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road.cc redesign survey – help us shape a new look road.cc

We're making plans to get the digital builders and decorators in and we'd like your help in deciding which walls to knock down and whether to upgrade the central heating… okay, we'll park that metaphor now...

We’re planning to give road.cc one of its periodic makeovers and we’d like your input to help us get it right.

In our recent user survey we got a vast amount of really useful feedback from you about the content of our digital home now though we’d like to ask you about the fixtures and fittings - the way the site itself works (or doesn't) on your mobile, desktop, or tablet. 

road.cc redesign survey

We’ve already pencilled in some exciting changes we’d like to make to the site, and some long overdue ones too, but while it’s great if road.cc works for us the most important thing is that it works for you. That’s why we want to make sure that any plan for the site is shaped by you, and any inspiration you can spare, before we commit to writing it all down in biro (or the digital equivalent) and showing to our developers.

So, if you’d like to tell us what we can do to make your experience of using road.cc better then click here or follow that big link above to complete our short survey. (It’s much shorter than the user survey. Honest).

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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17 comments

Avatar
alotronic | 5 years ago
4 likes

Well let's see...

Start properly mobile first rather than cobbling a UI on top.

Way too many ads on mobile UI - this is one of the few sites I have allowed ads on and on mobile it's just too much

Three column layout is looking a bit dated now, as are type sizes. Layout looking cramped, the only site more cluttered now is bike radar. You could probably move to a more editorial/magazine format than a news format (eithout dropping the nwews itself, which I like)

I am pretty sure no one uses it but a filtered search would be useful about twice a year (and something drupal does falling backwards off a log) so 'aero' in bike reviews, or Castelli in jackets.

I accept the affiliate links as a price to pay for free, so like that they are obvious

Still like the 'about the rider' section and that you always state what size frame you tested and the height of the rider - simple stuff that works and that others are still, amazingly, not doing

Image gallery at top looking dated too, too fiddly, a simpler touch-friednly slider would be just as good

Liveblog - there are ways to do that in Drupal (8) without the effing plug in which is slow and odd.

 Better integration with social - tweet from an image or quote directly rather than using crappy plugins  -  Sharethis is crap and essentially marketing spyware

And occasionally police the forums! They are entertaining but there are usual suspects who tend to clog things up with predicatable waffle - perhaps a boredom mute would be handy  3

Still a great site, hate to think how many times I look at it a day....

 

Avatar
cczmark | 5 years ago
1 like

Bin that 'smartphone' site which totally SUCKS. Ok there are some nice elements about the UI which you could re-use in the classic version, but whoever undertook the non-functional testing should look for a new career.

Granted that no-one can expect every combo of OS/Browser to be tested (been there and bought that t-shirt..), but you should at least try it on a budget android phone (e.g. moto) running chrome.

Live blog - again good idea but implemention is way too code heavy with result that it renders like a slug.

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KiwiMike | 5 years ago
4 likes

It would be great to be able to jump to comments far easier/more obviously - esp. on mobile. I'm all about the crac  1

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kil0ran | 5 years ago
2 likes

+1 for the mobile site redesign

 

I'd like to see more interaction opportunities in the forum, article comments, etc. Make it as easy as possible for people to start the conversation. 

Maybe roadies just don't talk as much but other fora like STW are way busier than here.

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CygnusX1 | 5 years ago
3 likes

+1 for the comments on the mobile site.

Lose the banner ad above the title masthead / menu bar, it eats a huge amount of screen real estate, and the ad always seems to gets served up/rendered just as I'm about to click on a menu link (Grr!!)

LiveBlog - I like this feature, but not the implementation. Find someone who can deliver same functionaluty but with much faster rendering. 

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CygnusX1 replied to CygnusX1 | 5 years ago
2 likes

CygnusX1 wrote:

Find someone who can deliver same functionaluty but with much faster rendering. 

Spell checker would be nice too (especially if it was used by some of the journo hacks on this site - no names mentioned  )

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vonhelmet | 5 years ago
6 likes

Any ad provider that uses ads that redirect you through thirty links to take you to some OMG YOUVE WON A IPHONE page should be killed to death.

Not sure if that counts, but seriously, it drives me nuts.

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davel | 5 years ago
8 likes

Any chance of a 'dislike' button on the comments. Not aimed at any of these posts, but by St Chris, it would get some use. 

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don simon fbpe replied to davel | 5 years ago
3 likes

davel wrote:

Any chance of a 'dislike' button on the comments. Not aimed at any of these posts, but by St Chris, it would get some use. 

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Avatar
crazy-legs | 5 years ago
4 likes

Quote:

Better interface for comments. Being able to see your previous comments on your account would be useful. 

Yes, a way of seeing previous forum and story comments.

The site is slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through treacle. Even on a hard-wired connection. The page begins loading then it starts jumping around all over the place as the ads load up, it can take 20 seconds before it all loads and then it'll periodically reload again anyway.

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jasecd | 5 years ago
8 likes

Better interface for comments. Being able to see your previous comments on your account would be useful. 

Daily blog interface is weird - often I fail to see the stories that are in the headlines or being commented on.

Seems like stories are repeated on the front page. All content seems to get the same alocation of space - be nice to highlight the actual journalism stories over the press releases  about new kit.

 

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Eton Rifle | 5 years ago
5 likes

Mobile site simply terrible; comments still won't load on Android, so I constantly have to switch to desktop when using my phone.  Still getting problems with the data protection warning spawning all the time.  Please sort it, fellas; I really like the content but the fucking awful execution must be losing you loads of traffic. 

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srchar | 5 years ago
8 likes

Mobile site is unusable and desktop site is lost amongst a sea of ads if you don't block them.

I know, it's free, but you did solicit feedback...

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Master Bean | 5 years ago
3 likes

I'll just add that the mobile site is rubbish on a mobile and the classic version is just better.

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Tony Farrelly | 5 years ago
3 likes

The mobile site is right at the top of the list of the things we're looking at

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themuffle | 5 years ago
7 likes

Yes, I agree your mobile site is terrible. Half way through an article (if I'm lucky), it suddenly jumps to a different one. 

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brooksby | 5 years ago
20 likes

Please, in the name of Bod, get rid of that rubbish "mobile" site and default to the "classic" view for mobile users no

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