The SBNation redesign reminds me of New Coke. Whomever was involved with the design failed to understand the target market. Fans of sports blogs and Blazersedge in particular tend to visit these sites periodically throughout the day, especially during the season and around draft time. Every time we hit "refresh", especially around trade deadlines, during games, etc., we hope, even expect, to see something different and be able to find it quickly.

Time is a big factor when viewing a blog. This is not like those who read their morning paper, focusing on the major stories of yesterday. We are information jukies. If one has to scroll down among beyond "featured stories" to find the most current posts, it is an inconvenience. Especially when the top stories take the entire screen (for no apparent reason). When we are looking for new posts, it is galling to have to weed through repeat links for the same stories. There is a reason that web pages have evolved over the years to include more information up front. Viewers like having the ability to quickly navigate the page without searching for it. BE went from a very efficient page to a cluky mess.

Then there is the issue of FanShots/Posts. Blogs audiences feel like they are part of a community. Moving the Shots/Posts way down the page to a strange side-scroll format actually offended me.

On appearance, the new site looks ... bad. The font on the home page is hard on the eyes. The tiny logo looks silly amongst the giant grey headlines. I didn't even think I was on BE when I first opened it. Also, perhaps a temporary glitch, I opened one fanpost and the page was cut off on the right side of the screen (with no scroll bar to move over to the text that I could not read). Perhaps it works better in Firefox or Chrome, but I don't have those options on the work network.

Hopefully, New BlazersEdge goes away for BE Classic.

Thanks for listening (if you are actually able to find this post).