Much better…I’m home, again. :)

The _only_ thing that needs redesigning is the buttons at the top, they bunch up in Internet Explorer 7. Everything else is golden.

Honestly, this is as close to perfect as any site I’ve ever been on.

As I said before, the fact that the dregs of the WWW can’t seem to grok doesn’t particularly strike me as being a bad thing.

1) This shade of green…is not an eye pleasing colour.
2) You need to have some sort of seperator between the comment posts.

Anything else is sour grapes from me, but those are visually annoying.

above all, i still maintain that the new design looks cluttered.

ttac used to be an ipod. now it’s a zune.

Other than that I guess I can adapt to this.

I guess all my favorite sites have upgrade-itis.

Retrojunk.com hadda go and make it’s forums look different too.

I wonder who’s next. :/

All you TTAC fans can also buy the lovely pics (though not cropped) for backgrounds for your compys. There’s a lot of images in there that weren’t selected for the old design as we decided to go with only detail shots, but you might enjoy them, so I’ll leave them in there.

Thank for the props from the people who liked the old design. We liked it too and we’re sad to see it go. But with the new ownership and all, it’s no surprise they’d want to change it up.

Best of luck to TTAC and Robert. I hope you go far.

Regards,

Ben Huddleston
Redwing Studio

p.s. the Create account page is gone: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-signup.php
p.p.s. they’ve deleted the logo from the login page: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-login.php

I see HUGE advantages to Flash. One is that folks follow your vision…if they buy in, great. If they don’t…great…you aren’t trying to convince someone who doesn’t like your automobile that they should. :) At first I was extremely annoyed with the Acura site…but now, I love it.

I visited the Audi site…the R-8 looks incredible…enough said. The rest of the site doesn’t matter. Heh. :)

I really like this site…it’s simplicity. Adding a few columns, etc. won’t bother me…but if the “Ads by google” and pop-ups start including “Girls gone wild”, “Does Jesus really exist”, etc. I usually take those sites off my favorites. I understand it’s a business thing…there’s just a right way and wrong way to do that.

It was a complete disaster: not all publicity is GOOD publicity.

Rather, it allowed opponents to help mar a major product launch by keeping the focus on the bad.

Witness this. GM may be bad at many things, but they have GOOD PR Flacks. Really good ones. And they ended up getting #4 of the “101 dumbest momemnt in business” for 2006.

TTAC should remain a clean minimalist styled lounge where super smart writers entertain us in the comfort of our tastefully decorated sanctuaries.

I’ve always been a proponent of the current website design, but then I’ve also petitioned the airlines to install fixed bulkheads that separate First Class from Coach

It IS IS IS a good thing.

Re: the “make your own commerical” anti-SUV commercials: there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Seriously. A proper PR person could have spun that one with his hand behind his back (OK, the other one, without the knife in it).

Look at the Chevyapprentice.com fiasco, with such wonderful anti-SUV SUV adds produced.

I’ve done a bunch of commercial stuff and I always try to give the customer what they need and a little bit more. KISS is the watchword. The one thing I really would like to get across is it’s not what the designer wants or the programmer it’s the customer. Sometimes they will more-or-less let you do what you should but half the time the head honcho wants what they want and that’s what you give them. Remember it’s a transaction, you tell me what you would like to have and I create it for you. Then the check gets cashed and the mortgage gets paid. It’s not like you can say “No, no, that’s not right, you need to do it this way for your customer.” If the prez says make it purple then you make it purple.

And regards to Flash at least in regards to Flash in my comments, think of it like the new iphone or Xbox which is a closed system. The designer can craft a GUI and experience that will be viewed by all users the same and as was intended by the designer. It’s like having a movie where you have no idea how the moviegoer will see what the director intended. The director has carefully selected bits and pieces and for good or bad you get to see their vision as they crafted it.

There is always the option for those that feel very strongly about it to go into design themselves and improve the industry as a whole.

You can be an adequate designer in any field just like you can be an adequate mechanic or plumber by learning the rules and the tools. To be a good designer takes talent and to be a great designer takes vision. To have a great website you need a great designer, programmer and management willing to let you do what’s best. Kinda like we say with car companies, let the bean counters and management get out of the way and let the designers/engineers make good cars.

Ad-supported sites also constrain the design as you have to allot so much page real estate to income-generating content.

Any feedback on ARC (http://www.autoreviewcentral.com) would be appreciated. Send to wayne@avimedia.com.

(Sorry for the plug RF) – delete if you must

Doing so qualifies for a draw to win a 1978 Ford Pinto with trailer hitch.

Constructive Criticism:

I can’t say that I anything but hate the idea of covering up the snazzy header photos with buttons or tabs or anything.

Simple is good, even if it doesn’t scan quickly for newbies, I propose that a website that is at least slightly esoteric, somewhat difficult to use will help to keep the dregs of the world wide web away. (seen the YouTube comments lately? Augh! YouTube is easy to use.)

I like TTAC because it is smart (most of the time, but not all, as the 18 banned participants would show) but unlike_most_ places online I can come here and reasonably expect there to be thoughtful analysys of a subject instead of the stupefying diatribes you find on most others.

RF,

Just took a look. Nice — I like having the reviews and editorials separated. Been needed.

I also always like TTAC’s clear, uncluttered look when I arrive at the site. Try to keep that feel.

Cheers.

p.s. Big LOL @ ash78’s comment

Of course it’s the writing that’s most important, but I’ll cry when you switch over to the new format. I understand your rationale, but hey, what can I say? I’m an emotional guy. For the love of all that’s good and right in the world, could you at least lose the green and blue? Red, white, black/grey and minimalism work SO well for this site – especially when contrasted by the splashes of primary color in the top banner grapic. (Just saying is all).

Steve_S and others:

Firefox is indeed the browser of choice for a lot of people. Of course IE6 & IE7 are what most people use, but you can not ignore #2 market player. Hell, that would be like Microsoft saying we’re not making a mac version of Office. Think of the money they’d lose and the (even more) hate they’d generate.

Flash…so much to talk about so little time. Flash, to me, is like marijuana, tequila, dynamite, nitrous, and emotional sensitivity…a little bit, properly applied, goes a long, long way but too much can lead to serious problems. Designers love Flash because they can create their ‘art’ and people will see it the way it was meant to be seen. Typical users hate it because they don’t give a tinker’s cuss about the designer’s art, they want to check their stocks or learn about cars or read the news or whatever. When used appropriately, however, Flash can be an excellent tool for both designer and user (good example mentioned above was on the Maybach site).

All that said, yeah…car websites are mostly crap, even (especially?) Mini…spent a half hour there tonight trying to show my wife that union-jack mirrors could indeed be cool – if only Flash would work. I spend a lot of time on manufacturer websites, and wish there was somekind of industry standard that *worked*.

Good luck with new format, RF…I’ll keep reading, no matter what you do.

PS – I 100% agree with the comment about Jalopnik. I *want* to read it, but can’t seem to get past the horrendous design. Here’s to hoping for (positive) change : )

Like others who posted, I also find the Mini site cute, sure, but useless and frustrating for info. It has one of the featuers of a website that I cannot stand the most:

You click on an image link for more info, it transforms the screen into a 3-minute Flash movie, without skip option, and that is about “lifestyle” rather than the product. (I’m referring, for e.g., to the “Mini Soho edition” — the Flash takes you through a figurative hip Soho, and nothing on what makes this edition special, or what is in it, or the car itself for cyring out loud).

On the other, I find myself visiting the BMW site several times per month, and each time for the “build your own” configuration. It should be a model for other manuf sites! (And for higher end “build-your-own”, Porsche’s takes the cake. The 3-D version is outstanding).

I agree that branding is important on a site, but it is a double-edged sword: if the site does not provide data, information or makes it hard and frustrating to find, I will probably associate those feelings with the (now) well-branded site.

Any designer who still codes for Netscape 4.7 is wasting their client’s time and money (I’ve found that it takes about +20% on any budget to accommodate outdated browsers in a graphical manner, as opposed to “text only”). I just took a look at the aggregate stats for all of my “hobby” sites, this month to date. 29,000 unique visitors. 11 brave people browsing with Lynx. 109 braving it with Opera. The oldest version of Netscape is 6.0, with 2 people still resisting upgrading–and it should be noted that Netscape 6 was a Gecko-based browser. No one browsing with Netscape 4.7. For good reason.

This isn’t meant as a personal attack, but you’re not coming off as an authority here.

Design is a craft, not an art. Not everyone can do it (what’s the quote, “Everyone’s a designer, not everyone’s good at it”), and the greatest designs are beautiful–but design is always in service to the information it’s presenting. It’s not an end into itself; if it was, it wouldn’t be “design.”

I like the new TTAC design, not the most spectacular but certainly not bad. Everyone ALWAYS bitches about a redesign. Sometimes they are worse, but a lot of the time they’re better, and mostly it’s resistance to change you’re seeing.

Rob, requisition me a helmet.

The Flexible Despot:

The photo/video issue is at the top of our agenda, post-makeover. But the written word will always be our predominant focus.

NICKNICK:

I have a list of 18 banned commentators and dozens of warning emails that say the barbarians will never make it inside the gates– at least not for long.