Thanks to the BuzzFlash Community for Your Comments, Criticisms and Suggestions on the New Design

I am appalled and horrified by the ungrateful reactions from some of your regular readers.  BuzzFlash is a most valuable site.  For years, it has been my best source of real news.  You bring news from all over the country and all over the world.  We can't look stories up if we don't know they exist.  Thanks to BuzzFlash, we are no longer limited by the poor, lazy, corporate-owned American MSM.  I can't believe readers are so cavalier, rude and ungrateful as to tell you to kiss off because they don't like your new design. What dolts!

I am glad you are reworking the design.  I also found the old one easier to use, and the new one cumbersome.  It is much slower to load, and visually more challenging to scan. Also, with the old site, you could close an article without closing the entire site.  With the new form, you have to remember to use the back button.  If you forget, you close the whole site, and have to wait while it loads up again.

Thanks for offering the old classic design as an option until things get reworked.  Please try to ignore the rude, ungrateful idiots who, rather than have a civil conversation with you, just tell you to kiss-off and walk away.  Wth that kind of conflict resolution and communication skills, I'll bet their marriages don't last too long, either.  Keep up the great work, and hit the back button on your design, OK?  Thanks for all you do.

---the new design will not pull in more readership, but will loose some of what Buzz had.

Go back before it is too late.

The only negative thing I have about the past design is that some of the introductory blurbs were too long. But even at that the format was useful and easy, this new one is a scroll-down horror story.

Like many others, I'm no fan of the aesthetics of the new site, but I can live with them.  The real irritant is that visited links do not change colour.  Couple that with the fact that you don't add new stuff in strict chronological order and it makes it difficult to figure out what I've already read.  Oh, and I may have read a particular page before visiting Buzzflash, so I don't get a visual cue that tells me I've already read it elsewhere.

Whoever did your web design paid a lot of attention to form (but, even so, did a bad job) and no attention to function.  Buzzflash is not a page to be hung in an art gallery, it's a page to be used.  Usability must have top priority.

Trying to use the new design is too much like hard work and wastes my time following links I've already visited.  There are other sites (not as good) that perfom similar functions but are easier to use.  Truthout used to be one of them, but a couple of years had a makeover who decided that links should not change colour when visited, so I no longer go there.

So thanks for bringing back the classic page as an option.  If that goes away, and links still do not change colour when visited, I'm out of here.

Thanks for giving us the "classic option". Im very happy that I can continue to enjoy Buzzflash! Youve made this reader very happy!

I liked how you could peruse the entire selection of links on the home page relatively quickly and then decide which of those you wanted/had time to investigate. In my opinion, that was a tremendous selling point for using Buzz:  the home page was a constant reminder of the volume and breadth of coverage that was always readily available on the site.
It may not have been pretty or 'cutting edge' in terms of design, but it was effective and easy to use.
I would think that a simple re-design of the logo and perhaps tweaking the layout a bit would be sufficient if you think the site needs some visual pizzazz. For us hard-core political junkies, it was fine as-is.

Ouch.  What the hell is this?

I thought the loading up of pages with video clips was a bit much for a site struggling for money, but this web design is just preposteroso...............no love here.

returning to the old home page. The new one is like being on dial up again, that's not progress. KISS is always the best policy.

  the new page is very slow to open, navigation is dial-up slow, and have had several freeze/crashes.  this only happens with Buzz.  Also can no longer open multiple windows.  Format on main page is a visual nightmare.  if you're so broke, why spend $ on cosmetic changes anyway?  Can you get your $ back?  Buzz has been my go-to site for years now, but I don't know if i can take it.  Even this comment form is going nuts!  my wife is dumping you as a homepage!  it's like one of my favorite things has been replaced by something that's pretty near too much trouble to bother with.

     i don't do comments --EVER-- and i'm sorry, i guess you didn't expect it to go down like this, but if you've got a 30-day $-back guarantee on the changes, please consider it...maybe the old format is waiting, maybe wagging its tail, wondering where you are.... there by the door...

Because I voiced my displeasure about your new web design, and vowed to no longer support you financially --- apparently, my comments will no longer be posted on your website.  That's your right.  This is your site.

Most comments I have read about your new web design agree with my opinion.  It was a waste of contributor's money.  Some of which in the past, has been mine. 

Most people when they are in financial difficulty look for ways to scale back their expenses--- to adjust them to their revenues --- or income.  Whichever the case may be. 

You sir, continue to ask for  more financial support to expand.

And, that financial support has been wasted, in this case.  In my humble opinion.

You re-designed a web site, that was not in need of re-designing. Before you continue to beg for money..... You have added websites, nobody reads. 

You waste the money that is contributed to you, (for the purpose of furthering the progressive cause) on bells and whistles that nobody, but you, really cares about.

I can no longer support you, either financially, or as a reader.

That would be a total waste of my time.  At my age.... I don't have the time to waste.

"New" is not always better.  I don't know about anybody else but I find the carefully stacked bubbles (sorry, Buzz.  They remind me of info-bubbles) cumbersome and distracting.  Design-wise, the news items now resemble bloated colored title-bullets--arty in a vending machine type way but totally unnecessary.  I'm with the readers who want the old web page back.  It was comfortable, it was familiar, and it worked.  Change is good but this was a drastic reformulation that alters the reading experience where it's the format that captures the attention (as one tries to navigate it), rather than the news items themselves, which is what one goes to Buzzflash for.  Just my opinion.  Please please go back to the way it was!   Love your site, but it should be about the content, not the packaging.  And this new packaging just doesn't do it. 

I did not see a comments thread until now, so I hope it's not too late to add my POV.

I am not one who is resistent to change, but in this case, the changes are a serious non-improvement.  The new site is so gray and so hard to read.  The black and white original was not just better; it was MUCH better.  More importantly, the previous layout allowed for speed-browsing, really fast perusal, and the ability to gather news efficiently.  This new layout does exactly the opposite.  I cannot "see" or effectively navigate the new layout.

I have to wonder who put this new layout together.  And why.

I apologize for being harsh but I LOVE Buzzflash and visit it every day as one of my two primary sources for real news.  Please PLEASE, can we go back?

I've already commented how hard it is to read the white-on-gray print, but I'd like to add that the type size for the Buzzflash Blog and What's the Buzz? is too small and faint--at least for me.

Thanks,

Cyn

I'm not leaving BuzzFlash over the web design changes simply because I tried that before when I became upset about comments you made associating Hillary Clinton to the Klan. I couldn't find a better site for my news! That said, I am very disappointed in the design! I too feel that the original was so easy to see and use.

I try to do periodic contributions to BF. I read from it daily. I am very aware of the budget problems you have month-to-month. I would never have expected you to spend money on a re-design of your "mother" page at this point in time, especially because there was nothing wrong or hard to deal with on the old one!!!

At least try to fill all the wasted space with two columns down the page and darken the background "bubbles" a bit. That could help with the difficulties people are having in reading the words. Also, make the items one has clicked on change color so we can keep track of what we've read.

Best possible thing for me would be going back to the original. It was a great page!

Thanks.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  It wasn't broken. 

Your new design is very hard to read with white letters on a darker background. One of the reasons I liked the site was that I could see articles and the brief summaries very easily. I am sorry that you have changed and I no longer find the site desirable to use. (Maybe younger eyes like it.) I will be accessing and donating to other sites if this is your permanent change.

Being contemporary is not always good.  Your page was just fine the way it was.  It now takes longer to load your page, not as easy to read and it looks like a million other pages.  One of the reason I liked to read your page was because it was not flashy.  I hate flashy.  In my opinion, changing your page was a big mistake.

What the hell happened ? The new front page design is a disaster , it was very convenient , easy to read and sort through before but now the layout , the colors  and the large print ... it's nothing but an  irritant and difficult to read and sort out  . Sorry , I would not be one to complain normally but honestly this is really bad .

Jalwyn

Dear Mark,

The page containing your Editor's Blog is nice and readable.  The front page is not.

Most of us are already massively stressed out trying to understand the insane world of life in America these days.  We are getting more and more tired. 

Entering the BuzzFlash new home page is like stepping into a hellish Pottersville that is not a nightmare--it's real.  Trying to wade through that mess is just too much like what we've been going through for the past eight years.  Now to have BuzzFlash go over to the dark side of confusion and obfuscation instead of clarity and illumination -- it's just too discouraging for words.

If you respect your readers and want to keep us, don't do this to us; it's all too much.  All too sad and draining, and so unnecessary.  Some common sense, please!

Nice effort to explain the destruction of the best, user friendliest news site on the web. But really, technological changes? I dont think so. All the feedback ive seen has been 95% negative regarding the new format. I think if you value your readers as much as you say you do, you would have taken a poll or something. I think you would have found the vast majority liked the site the way it was. You could have saved a bunch of money and a bunch of readers too. Good luck with the unreadable new format.

"moved beyond" .... the new euphemism for infantile regression. The web designer who destroyed the buzzflash page must be laughing his way back to jr. high school by now....oh, excuse me ...he "moved beyond".

The page is useless if it can't be read. Bye Bye buzzflash.

 "...in order to keep pace with the technological changes on the Internet"  THAT is the point???