ROTTEN TOMATOES: SITE UPDATE: Rolling Out Changes Comments

SITE UPDATE: Rolling Out Changes

by RT Staff | January 16, 2008

Summary

As you can see, we're rolling out a new design. We're very proud of it, but we're aware that not everything is working perfectly yet. Back to Article

(41-60 of 113 posts) | Reply

RT-Matchity writes:
on Jan 16 2008 12:51 PM

Hey everybody,

We definitely hear your feedback and you should know that we're furiously working on the technical issues.

We're also listening to your comments (both positive and negative) about the design of the site. I'm not going to say we're going to switch back, but we are going to make modifications if we need to.

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Shatter24 writes:
on Jan 16 2008 01:05 PM

The news is too far down on the main screen for my taste. I come by 1-2 times a day to check what's new in the news, I don't want to have to scroll through a bunch of garbage I don't care about to get there. Put the reviewers on the bottom of the page, not in the middle.

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Hoby524 writes:
on Jan 16 2008 01:27 PM

Hate it...It reaks of Establishment, Corporate, White Colar, meddling.

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TecK415 writes:
on Jan 16 2008 01:59 PM

For the past few years I have visited this sight multiple times a day, and I have loved every bit of it. I just now registered for the first time so I could comment on the changes made. In the hopes that you all will come back to your senses and change it back. In my opinion the new look of rotten tomatoes is terrible. You should go back to what was working so well. Simplicity is a good thing. Now it's just a mess. The old RT was a great tool... This is disappointing..

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Tango Wild writes:
on Jan 16 2008 02:09 PM

I created an account simply to ask, no beg you to increase the default font size. I can't read any of your article titles. You made your site REALLY DIFFICULT to use. And this has nothing to do with not liking change. Its just really terrible usability for me. And its light blue on yellow! I mean really? Come on. Think about readability here.

I'll check back in a couple weeks to see if you have fixed stuff, but otherwise, I'll just start to gather my news elsewhere.

Seriously, font size and color. Fix it.

Please.

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ryanfluet writes:
on Jan 16 2008 02:25 PM

what happened to intuitive design?

this new site doesn't make much sense... it took me a minute or two just to find this news post.

sorry, just not digging it.

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ryanfluet writes:
on Jan 16 2008 02:26 PM

and why, when i click the page number to see more comments does it take me back to the home page?

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Rowengartner writes:
on Jan 16 2008 02:28 PM

it stinks

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MovieSamurai writes:
on Jan 16 2008 02:46 PM

I feel the "news" section needs to be higher up because that's one of the first things I look for when coming to this site, as I have been for many years.

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WallyStrangelove writes:
on Jan 16 2008 02:47 PM

I'm afraid I have to join the masses that disapprove of the changes. This was a great site before this, now, it's a cluster****.

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Behind The Wall writes:
on Jan 16 2008 02:59 PM

My God, this is horrible. It's too bright, IT'S TOO BRIGHT! I just clicked on the link to read the Cloverfield reviews and got an instant headache. Who designed this, an eight year old? DON'T FIX WHAT AIN'T BROKEN!

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evilralphwiggum writes:
on Jan 16 2008 03:02 PM

on movie pages it's hard to navigate.
oh and an example of my frustrations so far with the new design i clicked on a movie director to see what else they directed or worked on and it gave the list of movies but didn't show what they did with that movie.
.....did they direct it?
....write it?
...edit it?
..star in it?
i didn't know.
it used to be there.
now it isn't.
i'm sure it'll get fixed XD lol
but it was bugging me earlier.
mrawr.
*goes to sleep*

(Reply to this)

evilralphwiggum writes:
on Jan 16 2008 03:03 PM

*update*
i figured it out. had to click on filmography after i got to the person's page.
haha.

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GelflingJen writes:
on Jan 16 2008 03:48 PM

At least put the NEWS up higher on the home page.

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Ladyfish writes:
on Jan 16 2008 04:24 PM

Sometimes, less is more.

That would seem to be a forgotten adage as I try to untangle myself from all the tacky colors, fonts, columns, and advertisements. I keep waiting for a pop-up asking for my credit card number.

Back to the simplicity of IMDB I guess...

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MrDurden writes:
on Jan 16 2008 05:00 PM

The new site is indeed better then before. More control and better design. THANK YOU for getting rid of the game reviews.

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FranklinStreet writes:
on Jan 16 2008 05:11 PM

Old design was much, much better. Don't fix it if it's not broken! This new design is too bright and loud. It manages to look overly simplistic, but yet be more confusing and less functional. Me no like.

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Bartimaeus writes:
on Jan 16 2008 05:40 PM

I hate It

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vitaboy writes:
on Jan 16 2008 06:53 PM

One of the original co-founders of RT here (no longer associated with the site however). I'll just throw in my two cents, but the new design has a lot of problems. First of all, it looks like it was designed by non-designers or by a committee of non-designers. I'll get straight to the point as to some of the very major problems that exist right now.

1. How many different sizes of fonts are there on a single page? On this page alone, I count at least eight distinct font sizes. It's like watching someone using a word processor for the very first time. In a word, ugh.

2. The new review layout is lacking in personality. What happened to the nice sepia-like talking heads of the critics? Instead we get horrible Polaroid quality photos clearly taken under different lighting conditions. One guy has the top of his cropped off. The result is a review page looks like any number of horribly designed MySpace pages.

3. The design was obviously subservient to the goal of increasing page views in a way that seriously detracts from user experience. Review pages no longer allow you to view all reviews on a single page. Instead, you're forced to go to page after page after page after page just to find a particular critic. I know page views still matter in advertising, but if it means losing users through studied application of annoyance....well, does anyone here agree that the new review layout is better?

4. The attention paid to borders and alignment of page elements is non-existent. Some boxes have centered content (like the Tomatopicker box on the front page). Other boxes (like Now Playing) have their lists pressed close the left edge so as to be almost touching. Other content, like Headlines are left justified but indented. Bulleted lists have justification problems for multi-line items. Just take a look at the IGN footer information at the bottom of the page - in the legal disclaimer, every line has practically a different leading!

5. The Submit button on this page is HUGE as in GINORMOUS for no apparent reason. It's like, practically bigger than the RT logo on the top of the page! I mean, come on, it should be easy to click on buttong, but this is ridiculous.

That's pretty much just for starters. The new lighter colors are an improvement, and I also like the fact that you can drag the Tomatometer bar to rate a movie. But on the whole, the redesign effort is amateurish and ill-thought out. Given the responses already posted, the only real question is whether the feedback will be taken constructively and a real effort will be taken to address the issues.

(Reply to this)

vitaboy writes:
on Jan 16 2008 07:00 PM

(Reply to this)

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