The Shock of the New: The Register redesign update 4 Readers, thanks for all the feedback. Here's a list of tweaks we rolled out today. Changed screen outside site background colour from white to grey. Top Art in stories - now editorially selectable - in response to feedback about relevance (see above). Reduced headline font size on Hero “story” at top of front page, articles …
Remember the day RayBans used to come with a UV filtering certificate? They don't any more so won't help much with the new dazzling Reg layout.
They're all dodgy since B&L sold the brand-name to an Italian fashion house manufacturer who now make all the bling-name sunglasses. Have tried them and they just aren't optically correct any more.
Actually, there is a need for the print link.
The print link isn't just to print the page. It also shows multi-page articles condensed into one page.
Handy for lots of things besides printing - like reading an article without having to flip pages and wait for the next to load and render with all the !§$$§"$%$& pictures.
You can add /print.html to the end of any article address to get the print page, so the support is still there. All that needs to be done is to replace the idiotic "social media" button with a button that does something useful.
For those of us whom are Totally Blind & using a Screen Reader Environment (SRE), the page that results from clicking the Print link is Accessible as far as the DDA is concerned. The SRE can read it without puking, and since all the images (which I can't see anyway) and back end code only has to be loaded once, the SRE can actually do it's job. Merely telling my computer to print the page does nothing to render the page Accessible, and since I don't have a printer, all a Control+P does is throw up an error box to install a printer first.
(What good is a printer to a blind person? We can't tell if it printed anything, can't see if the ink is going bad, and for all we know the printer is spitting out blank pages as it silently laughs at us. Printers are for folks whom can see to verify that anything got printed at all. And even if it DOES print, what am I supposed to do with it now? I can't see it to READ it either.)
So I'll UpVote you for being silly, but also make this reply to point out that there was a valid legal & technical reason for the return of the Print link. Cheers!
"What good is a printer to a blind person? We can't tell if it printed anything, can't see if the ink is going bad, and for all we know the printer is spitting out blank pages as it silently laughs at us."
I hope you are successful in getting The Register to restore the Print page link.
Does your screen reader recognise the 'skip to content' link at the top of each page? That link is set so as to be invisible to those using a visual brower by using a style sheet property, but is supposed to be recognised by screen readers and text-only browsers.
PS: I teach in a College in the UK. About 15 years ago I had a blind Braille reading student show up on a course. I was able to access a braille printer and a tactile image printer for providing him with lesson notes at a (very) local University. I changed the set textbook that year to one that the RNIB had available in Braille. It worked for him... perhaps try a local University should you want hard copy to refer to generally?
I was wondering the same thing, too. Some guesses:
* El Reg only operates in powers of 2...
* Like Microsoft's OS versions, every other one is so awful that it should better remain unmentioned...
* Like Intel's tick-tock, a bona fide update consists of two steps, of which the first one is merely shrinking of the headline font...
* They were going to Interview Update 3 designers and then they were planning to assassinate them, but North Korea objected...
The visited links color makes my day! Thanks to have put that back to high contrast. It was difficult to see the difference on a LCD screen (who still own a CRT anyway?) for someone with normal vision. Imagine for someone with even a slight level of vision impairment like daltonism (color blindness) or with lower contrast sensitivity.
Regards
Much lighter on the eyes with the outer border being grey - (see caveat below)
Nice to see the visited contrast -- I've relied on that in the past since I rarely note the headline -
Framing lines are better - but could still be darker - again - thats me.
I still like the idea of the subhead background being a slightly offset shade -- it will help with the overall "whiteness".
The font size change on the hero pic is good but personally I still find the image too large. I get that mucking it down much farther will play hell with the overall layup of top of column, but I really really really do think it can shrink a bit... perhaps stuffing the subhead for the top article into column 3 of the header in finer print???? dunno - but thats just a thought.
The banner -- the christmas one is *much* easier on the eyes. Please keep this in mind, that large swath of red was a bit much for me - please also consider .... something ... to break up that large block of red with nothing but the title to break it up - black trim on the lettering or the vulture? dunno - but its a mite too much on its own.
Forward progress is good progress -- please keep working on things.
Beer 'cause yer workin on the last friday before christmas, and you don't have a chocolate and candycane icon
But why the ridiculously oversized full-screen pictures at the top of every article? When I click a link I want to start reading, not have to page down first before I reach the text. It's a benefit to you as well in not wasting time looking for vaguely-relevant images, so you can concentrate on the writing.
Come on, people, put a bit more thought into usability instead of pointless glitz...
Well, it is an improvement. Having the read links red is a sensible move. They grey sidebars are less obnoxious but I would still prefer they were used for something useful. If I maximise the web browser when displaying the register I end up with a 2x3 application window inside of a 16x10 screen. Not a sensible use of real estate.
Keep going, another couple of weeks and you may be back to something almost as good as what you started with. Meanwhile I'll stay with www.thregister.co.uk/Week because I still can't stand the homepage layout.
We're getting there.
The giant picture and vast font of the headliner is still a pain if you are looking for new stories from your Opera Speed Dial or other browser equivalent, because the headline story is all you get.
The way the headlines are done in each of the categories is much better. Yes, it is pretty much how it was before, but that worked.
Probably very much a long shot, but since we have to log in to comment, would it be possible to include some settings in the user profile so we can select how The Register looks for ourselves?
This would also give you feedback.
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