apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

"The Kitchn"? I'd like to buy the site a vowel.

I really don't like this re-design.

While you guys are redesigning, can I put in a bid for the end of the use of the first person plural? It always seems awkward to me, and while it's occasionally appropriate (as in this post), it often detracts from the quality of the writing. And when you post about making a recipe, I often get this image of countless bloggers fighting over kitchen space and collectively stirring a giant soup pot with one enormous wooden spoon. (How else could "we" stir the soup?) I appreciate each of your individual authorial voices (esp. Faith and Chris!), but would love it more if I didn't have to fight the "royal we."

Also, the lack of an "e" kind of hurts me.

Other than that, congratulations on a new overhaul!

Also,

Um, on the main site the right hand ads appear underneath the the main box's text. I'm using mozilla firefox 2.004, on the Ubuntu OS, version feisty fawn. Also annoyingly, I can't see my cursor in the comment box. Making this comment difficult to edit.

I'm sorry, let me clarify for those who are debugging:

Both the right and left hand ads are about three inches to the right of where they should be. Also, for some reason, none of the sister sites with identical design have this problem. Good luck fixing this.

PS. I have a cursor right now! Why, I'm not sure.

So many ads! With the ads, and the lists, it seems really really cluttered to me. Also, on the main page, the ads are covering the posts. I'm going to try to be a sport, though, and give it a few days.

ooh, but I really don't like the google ad in the middle of the post.

Not sure I love all the separate sites, but I think I could get used to it! And V in Boston - I think there always was a google ad btwn the post and the comments, wasn't there?

I'm feeling very overwhelmed and distracted by the number of ads within and around a post. With the text column being so narrow, it feels that the text itself is secondary to all the flashing ads.

Also, the comments count on some posts (e.g. open thread) seems to be not working.

Just a note: we actually have no more ads than before. But we did add a lefthand column with links to content deeper into the site to make interesting posts easier to find.

Also, we're aware of the bug with the right frame and working on it quickly!

Thank you for the feedback - please keep it coming!

The right frame overlap should be fixed now. If anyone is still seeing it can you post a comment and let us know? Thanks!

Faith: Once the redesign is fully launched, will there still be a way to navigate from one site to another the way the old site was set up?

mangosteen, those links are now at the bottom of the page. You can see the top five or last five links from each site there.

Also, quercus: re vowels. The domain squatters bought all the vowels. They'll run you a nice 50 grand.

And gretchenann: Thank you! WE will have to discuss it. :-)

Thanks everyone - please keep feedback flowing. We read it all.

Faith - thank you - just saw them. Change is good:)

Okay, so I was clearly wrong about the ads, sorry about that. One thing, though-- it's hard for me to tell the difference between the ad and the site content on the left hand side. It makes me feel like there are many more ads, even if there aren't.

Last comment of the day from me on this. I just went to the next page and i LOVE the fact that the posts are still real posts, rather than a listing of everything. Thanks!

This goes for all the sites; I'm having trouble with the lightness of the lines separting the main column from the stuff to the right and the left. I think that's part of what makes things feel more cluttered - I'm having a harder time focusing on the stuff I want to pay attention to. I know some of the extra content is to make it easier for us to find popular posts so hopefully I'll get used to it (I'm admittedly bad with change).

Finally, thanks Faith for being so responsive!

hey guys,
love the new site name and design. very clean, modern and easy to navigate.

congrats!

xoxo,jaden

The new site looks nice. I use a feed-reader to read the posts here, though, and am disappointed to find that the whole post doesn't come through anymore - only the first portion. I liked getting the whole post in my feed-reader and then coming to the site to comment or fill in a survey, etc. Any chance you'll go back to providing entire posts to this blog in the feed?

The Kitchen section was always my absolute favorite part of AT, but this new design is hard to navigate...toooooo cluttered and jarring. I'm on a lap top and it's hard to read this three column format. It also looks really busy, and it's not calming at all to scroll and read every day as it used to be. I'm having trouble concentrating on the center with all that's going on either side...too busy...waaaaaaay to busy.

Not all of us have huge screens to view the new three column format...

Now I'm bummed.... :(

One more observation. With the old format, I seem to recall being able to click on a post, and read the full text uninterrupted by ads. Now, often the content before the jump is separated from the content after the jump by a google ad. Don't mind the ads (gotta pay the bills), but is there any way to situate the ads such that the post's text is unbroken? That would help reduce some of the visual clutter IMHO. Thanks!!

Overall I think the site redesign looks OK, but I'm more concerned about your feeds. I'm sure many regular readers follows the site through RSS, and click through to comment. I really don't like the lack of full posts in the feeds. I understand that you need our page views to get paid, but I'd much rather have the ads inlined with the feed. That way you can meet the bottom line, and we can view your content in a convenient way.

In the previous version I read most of the content, even if I wasn't super intrigued by a post, and I often found a great little nugget of info part way through. In the new version I'm much less likely to click through unless I find a post intriguing right off-the-bat. I'm sure I'll be missing out on some great stuff.

Oh, the old RSS feed should be redirected to the new one, I only found out about the change when I got to wondering why I hadn't had anything pop up from you guys in a while.

Thanks to all our loyal readers for hanging with us as we get this redesign cookin'. The wider format is going to allow us to do bigger pictures. I hope all the great giveaways will keep you coming back in the meantime.

Kevin and our other RSS readers -- thanks for your comments. I'm working with Maxwell and the rest of our team on the RSS situation. We'll keep you posted. Keep sharing the specifics of your questions and problems with us.

By the way, check out Maxwell's update on the redesign.