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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  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Same question as above - our content area actually hasn't changed, it's always been black text on a white background (at least since the 2010 redesign). Is your complaint about the color of the margins or comment background or both (or something else entirely)?

    Do any of these options help in your opinion:

    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/grey.jpg
    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/lightergrey.jp...
    http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/reallylight.jp...

    Take care,
    Anand
  • uc404s - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    I like the grey example, but lightergrey is nice too. Slightly darker borders help keep the focus on page content and cut down overall brightness somewhat for those of us using widescreens imho. It looks great in portrait on iPad the way it is of course.
  • roberta - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Good Day Anand,

    The grey is the best of the three....

    But, have u looked at ArsTechnica's SUPERB "Light on Dark" option?
    Go to ArsTechnica -> Top Left "Main Menu" => Right side "Site Theme: Light on Dark"

    Something along those lines would solve the hard on the retina brightness issues....

    Best Regards,
    Roberta
  • PCMerlin - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Overall, I so much want to like the new design. The layout is great, but I have to agree that the brightness from the white is overpowering. the grey option that you have listed really tones it down a LOT, and I tend to like that one the best of all - something about it keep the eyes on the mid-section of the page, which is where they should be.
  • franxalot - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    The grey is great for me
  • phillyry - Monday, March 11, 2013 - link

    But the comments had a light blue box which was not so glaring.
  • MrX8503 - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Most websites are built on a 960 grid. Plus most people have multiple browser windows open on a wide screen monitor.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    A very long time ago (~10ish years ago I think) we offered multiple widths, however since then we've standardized on a single width as it was the advice all designers gave us from the standpoint of making content easy to read. We went a little bit wider on the content area this time, but I think we're pushing the limits as is. There is an upper bound to how wide the content area can be without making content awkward to read imho.

    I see your comment about making a marginally wider version available. We can't design our tables/images to that slightly wider version as it would break the site for everyone else. Ultimately that would give you a little more text per line (we're already at 687 px wide for the content area, so we're talking about maybe another 100 px or so) - do you believe that would be a significant improvement to your browsing experience? Are there others that feel the same way?

    Take care,
    Anand
  • pixelstuff - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    I would like to see a more responsive design to automatically handle different browser widths, without requiring a completely different url for mobile devices. Lots of example templates out there on SquareSpace, ThemeForest, TemplatMonster, etc.

    Also I would like one version of the responsive site to fit within 50% of a 1920 monitor, or a browser set to 960 pixels wide (including the scroll bars).

    For a full screen 1920 wide browser I would imagine you could reposition the images into a second column out beside the text, creating 3 columns total. Also possibly position the boxes that hold the Facebook and Twitter feeds into another 4th column.
  • lmcd - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    EXACTLY. A just-under-960 would be perfect for my use case and many others, I'm sure.

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