You might have noticed, but road.cc has changed! We’ve rolled out a new design. For lots of reasons.
Why have you changed it?
We haven’t redesigned road.cc for about five years, and it was due a revamp. Since then we’ve added a number of other websites to our portfolio, and we wanted to make it easier to find content from those sites too: it’s all about bikes, after all, and many of you ride lots of different bikes. We’ve added a top menu to give you access to the newest content from all of our sites.
The majority of our traffic is now on mobile. That wasn’t the case five years ago, so this time around we’ve optimised the site for smartphones. We’ve been working a lot on the load speed of the site, and we’ll continue to optimise the site so it loads faster and is easier to navigate on the go.
We’ve fully redesigned the home page, with the aim of exposing more of the site’s content and giving you as a reader more to choose from. Nearly a fifth of our page views are of the home page, and we want people to have as many options to read on as possible.
We’ve increased the number of featured slots at the top of the home page, and reduced the duplication in the sections below. The news live blog is a major part of our news offering and we’ve prioritised that: the latest live blog will always be at the top of the site.
For reviews, we’ve added filters to the review sections so that you can find the products you’re looking for more easily. On the individual reviews we’ve separated out the key facts so you can get an overview of the product’s performance, and read the full review if you’re interested in more detail.
We’ve moved comments to a threaded display and the default is now to show the newest comments first. This is for a number of reasons. If you want to comment but don’t want to go through the whole thread, then the commenting box is now at the top. and replies to comments sit in a logical way so you can follow individual conversations. You can still change the ordering of comments as before if you prefer a different view.
Some of it needs fixing
Obviously there’s some stuff we know doesn’t work quite right. You can’t see the comment ordering menu on mobile, for example, and you can’t click on the comment count icon to take you straight to the comments. And hawkinspeter can’t upload any squirrel images. But we’re working through them and they’ll be sorted in due course.
There are so many ads now!
There aren’t any more ads than there were before. We’ve changed the sidebar ad logic so that they stay in view for longer when you’re scrolling down the page, so at times it may feel a bit more ad-heavy, especially if you’re on a big desktop screen. We’ll continue to work on the balance of ads and content. For the redesign we’ve tried to keep the ads out of the main copy flow to make the site easier to read.
What’s next?
After fixing all the stuff that we broke in the redesign, the next step for us is to integrate our websites further, so it’s easier and more understandable to move between road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips. The road.cc redesign will be rolling out to the other websites, and there will be more content from the other sites on the home page of road.cc.
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
59 thoughts on “About road.cc’s new design: what we’ve changed and why”
I’ve been searching high and
I’ve been searching high and low for an image-to-ascii converter that uses proportional fonts without much luck (I did find a colour html based one, but it still relies on a monospaced font).
you have way too much time on
you have way too much time on your hands
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It just doesn’t look right.
It doesn’t look terrible
It doesn’t look terrible though.
I’ll play with this later.
Good luck, with the new look.
Good luck, with the new look. Success on my ipad, but not on full screen desktop with left hand, 2 right hand and top ads feels too much. closing the creen down gets rid of the extra right hand ad and all is good again. I do like the single log in for all the companys sites and content. keep it up.
F
“You can’t see the comment
“You can’t see the comment ordering menu on mobile, for example, ”
Yes you can if you click on the white space you get a menu.
As someone who is currently the main person to upgrade the finance system at work, there’s this thing called testing.
There’s a difference between
There’s a difference between testing and reality. Stuff always breaks on first contact with live servers and users. This time round the amount of stuff that’s broken amounts to a very short list. If we’d left comment ordering the way it was most people probably wouldn’t have noticed it was broken on mobile.
How is it broken on a mobile?
How is it broken on a mobile?
The button is not visible for most but the functionality is there.
There are emulators available for testing on a mobile.
Still I will try ‘testing is not reality’ in the next upgrade catch up.
hirsute wrote:
That’s how it’s broken
There is a box now on my
There is a box now on my android on Chrome.
Brings up the menu I was getting.
I think it all looks very
I think it all looks very nice.
Thank you for all of your efforts, there must have been some difficulties.
Look at us all knocking changes to this wonderfully free website.
I’ll miss the new comments running down the articles, but I can live with that. Only lazyness on my part.
putting the new comments bar
putting the new comments bar at the bottom of news stories (and probably on some other parts of the site too) is on the list of things to do. We’ve already moved it further up the homepage.
What I’d find useful is maybe
What I’d find useful is maybe a separate page with just a top twenty/thirty list of most recent comments on the articles. That’d satisfy those of us who mainly hang around to read and post comments and wouldn’t affect the design of the home page (well maybe just a link to it).
i’ll see what i can do
i’ll see what i can do
Guys, I really appreciate all
Guys, I really appreciate all the work you do and also, this is a free site which I thank you for!. Good luck with the rest of the changes and fixes and so on!
…also…you got a slight
…also…you got a slight kicking from the utility cycling dudes on the commute bikes of the year story.
Are there any sites focused on this field? Could this be your next spin off?
Sorry, I preferred the
Sorry, I preferred the previous layout
Please could we lose the
Please could we lose the “floating” ad at the bottom of the screen. Realise that ads are required, but it’s particularly annoying on a mobile device with limited screen space.
I use Linux Mint and usually
I use Linux Mint and usually use Firefox as my browser. I can’t see comments, just a rotating icon, presumably telling me the computer is working on it which I stop believing after about five minutes. I’ve had to open Chrome to post this message.
Firefox on Linux should work
Firefox on Linux should work fine – it does for me. Have you got many extensions installed? I find NoScript is usually the culprit if part of a webpage doesn’t work (or uBlock or similar).
Were you logged in when you
Were you logged in when you tried? I find that at home I have to be logged in to see comments but on my work pc I don’t.
I had the same issue that
I had the same issue that turned out to be μBlock. In particular, whitelisting amp.services (whatever that is) fixed it (click “i am an advanced user” on the μBlock dashboard, then on the road.cc site, click μBlock and mouseover to the right of amp.services and pick green).
I turned off AdblockPlus for
Thanks for the pointer. I turned off AdblockPlus for this site and that fixed it.
Just a thought: Do sites get revenue just for showing ads or only when the ads are clicked. I don’t click ads so if they only get revenue from click throughs they’re wasting their time insisting on showing ads to people who specifically don’t want them.
sites get revenue mostly from
sites get revenue mostly from displaying the ads, not via clickthroughs
Thought it was a bit too clea
Thought it was a bit too clean at first, but I have adjusted (or may you did some adjusting). Dark Mode, please.
The tiny grey lines that separate articles on the home page are almost invisible on a hi-res desktop (Mac 10.15.2 , Safari 13.0.4). I love that you have packed the content in and not wasted any screen real estate (e.g. BA’s woeful new design)..
I actually preferred the “add a new comment” at the bottom of the comments, might persuade people to read before they rant!
A belated thank you for all the content!
EDIT: the hamburger button at the top-left of each page doesn’t work for me, system specs as above.
Unlike a lot of wen makeovers
Unlike a lot of web makeovers, I think the road.cc one is a big improvement. Easier navigation, seems faster, and easier to read on phone and tablet
I’m enjoying all the extra
I’m enjoying all the extra ads. Especially the ones that flash at me and move around.
There aren’t any extra ads
There aren’t any extra ads
> And hawkinspeter can’t
> And hawkinspeter can’t upload any squirrel images.
Literally laughed out loud at this. He must be going nuts! 😉
Seems to be an issue with loading the comments on the desktop version, butis okay on mobile – which is my main device for accessing the site.
Although this could be related to ad-blockers (i run ABP on my laptop, and they loaded – a little slower than I would like – after I disabled it for the site). I notice someone else commented they had something similar with μBlock.
Anyway, appreciate the work done by the tech fairies (and all the hacks banging away at keyboards to bring us all the content)
(No subject)
He’s back in business!
He’s back in business!
No that was a simple image
No that was a simple image link using BB code
By the way. particularly like
By the way. particularly like the summary on the live blog allowing you to jump to a story of interest
I’m sorry Dave but it really
I’m sorry Dave but it really doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to spend so much of my data allowance on sucking down adverts, since nothing seems to work if I’m using an ad blocker . I liked being able to see latest comments on a forum post or article, before logging back in. Doesn’t work for me at all, I’m afraid.
It doesn’t play nice with
It doesn’t play nice with dedicated ad blockers, but NoScript will work if you selectively target domains.
I’m quite happy to pay for an
I’m quite happy to pay for an ad free login, but I’m not sure the option is available. Other sites use this facility but maybe it is a scalable option only.
not yet… but watch this
not yet… but watch this space, etc
Defaulting to threaded
Defaulting to threaded comments is fine if that’s what the demand is for and there’s a way to switch views*, but it’s pretty infuriating that it doesn’t remember my preference, so I have to toggle the view on every page I visit. Hoping this is a bug, rather than a design decision?
[*although this is no longer working properly for me on Galaxy Tab S4 – it was initially, but now I can’t select from the menu using touch – have to connect an external keyboard and use arrow keys and Enter. It also doesn’t recognise me tapping the comment area to begin writing – have to tab into put using the external keyboard.]
So it seems like the comment
So it seems like the comment ordering menu works fine as long as I’m not logged in, but as soon as I log in it flips over to the shonky version that doesn’t work without a keyboard.
Remembering my preference is still not working.
I just haven’t come back to
I just haven’t come back to the site so often since the change. I mainly look on desktop and half of the screen is now ad space. I can’t tell what is new or old, it’s just a mess. I hope this works for you on mobile, but it isn’t working for me.
Top bar rollover for latest
Top bar rollover for latest news is clever, I likey lots (although I’m currently getting a couple of broken images when hovering over road.cc, which are: NMOTD and LiveBlog.
Also search in the top bar is very logical, good positioning for that.
Single sign on is great.
Loving the new live blog format.
Getting used to the new layout and seemingly extra content view on the home page, but loving the lack of duplication.
After an initial shock, I’m loving the comments changes, they seem more logical in a slightly strange way.. cause.. new.
Is there a new font being used or font size? I can’t reference the old site so can’t quite put my finger on it.. either or, the site just seems calmer and more serene because of it.
Top job team.
Also, today I discovered a new squirrel – ‘Malabar giant squirrel‘, you’re welcome.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Don’t be a secret squirrel,
Don’t be a secret squirrel, how do I embed images?
Just put a link to the image
Just put a link to the image (not the web page) between [ img ] and [ img ] tags. (Without the spaces – I put those in so that they weren’t recognised as tags).
The image will have to be accessible in everyone else’s browser, so http://imgur.com is a good free image hosting site that can be easily used. In firefox, you can right-click an image and choose “view image” to get the URL for the image itself.
the image upload button will
the image upload button will be back though, in due course 🙂
Thank you HP for that, and
Thank you HP for that, and thank you Dave for the promise of the simple way.
Please remove link hijacking
Please remove link hijacking on embedded tweets sources (they wrongly go via Skim Resources the same as ad referrals). Also pretty sure against Twitter /IG TOS.
Edit: typo.
I miss the listing of the
I miss the listing of the most recent comments that used to float under the adverts on the right hand side of the page. Is that coming back?
Not liking that latest
Not liking that latest comments are on one page only and that you have to swipe across to see them.
Whereas other items are listed vertically.
Much better when latest comments was visible across the site.
But they have been slowly
But they have been slowly moving up the homepage.
Have they ? I seem to be
Have they ? I seem to be swiping down as much as ever to find them
They were below forum topics
They were below forum topics and opinions.
I think from “their” replies to our requests that “they” understand our need for easy access to coments.
Fingers crossed.
I can only accept your better
I can only accept your better observation!
And I have yet to see
And I have yet to see multiple posts.
latest comments coming to all
latest comments coming to all pages soon
Cheers Dave,
Cheers Dave,
I have been impressed by the backward compatibility of the archeive articles, and somehow you’ve even managed to nest and thread the comments that have used quotes.
A little niggle I have experienced is when I try and click on the Road.cc logo to go to the homepage, even without going near the top bar, the offroad and ebike.cc articles will drop down and take me there.
I’m still intriuged by Bike Live, but McAfee keep warning me not to go there.
Getting used to it slowly.
Getting used to it slowly. If I could request one thing it would be a mode where all content is listed in ‘most recent’ order regardless of type or priority…?
that’s the case basically
that’s the case basically everywhere except the very top of the home page.