In 2010 we went through the single largest redesign in AnandTech history. We modernized the site, finally moved to a tag based architecture and made a number of other tweaks. The web moves a lot quicker than it did even just 3 years ago, so last year we started working on another significant redesign. Today marks the debut of that design.

Going into the redesign we wanted to accomplish three major goals. First, we wanted to have a design that put our smartphone and tablet coverage on equal footing with our traditional PC roots. The redesign consolidates our coverage areas into four major categories: PC Components, Smartphones & Tablets, Desktops & Notebooks and finally Enterprise. The super categories are largely self explanatory and you can drill down into each one of them for more specific navigation.

It's important that our site design reflects our internal focuses. We are as committed as ever to our PC component coverage, but we also devote an equal amount of time to what we're doing in the new mobile space. From my perspective, whether it's a smartphone or a server, we're still talking about some form of computer - just in a different case.

Our second major goal with the redesign was to more prominently feature Pipeline, our short form content section. We launched Pipeline in late 2011 as a way of dealing with content that either didn't demand our full review treatment or that we didn't have time to dedicate deep analysis to. Since then Pipeline has become a very important part of the site, and we wanted to elevate its position on the front page as a result. Pipeline stories on the right are ordered from newest to oldest, with even older pipeline stories appearing under the 2x2 grid of featured articles.

Finally, we wanted a design that would be more accessible and speak to the broader nature of our audience. While you all know why you come to AnandTech, it's very important to our continued success and ability to remain independent that the site accurately reflects the diverse audience. Whether you're coming to us for motherboard reviews, analysis of the latest microprocessor architectures or to figure out which smartphone or tablet to buy, you're likely a person relied on by dozens of others for recommendations.  We remain an independent website, which comes with its own challenges when it comes to proving our worth to the agencies and marketing organizations that help keep us operational. Looking the part is just as important as having the content to back it up.

We made sure not to take away any features with the redesign. We still include our well used Print View on all articles, but now allow you to use it both for single page reading as well as for actual printing. The previous Print View didn't have all of the styling of our article pages since it was purely optimized for printing, now we have both modes.

Other features have been enhanced as well. The View All Comments button now actually lets you view all comments on a single page, rather than just showing you 50 comments per page. You can also now permalink to individual comments. I'm always humbled by just how awesome your comments are, now we can finally link directly to individual ones. 

We now support larger images inline (we will be adding site-wide retina/hi-DPI support soon!) and our graph style has been updated as well, which you'll start seeing us take advantage of with all new content going forward. The review body text is also larger and hopefully easier to read, which should help when we post some of our ultra long form content. 

The Podcast now has a permanent link at the top of the page as well - thanks to all you who have been asking for that.

The Twitter feed on the front page now includes tweets from a number of staff members including Brian, Ganesh, Jarred and myself. We've also made it easier to follow us on Twitter and Facebook with direct links in our header (hint: it helps us tremendously if you do). Our most recommended content on Facebook is also nicely streamed in to the right of the site as well.

There are more functional changes that we'll be introducing throughout the new year. We just had to get the redesign out of the way first so we could start building on it.

I hope you all enjoy the site redesign. I know big changes aren't always easy to get used to, and as always you have my commitment to fix/improve anything that truly needs it. I'd love to hear your feedback on the design in the comments below.

I'd like to close with a thanks to all of you for continuing to read and support the site. I've always said that AnandTech is your site and I do firmly believe that. We are here to serve you and you are what make this site possible. Thank you for reading, and thanks for making the past 16 years possible. If you are a relative newcomer, please be sure to check out our About page that helps explain the philosophies that drive us.

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  • Mezinger - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    Site looks great - nice job!
  • MrX8503 - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    Here's a good article on Color theory.
    http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/design-theo...

    Contrast reduces eye strain and a safe bet is a light background with dark text. In the "Pipeline Stories" side bar, the listed articles have too little contrast. The light gray text may need to be little lighter.

    Aside from color, the site would benefit from responsive, but it would require a rebuild.
  • johan851 - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    Everyone's going to complain about change. That happens. I'd be really interested in knowing a couple of factual things, if we can cut through the subjectivity I've read so far.
    1) Why the redesign? What were your goals? I'm genuinely curious.
    2) Are you A/B testing the new design?
  • tim851 - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    I hate redesigns. Will give it a chance though.

    BTW: In your timeline picture, the upper left layout - perfection. Clean, discoverable. Should've stuck with that ;)

    I like the new comment-mask and prettified login though.
  • staiaoman - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    love how anand is so present in this thread. this is what happens when someone founds a business they're passionate about and then works their butt off to make it the best it can be
  • JeBarr - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    You can do whatever you want to the site design. Good or bad will make no difference to me because I'll take the time to adjust on my end as always.

    Ads - GONE
    Twitter - GONE
    Facebook - GONE

    Zoom is my friend.

    Any of my true complaints have nothing to do with page design and everything to do with site functionality, which has fallen off since the previous redo and after reading all the comments I won't bother repeating them here.

    Best of luck on your quest to further the cause of abandoning the core user base and making room for newbs/mobile users. It won't be easy. Never is.
  • chizow - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    Redesign looks great Anand, although I do tend to agree with a lot of the comments about the deadspace on the sides being a bit much. I'd like to see AT do a bit more of the advertising in the margins like other sites, and less advertising embedded in the content with panels alternating between ads and pipeline/social media. Even some generic art from a current advertiser would be pretty cool to kill some of the deadspace.
  • Touche - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6822/throughtime....

    Great to see that massive drop in information available on one screen. From easily accessible nice number of articles in the first four designs, we get this... Is scrolling a new sport?

    The awful white and font is also interesting to see next to previous versions.

    And the compression of lower articles because of that massive Facebook and Tweeter feeds...terrible! But you sure are trendy with social this and that shoving down our throats.
  • AwesomeAD - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    So, after years of merely lurking on this site, reading the comment explosion on this article drove me to create an account just so I can state the obvious:

    If you don't like the design (due to personal preferences, obviously; you speak for yourself), then change it. userstyles.org and stylish have been around for virtually ever.

    I didn't quite like the contrast and brightness myself, so I spent 20 minutes hacking some CSS to change it. Voila.

    Here it is if you want to use it:
    http://userstyles.org/styles/84286/anandtech-com-2...

    Feel free to use that as a base for your own userstyle (e.g. if you want the Dailytech feed to show up, which I've hidden in mine)
  • This Guy - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    Can you please make the comment box a bit bigger?

    Can you please move the "POST A COMMENT" button to the bottom of the comments table? The quality of comments on this article are lacking (including a few of mine).

    It's great to get more people involved, but I stopped reading engadget and ars technica comments after their 'modern white tabloid' site updates. Please add as many features as you can to make it harder/intimidating for people to comment on articles.

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