Welcome to the new whathifi.com!

[professorhat]

I think if they ironed out some of the creases it would look a very nice site. The font is to big (changed it in my settings so it looks a lot better but the post reply button still looks much to big and ugly) and there is to much unused space in the news section. I think that if the morjoy of the people don't like something (and I bet the morjoy of people have a problem with the font size) then what hif-fi should change it out of respect especially for those who still buy the magazine. We will soon find out if what-fi listen to thre user base.

The issue is, your only source of knowledge is this forum. How do you know if many others haven't written in emails saying how much they like it? You're assuming the majority don't like it - you could be right, but you don't know that. Many, many more people browse the website compared to the few who contribute to the forum.

Besides, having worked in many projects of this kind, one thing that you really should never do is immediately try and start fixing things based on initial feedback in a knee jerk reaction. For one, you risk alienating people who actually quite like the new format (though I know you may find it impossible to believe, there have been some who have commented thus). And two, you risk making things worse by trying to implement changes quickly, rather than through thorough planning.

 

[sublime]

You only have a moment to capture the attention of a user landing on your homepage. If they don't like it for whatever reason or can't find the information they're looking for almost instantly they will move on, it's not like there isn't a wealth of resources out there already. I think it's a bit short sighted (almost arrogant) to believe that the WHF brand will somehow compensate for a poorly designed and implemented site - people WILL look elsewhere. The complaints and criticism come from people who have enjoyed the WHF site up until now, people who have been avid readers and forum members - in some way it is there's, it belongs to them - after all, whats a forum if no one posts in it. Releasing this new site in such a state is risky at best. Haymarket may have got away with it in the past but that doesn't mean people will have the patience this time - presumption is the mother of all balls-ups!

The site is painfully slow, some parts are broken, it’s not intuitive and it’s a visual mess. You shouldn't roll out a site in such a poor state, and thats the part I'm surprised about. How could a team release this unless they think that it's ok apart from a little tweaking. I hope the powers that be see that it needs a bit more than tweaking. My advise would be to sack the UX guy (having worked with dozens of them I can quite honestly say 95% of them are a waste of time in the real world) and buy a book called 'don't make me think' by Steve Krug - everything is in there. Please sort this out. I have been a avid reader for some years but am about to give up and find somewhere else to frequent as this site is poor - really poor.

 

[sublime]

I think if they ironed out some of the creases it would look a very nice site. The font is to big (changed it in my settings so it looks a lot better but the post reply button still looks much to big and ugly) and there is to much unused space in the news section. I think that if the morjoy of the people don't like something (and I bet the morjoy of people have a problem with the font size) then what hif-fi should change it out of respect especially for those who still buy the magazine. We will soon find out if what-fi listen to thre user base.

The issue is, your only source of knowledge is this forum. How do you know if many others haven't written in emails saying how much they like it? You're assuming the majority don't like it - you could be right, but you don't know that. Many, many more people browse the website compared to the few who contribute to the forum.

Besides, having worked in many projects of this kind, one thing that you really should never do is immediately try and start fixing things based on initial feedback in a knee jerk reaction. For one, you risk alienating people who actually quite like the new format (though I know you may find it impossible to believe, there have been some who have commented thus). And two, you risk making things worse by trying to implement changes quickly, rather than through thorough planning.

perhaps the thorough planning should have been done in the first place

 

[jmjones]

I agree. In my experience 1p worth of correct design work beats £1 worth of rectification. Anyway, this magazine and its website has been a source of great pleasure over the years. Let's hope they sort it out.

 

[BenLaw]

I've used the sure briefly on my laptop. It's worse than it was IMO but not a complete disaster. It does seem odd that the content at the moment is essentially the same but it is set out more poorly and is much less intuitive to find what you want.

However, my biggest complaint is use on my iPhone. There don't seem to many complaints about it, so maybe it's just me. On the other hand, if my complaints are fair, then that seems pretty disastrous as the sure is supposed to be optimised for phone and tablet use.

Phone use seems to have retained all the worst parts and got rid of the useful aspects. I had assumed a website re-write would rectify the problems of actually posting on a phone. It seems clear this isn't a fundamental re-write as the same unique idiosyncrasies remain.

Those include - not starting with a capital when you start a new line and auto correct not applying to the first word of a new paragraph. Anything other than typing (eg trying to zoom in or out or click on another part of the screen) making the post freeze and not able to enter any more text.

Howeever, previously I could click disable rick text and then enable it and the freezing would go away. Now, I have to click done and then back into the test box every time. This alone means I'm not going to post on the site anything like I used to.

As as well as the rich text button disappearing, the text box now fails to scroll entirely. It used to scroll strangely, moving across and down, so eventually you'd stop being able to see what you were typing. This now happens after just a few words, given the box is small, it repositions itself when you click in it and it doesn't move down as you type. I therefore have a choice of not being able to see what I type or moving the box down manually but then having to click done and click back in the box, which I have to do every one or two lines of text. This is stupid. I've also found that occasionally it will not let me click to the end of the text I'm typing and instead the cursor randomly appears towards the top of the text box.

Ive be found other forum functionality disappointing. I'm told the precise time that a thread was started but given no idea of when the last post took place. This makes tracking down a thread I posted to earlier in the day difficult to track down. There is no last post button on the forum page, so I need an extra click to achieve the same thing. I can't see the last poster - this sometimes dictates whether I read a post / thread.

thebdorum list is also very long and looks uniform, so is difficult to distinguish the forums frankly no one posts in from the ones that may be busy. It's a small point, but yet another that makes using the forums more difficult rather than more easy.

 

[sublime]

cleared my cache and site is still taking between 10-15 seconds to load a page. Not putting up with this - off to pastures new

 

[iQ Speakers]

Im with you on this one BenLaw, on an iphone the forum is appalling i would suspect alot of people would look down and see whos replied or how quickly the threads have have grown in order to join in an interesting, let say for eg a cable thread.

Also the functionalety (by the way it wont let me copy that in order to spell check) on an iphone not being able to filter products in reviews until scroll to the bottom of the page.

I dont like mobile versions and always us the desktop version but there no option.

Also the date 15-07-2014 please, this must be just a setting option.

 

[iceman16]

This new updated site seems to be designed by a dumb person/people

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

And I thought these guys were gone

 

[iceman16]

If I like to post/reply to a previous thread where can I find it? God please help me and these people who are responsible for this MESS!

 

[iceman16]

It's like teaching a toddler how to read with this large fonts. come on guys it's a shame!

 

[iceman16]

Id rather go somewhere else..

 

[Andy Clough]

Fortunately I don't have a cat NT, otherwise it might be suffering! Joe and I are logging all the complaints and working through them. We can't flick a switch overnight to fix everything, but we are working on improvements daily so please bear with us.

 

[Neptune_Twilight]

I think What Hi-Fi are aware of the problems now & why not give them time to sort them, 10 years ago the only users were laptop & desk users now people are using everything from a phone to a 27" display - I'm sure they wanted the site to be an improvement & not to annoy people.

Andy IMO has taken more flak than I would have, (if he has a cat it will have had a really bad week) give them some time now to sort through the problems. Most of those who have left will return at some point I'm sure ~

 

[Neptune_Twilight]

I have a cat you can borrow if that would help?

 

[relocated]

I think What Hi-Fi are aware of the problems now & why not give them time to sort them, 10 years ago the only users were laptop & desk users now people are using everything from a phone to a 27" display - I'm sure they wanted the site to be an improvement & not to annoy people.

Andy IMO has taken more flak than I would have, (if he has a cat it will have had a really bad week) give them some time now to sort through the problems. Most of those who have left will return at some point I'm sure ~

Which is why more robust testing should have been done before release. As has been said, it takes a disproportionate amount of effort and resources to put something right when it gets botched in the first place.

Andy has taken the flak because he has the job/position that requires him to take responsibility. We, as yet, don't know who is responsible for this debacle and who signed off on it, but they should do the honourable thing and 'fall on their sword'. However I won't be holding my breath on that one.

 

[relocated]

I have just quoted from outside of WHF and a Security Box came up which I had to use, which seems perfectly sensible to me.

Trouble was that when the text was placed in the "Comment" box, there were 6 sets of text instead of just the one. No doubt someone can sort that out. Using Mac Air and Chrome within Mavericks.

 

[emklap]

Here my thoughts about the new layout, simply said ' I don’t like it at all!!

And this is why.

- 90% of the screen (24 inch) is taken up by advertisements, menu's or whit space, leaving no room for content.

- And when there is room for content (the product or news page) there is only a single small list of review pictures with, again, 90% of white nothing.

- Opening the page http://www.whathifi.com/products or /news fails the first time. I get a top menu, footer menu and one advertisement overlapping the footer menu. Refreshing / reloading will solve the problem. (I use IE8 because my company doesn’t allow anything else)

- The font size is much too big. It is if I am sitting 10cm (4 inch) from the monitor. I have to reduce the zoom % to 70% to make the text more readable.

- The line spacing is also too large making the text less easy to read.

- In the review section (http://www.whathifi.com/products) the list will only show pictures without explanatory text. These pictures are sometimes worthless (e.g. the Beyerdynamic DTX 102 iE)

- The site has become very slow.

- Adding forum post can be failing. Than the screen turns completely white and you have to start al over again.

- The pictures in the icon bar on the home page look if they are designed in the late 1980's. They are much to pixelated.

- I really hate the advertisement above this icon bar, it pushes the content down out of the bottom of the screen.

- When posting a form post it is almost impossible to enter text into the text in the comment field. Often I don’t get a cursor when clicking on this field.

- When posting a form post the screen can sometimes go completely white. A refresh will restore the page but you need to retype your post.

I think that’s enough and hope it will be fixed soon.

 

[ayjaycee]

Just returned from three weeks out of the country, went to have a quick sweep over what I might have missed on the WHF site during that time and found this steaming pile on my screen. I might check back every now and again to see if things have improved but, otherwise, I am afraid that it's goodbye from me. It's a personal opinion but first impressions matter and mine was that WHF had employed a six year old to rework the site. Even something as simple as reducing the font sizeand not double spacing everything would help (but only a little!).

 

[Marsbardark]

I am afraid your dev team is to this site what David Moyes (football genius) was to Man United.

 

[whiskywheels]

There doesn't seem to be any way to search the forums anymore ?

I just tried to do a search, and it just gave me results in the 'products' category.

(And the font size is ridiculous!)

I'd liked to search the forums also, but can't see how to, and I can't find a reply to this post either.

 

[SonofSun]

This has to be the worst 'update' to a website I have ever seen. The design is completely wrong and I suspect many people have been involved who have absolutely no web design experience.

The look and feel of the website is dreadful, confusing and irritating, rather than just fixing each issue that people don't like, the designers need to go back to the drawing board.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the site, if it stays similar to what it is now, I suspect their won't be much traffic left in a few weeks time.

Whoever signed off the design for the forum layout needs to be removed from all future decisions, verdict - embarrasingly amateurish is too much of a compliment.

 

[Cypher]

I don't know who designed this new website but how can they think this is better than the old one ?

I don't get that *scratch_one-s_head*

 

[tinkywinkydipsylalapo]

I'm sure I am much too stupid to understand the no doubt very professional journalistic reasons for it, but why does every one of your news stories now start with the second paragraph, followed by what should obviously be the first paragraph, then a third paragraph more or less repeating the second paragraph which appeared first, and then other bits doing not much more than repeating what's already been said?

I can only assume this is some strange hamfisted effort to keep search engines happy or such nonsense not actually related to helping the reader, but it's bloody annoying: doesn't anyone actually read this stuff before it's published?

And before you suggest it, yes I have followed standard new website operation procedure: I have been out and bought two different approved tablets and a Fisher Price smartphone, updated my browser software to the Cyrillic language version of Opera, cleared my cache, paid off my credit cards, turned around three times and whistled the Match of Day theme while walking widdershins round the kirk, but all to no avail.

Please advise.

 

[Andy Clough]

I'm sure I am much too stupid to understand the no doubt very professional journalistic reasons for it, but why does every one of your news stories now start with the second paragraph, followed by what should obviously be the first paragraph, then a third paragraph more or less repeating the second paragraph which appeared first, and then other bits doing not much more than repeating what's already been said? Please advise.

The first part of any news story is what is known in the trade as a standfirst, which is why it appears in italics to differentiate it from the main body copy – it's meant to be a summary of the story as a whole. However, I can see that this might be confusing and there's a danger we are repeating the same thing twice (as happened in the NudeAudio story for example).

So I've spoken to the web team and from now on we'll make the standfirst in the CMS the normal first paragraph of the story and take it from there. Hope that helps.