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

    Are any of these better?

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

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Rand - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link

    Any of them is a substantial improvement, the lighter grey or grey are the nicest of them IMO, but really any of them would be perfectly satisfactory.
    Thanks.
  • Sapiens - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    - The color scheme is too bright.
    - Searches are still a crapshoot without any way to filter the results.
    - Pipeline stories are split between two different sections of the page.
    - The Facebook pane appears to serve no purpose other than to link to random articles.
    - The Twitter pane appears to have no redeeming value whatsoever, unless you're into vague and out of context conversation snippets.

    Overall the front page layout seems very cluttered and difficult to parse. Personally I'd love it if there were two simple columns with the same style used beneath "More Pipeline Stories", with one column for reviews and the other column for everything else. I'll stick with the RSS feed. Good luck with your next redesign!
  • FunBunny2 - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Looks at stupid as the New Yahoo! (!, for emphasis). Why is it better? You should be able to defend the design. Polling for support is cowardly.
  • DanNeely - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Please add comment counts to new pipeline entries. Adding them to the older ones just makes their absence up top more glaring.
  • Lifted - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    White and grey everywhere. My eyes! Reminds me of Toms Hardware when that site became hideous a decade ago. Multiple shades some light ugly blueish/teal color with light grey and white and bright orange. This is the one of the worst color palletes I've seen. The old site was cool and soothing on the eyes. The redesign is migraine inducing.

    All of this white is not green. :( I think this solid white background is going to double the electricity my monitor uses.

    No more monitor section? Oversight?

    We know you can do better than this! I knew it wasn't April 1st, but I still took a peek at the date. If it was, I think we all would have had a good laugh. Unfortunately it's more fitting to cry.
  • CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    They're all on dope, that has to be what happened.
    How can a tech site be this stupid ?
    Are the same retard design "artists" controlled by some supercorp that screw them all ?
    Maybe the amd fanboys would like to reveal on that. ROFL
  • Iketh - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    This white is gonna make reading a pain late at night just before bed...

    As for the widescreen optimization, I say ignore them. I don't think they understand why most sites are not optimized for widescreen...
  • psuedonymous - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Is there a way to shunt the pipeline back off the main page and onto a separate one? Previously, I could easily glance at the main page for new articles while having the pipeline loading in another tab, then switch to that to look for unread news posts. Now, the pipeline splits up part of the main article list AND is split between two sections. You now have to actively hunt through a list of titles in two separate locations to try to guess which was the last one you actually read rather than simply scrolling through a page of full articles.

    The new layout makes it harder to find articles or posts, and harder to read them. Please add an option to revert to the old layout for better usability.
  • Reflex - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Looks decent although I have to ask why DailyTech is still there polluting your credibility.

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