That awful new LJ design

[cos]

So, perhaps you've noticed that LiveJournal changed to a new default skin recently. If you've been following news, you'd have heard about this new skin when it went into beta testing months ago. I tried it out then, discovered how horrible and unusable it was, posted a comment detailing what I thought were its flaws, and forgot about it. I was hoping it'd never make it to "release", but unfortunately it did, mostly unchanged. I think the site designers are too blinded by the fact that it looks a bit slick, and by the fancy scripting they're using for the menus, to realize how truly awful it is. Fortunately, you can change back to the old look - it's a per-account preference.

So, first, comment on this post to let them know what you think of the new design. Maybe an overwhelming outpouring from the userbase may get them to retire it or at least change the default back. Second, go to browse preferences, where you can click on the screenshot of the old skin to select it. Once you do that, every time you're logged in from the same account, you'll get the old skin.

Now, I'm not saying the old skin is wondrous and perfect. It's a little frustrating to learn at first, because some of the more useful features of it are hidden in places you might not think to look until someone tells you. And the colors are kinda hokey. But once you know it, it's usable. Everything you might need is usually one click away, or two if you're on a friends or journal page. It's compatible with most browsers, and doesn't depend on scripts. And it's compact enough that, somehow, more stuff fits on your screen than with the new "cleaner" skin. There are things I think they could improve or fix, but the new skin highlights all that's good about the old one - by throwing it away.

Comments

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't know that I could disagree more...Ok, it'd be nice if there was a way to handle hiding the menu content without using javascript, but other than that, there's nothing I don't prefer in the new one...
There's no browser I've tried - lessee, Mozilla 1.4 (Linux), Opera 7.11 (Linux), Links (linux, solaris), lynx (linux, solaris, *bsd), Safari (OSX), IE (OSX) - where the new skin doesn't look better.

IMHO, and all that. :)
(See you at the silber-leftons? Bring the CDs?)

[cos]

Yes, it certainly looks better. That's the one thing going for it. But that in no way makes up for the fact that you get less text on each screen (more spacing means lots more scrolling), loads of things that used to be one click away from just about any screen are now lost behind multiple clicks, and trying to work through the scripty menus takes orders of magnitude more time. Sure, taking 10 instead of 1 second to do something is only 9 seconds lost, but if it's something I do repeatedly, it's very frustrating. Not to mention that the scripts give compatibility troubles, especially with nongraphical browsers, and make some browsers crash more ... and all that just to detract from usability, with no gain. They could certainly have made the old LJ skin look better, but there was no reason to trash everything else just to make it look better.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I really hate the new skin as a default because it's both broken in some browsers without JavaScript and is very unfriendly to many people with disabilities.

However, the administration knows that many people adore it and many people hate it. And I don't think more comments will accomplish anything.

[nchanter.livejournal.com]

i totally agree with you, and disagree with cos. i've been using the new one for months, it is easier to use, and easier to get to the sitemap for stuff that LJ has never had easy access to anyways. also, i belive that this layout is easier for those people who are not so computer cumfy as myself and most of my friends, and those of us who are computer cumfy can figure out how to change the layout (if we so choose)

my guess, is that they won't change it back.

as my friend dogoncouch said, the only real sad thing about the new scheme is the complete lack of purple, 'cause purple is the best. (is not biased by her hair color, really i'm not)