. The loading time for the previous blog is horrendous. I guess it’s the images that needed to be loaded, or perhaps the number of entries that are shown on the front page. This alerts me that we got to have a splash page to reduce the loading times.
2. I always wanted a better categorization, and show more entries on the front page while not causing longer loading times. This blog template allows us to get the best of two worlds.
3. Always wanted a featured section for posts that we want to keep on the front page no matter what.
4. I wanted a simplistic theme rather than something that complicates matters. It’s of course a little less exciting than our previous template, but it is cleaner and more user friendly in my opinion. We are still working and fixing some issues due to such a major change (Astrobunny nearly died in action for this).
5. If you notice, we provided a specific section for editorials. It’s mostly for Lelangir so that the editorial posts (which are not time-specific posts in general) can get more readership and be exposed often.
6. New template = awesome.
Anyway, we still have a few things to work on because it is not the final product.
- We still need to include the plugins to tidy up our stuff on the sidebar.
- The top menu bar looks dirty ugly, and we have to get it done too.
- The recent comments is not showing what it should, but it will be fixed in the next few days.
- The bright red on the front page can kill, and we have to fix that with a much milder red.
Now, do you think there are any other things that can be improved? Please tell us and we hope to hear the feedback from you!
Edits from comments
1. The anime banners are definitely making a comeback! This is a bit of a “work-in-progress”
2. We will be trying to centralize the blog template, rather than have the main stuff “left aligned”. Not sure how we can do it.
3. We are going to figure out how to do a blogroll on the front page. Give us a little time!
4. We are going to explain the features in the splash page.
5. Calawain is pissed off at me. Scatterbrained Impz is going to be so dead!
6. Thinking of having a sidebar…
Keep up the feedback. We need it!
63 Comments
Turn this design into a centered one. I´m getting neck pain from having to turn my head so far to the left.
Make the design clearer without so much stuff going on all around the place. Choose another red color.
Remove the pages from the sidebar, keep them in the header as a menu or in the sidebar, don´t keep it on both places.
Implement the timthumb.php to get thumbnails automatically.
I liked the old template better as it stands today. Nice and easy to move on. Nice choice of colors and everything worked just fine. This may be what you wanted in loading time, but it gives me the creeps designwise.
I agree with Manga that the theme should be be a centered one.It really feels awkward to turn you head.
Whats bugging me aswell is all the different shades of grey.Im not asking to turn this into a trip on the rainbow but a little colour wouldnt hurt imho.
The Pages on top dont look right either
Besides that im fine with the theme!
I also prefer the previous one disregarding the loading time XD.
I also don’t like the combination of red and black for the site.
I think you guys should have another header segment below the title of the blog for the pages and not put it beside because it is disorganized.
As for the feed subscription, I prefer it to be on the sidebar and not in the header.
Well, these are all just suggestions
good luck with the major modifications.
i’d make a constructive comment but i already forgot what the last template looked like. good luck with the new one!
I agree with everything Manga just said. There’s…a lot going on with this new template.
At the very least, the banner pics should make a comeback.
I’m not a fan of the ultrabright red squares, and I don’t particularly like the color scheme in general ; otherwise, like the others I’d prefer if it were centered…
On the “easy to navigate” front I’ll wait to get a hang of it before saying anything :p Anyways, it’s fun to change once in a while.
Move the links in the menu below the title That Anime Blog. It will look better instead of having it crammed in that square.
I miss having an anime picture in the header. I’m so used to it that when I see the page for the first time I say, “Huh, THAT Anime Blog? I wonder what they write about?”
Center, bolder color choices, feng shui the links. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
Yeah, definitely liked the other one more. Have you ever considered going with a pre-fabbed theme?
Wow, this one loaded very fast compared to the old one!
Thanks for the feedback guys, appreciate it! We still got a lot of stuff to fix. We just want to hear from everyone and if it seems that if after the fixes, it is not good enough, we will revert back to the old template. Cheers!
Change is good but I’ll hold my comments until you guys are 100% done with modding the template. A lot of the major issues have already been addressed by manga anyways (BTW please make the comment entry font bigger, my old eyes can’t read as well anymore).
Sorry guys but I prefer WAY more the previous template.
i really dont care about loading times, i liked the other template
I like the load-speed. The front splash page has some nice features. However, overall I’m not sure I like the redesign yet. Some thoughts:
- Alignment: You need a wrapper div to make your whole blog center aligned. The left-alignment is not good, as others have mentioned.
- Threaded comments: They’d be nice. A new theme should take advantage of advances in WP. Will they be making an appearance?
- Top banner is bad: I assume the top left part is just a placeholder and will be replaced by real images? The menu is crammed and ugly (and oversteps its implied boundaries). A long menu under the banner would be a better choice.
- Middle: Why is the log-in section so prominent? Are new visitors supposed to log in? This seems like a waste of space to me. Also, shouldn’t the editorial section have a thumbnail or something to make it more visually appealing?
- Splash: Although the idea is to get people to read multiple new posts, exiling all of the posts to text links at the bottom will probably have the opposite effect. The post that just got bumped will probably see its readership plummet, because it is very hard to find. It would be better if Other Recent Posts underneath the Featured Post actually showed recent posts. Right now it shows posts that are 2 years old.
- Author: It’s hard to tell who wrote the post on the individual post page.
- Bottom threesome: What do their titles mean? Recent Anime Posts? Recent Editorial Posts? Recent Misc. Posts? It’s not clear.
- Shuffling: I think you should be consistent in where items appear. For example, the twitter feed is on the bottom on the front page, but it’s on the sidebar on individual pages. This can be confusing.
- Comment Text: Too small.
Good luck with the redesign!
as manga says, this really needs to be centered…
don’t increase the text size for the comments – I like it like this…
Also, your thatcontent/contentblock td tags need padding, because the bullet dots overlap too far to the left on FF3. It would probably be better to define new div tags with CSS styling rather than using tables.
Comments are too small! Hurts my eyes!
Navigation at top of page (links such as Home, About THAT) should reside in a fixed-width div and have display:inline-block. That should make them overflow properly.
Oh, right, and also, I think you need some margin-left or padding-left (forgot which) on your li definitions?
To be perfectly honest, it could use a few dinosaurs.
I don’t mean to discourage, but I liked the previous layout much better. And loading times, what? I never had an issue myself, though it does depend on the user/connection. However, I can understand why you’d want to make some of the changes, so I’d suggest using the old template and modifying it slightly with some of the new features.
Text size, ease of navigation, and color scheme were the main points I miss from the old design. Perhaps adding a tab system at the top of the page in the old one to cycle between anime, editorial and misc. That or perhaps a sidebar with the entry names. With this the editorials can get more exposure than they were previously. Keep the Twitter sidebar, but I don’t really think there needs to be a recent comments one on the front page, or at least not so prominently since as it is now it shares equal size/space with the entries. Centering, as others have noted, certainly needs to be in any modified or new format.
Whoa, this way different. Not bad, just gonna take some time getting used to.
In general:
Like others have mentioned, I would center the middle column, it looks unbalanced plus there’s a lot of wasted space on widescreens.
I’d bump up the comment size, it’s way too small.
It looks like the alignment for the “Archives Email T.H.A.T Fall 2008 Blogging!” in the header is off. It’s breaking through the container on FF beta 3, IE8 and Chrome.
I really like the pop-up RSS and Twitter subscribe buttons. Although the serif “Subscribe To…” doesn’t seem to really fit the rest of the look.
The home page:
I like the layout of the home page, but the bullet alignment for the categories at the bottom needs fixing. Also, I think there needs to be a sharper visual distinction between each module, because they way it’s laid out right now is overloading me with info and choices.
The “Have you read this THAT post about… ” takes up too much vertical space. And actually I think the login section does too.
On indiv post pages:
I don’t know what to do with the mini-twitter blog, because I think it takes too much vertical space. I’d almost say to put it in a 2nd right column, but that’s gonna mess with your 1024 width. But personally, I think the posts by other authors, categories and polls should take precedence over the twitter feed.
I’d suggest picking a few colors instead of going crazy with all of the different shades. The more there are, the harder it is to make all of them match. The header could definitely use tweaking. And comment text seriously needs to be larger.
Overall, I can see why you picked this if you’re looking for something simple. However, if you’re aiming for a simplistic design, you have to mind the number of different colors, fonts, etc. you’re using.
Even though I kind of miss the old template, I think you can make this one work, too. Good luck with that.
Center alignment, definitely.
too lazy to read most of all comments
-centered alignment for single post.php template only
-reverting back to double column front page stuff defeats entire purpose
-too many gradients are ugly
-reduce padding between header space and feature/headline spaces
-move donate/meta links below everything
-get rid of the animated collapsing categories (just slow, why?)
-don’t know if having sidebar.php only visible in singlepost.php is a good thing…
-have header image span 1em, margin 0px, padding 0px (that’s just artistic preference, so whatever)
-comment font size is reealllyy small
-most of the fonts are pretty ugly in general…
however, I know nothing about css/html, so I have no authority there….
this is certainly different… yeah I prefer the old theme better.
I don’t ever remember having a load time issue with the last one lay out which was far…far superior to this one.
Issues so far (comments are tl;dr):
centered alignment
comment font size is small and the font itself is pretty bad.
top middle part – the text extends out of the gray area
red is too striking (especially the blood-red “Subscribe to”)
too many shades of red; try to stick with a middle between this light pink and the blood-red and I think it’d work out nicely
a splash page for the front doesn’t really work for some so I don’t think it merits all that effort, I think; we (and by we I mean I) usually just get to posts through RSS and stuff.
Uh, yeah, I think that’s it.
Props for the neat THAT sign thingy and the neato popout buttons and compressing the blogroll and categories (I should do that sometime), but the archives could stay as a dropdown widget.
But yeah, I liked the old theme better.
Um… I know that I am not used to this new layout yet, but I think that it is overly complicate for its own good, and I never have problem checking out the site even with my school’s sucky internet.
I don’t see how I’ll get used to it, but I guess that the banners coming back will help. And yhea, less loading time is awesome.
One thing. Am I the only one who sees the comments (like this one) in VERY, VERY tiny size?
I prefer the previous one mainly ‘cos I got too used to it.
The new one is not as good but it’s very quick to load! But I think that the main article thingy should have more wider space – about 3/4 of the width of the page instead of 2/3 like now. The “Subscribe to…” thing at the top right doesn’t look good in red IMO. The home page of THAT when I saw it today got me a little confused ‘cos there was so much stuff and links. That’s all.
Looking forward to the new improved version. =]
This is terrible, almost Danny Choo terrible. A blog is supposed to list postings that the reader can read one after another (or skip). But you create a layout where it’s completely unclear what the sequence is. Even Riex understood it.
I come, bearing the most constructive of opinions: LOLWUT.
i personally prefer the old layout. this new one is so confusing. not only can’t i tell which one is old or new, but i also can’t tell which section i’d go to in order to read a certain article. also, the text is small; i have to strain my eyes to see what i’m typing right now.
i appreciate the effort, but this isn’t working. just change it back.
Y U DO DIS?! (屮゜Д゜)屮
I though I visited another website oO It isn’t as clean as the previous one.
can we have the old THAT back?
I have to agree with the others who say this layout is a bit more confusing. While the old site may have taken longer to load it was more user friendly, and that is a bit more important imo. If there is a way to tweak the new layout so it is a little more friendly to us readers, you might want to try that if you don’t want to go back to the old layout.
Other recent posts aren’t recent. Colors are not very good.
Also what’s with the noob gradient logo and the top menu that looks just randomly jumbled?
1 – Fast, is good, realy good.
2 – Centered, please.
3 – Is possible to take advantage of wide screens? I mean, some page can expand the text area to the sides, is like I am wasting a lot of inches on my right side of the screen.
5 – I am using a 32″ TV, and I can barely read the comments with out zooming the page, please fix these first!
6 – Did you noticed that the login is big, but there is no indication of how we can registrate?
7 – Is possible that THAT support Gravatar for user images? I find useful to fast-identify other commentators based on their mini-avatars.
8 – It work fine with Chrome, but odly enough I cant browser with Opera that is my All-Terrain backup, no big problem because I use Chrome as my main browser, but I wonder if other people cant access THAT, My advice is run a test with the most popular browsers, for you know… just in case.
9 – I dont care to much about how things looks, I rather read “The Gray Lady” (AKA The New York Times) than “McPaper” (AKA USA Today), what it really counts is the content, if you can deliver good articules, then THAT is fine for me.
10 – People dont like changes, that’s natural, but things are going to fix over time, stagnation is the main enemy of creativity. Gambatte ne!
Maybe cause I’m too used to the old versions, but the front page totally scared me. It was far too messy to know what I was looking around here.
Hmm Opera is working.
And the comments are too small.
Add the small Menus to the left again, some of us use bigger text height for some reasons, we would have to scroll endlessly to the bottom of the page for some menus.
That should be a darker red: #c80f14
Scared and frightened by the new layout , needs tidying up and centering but apart from that , people can get used to it…Hopefully anyway
Messy, especially the bottom half of the page with anime, editorial and Misc (or maybe just not used to it)
Small font for comments
The color scheme feels a bit off. It’s not just the red…I suggest the old one with the blue-ish writing
Apart from that, faster load is faster XD
oh and change fall anime blogs to winter 2009 already
Hmm well the header is coming back you say, so I guess I can live with it, as long as I know some of the prettiness is coming back in the future.
Waah right now it looks really confusing, but I’m sure I’ll figure it all out eventually.
I agree with most people here. Center it again, instead of on the left, and i like the short load times. I am a subscriber to the KISS! method myself. Keep It Simple, Stupid! This new layout satisfies that criteria.
when I first saw it, I thought it was a lil mind-boggling. But it IS a lot faster
I think could get used to it. Now all that’s lacking are a few pretty pictures~
This site is very hard to navigate now. You may have lowered loading times (not that I ever thought that was a problem), but you’ve greatly decreased usability in doing so.
Looks very disorganized.
Like the old one a lot really despite the slow loading times. 
Anyways why is there are log-in prompt?
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4144/logins.jpg
Do we need to be members here to post in the future?
The new layout is not too bad, but it is tough initially. It took me a few to find the new entries, and i was pulled around quite a bit. I like the dividing Anime from Editorials, that is cool if I’m looking for an opinion piece from the past. It’ll take some getting used to but, I’m becoming a fan.
When I first saw the template, I thought I was in the wrong site.
I might have to get used to this new template now.