So, day one of the redesign is behind us, and, safe to say, there are some concerns. As you surely noticed, we shared some of these concerns. Let's take a look at the major issues, and where we stand with them.
• The gap between comments and commenter names. This was the No. 1 complaint; to quote one emailer, "having the names on the right and the avatars on the left makes absolutely no sense. The white background is hard on the eyes, and having to dart from left to right to read every single comment is going to make someone's retinas detach." We agree. This is being addressed, we are told; commenting is supposed to be fun, not cause seizures. Those lines that go through the commenter names should be straightened out soon too.
• The "more" button on every post. If you noticed, as the day went along, this was deployed less and less. It'll still show up occasionally — most noticeably on "Closer" — but this was our least favorite part of the redesign, and it's the one we're going to minimize as much as humanly possible.
• The Quicklinks. Honestly, we don't mind these. In fact, we find them kind of fun.
(More after the jump. Of course!)
• Smaller pictures. Part of this, we're afraid, is inherent in this redesign; it allows more posts to be on a page, for one thing. But Deadspin Widescreen is tremendously fun, particularly when it involved Chris Berman as a Muppet, and it won't vanish. We suspect you'll see more posts like the EIU item below than the shrunken Tim Duncan cereal box.
As for the general aesthetics of the design, well, we have never claimed to be any sort of expert in that regard. We know it looked weird — particularly that logo — when we first laid eyes on it, but pretty much everything looks weird when you first lay eyes on it, save for maybe John Clayton. It made more sense to us as the day went along ... but that might just be us. Please let us know if it grows on you, or if it doesn't.
Listen. We assure you that we fear change more than any person we know; we've been eating Bagel Bites and drinking chocolate milk almost exclusively every day for a year. Today certainly had its fair share of anguish over here.
But we're trying. We're hoping that we fix the little tech snafus and that we all warm up to the new design. Are we certain of this? We are not. But we have faith! We are hopeful! We are optimistic! We are pure of spirit!
Our fingers are crossed that you will be too.
If you have any more concerns, frustrations or glitches, please let us know in the comments or at will@deadspin.com. As you know, we read 'em all.