Did you know it’s been five years since we changed the look of the desktop version of MLB Trade Rumors? As the site approaches its ten-year anniversary, we decided it’s time for something new. Thousands of you have already previewed this new design, and the response was positive.
Most of the changes we’ve made apply to the desktop and tablet versions of MLBTR:
- More of an open, contemporary look
- New scroller up top with major headlines
- Arrows on the sides to easily navigate to our sites Hoops Rumors and Pro Football Rumors
- Search box is in a more prominent place; we’re working to improve the accuracy of its results
- Restructured navigation bar (Home, Teams, About, etc.)
- Load More Posts button at the bottom of the site, rather than Page 2, Page 3, etc.
- Sidebar: top/recent stories combined into one place with tabs
- For tablets, we’ve moved the sidebar stuff below the articles when you’re in portrait mode
What hasn’t changed, of course, is the core of the site. We’re still focused on bringing you the news and rumors as quickly as possible and providing context for all the information. And we’re sticking with one old-school quirk in our desktop design: full text of the latest articles, right on the homepage.
Please let us know your thoughts in the comments of this post, or contact us here or on Twitter. Thanks for reading MLB Trade Rumors.
It looks really nice. Kudos.
Loving the new look. Looks great, easy to read, easy to move around, and the expansion the other rumor sites are great too.
My one request would be that the headlines pop a little more — maybe bold the font.
I can see your point. We’re testing bold headlines on mobile and I like it, but not so much on desktop:
mlb-traderumors-com.pfrumors.staging.wpengine.com/
Another option to try is semibold, so we’ll see.
I’m not very familiar with Raleway in particular, but I just changed it to bold (desktop; Windows; Chrome) and I agree — that particular font looks better plain or semibold. You’ve done a good job.
Yup, my feeling exactly. Something looked very bland about the page. BOLD headlines would help.
The site looks great – nice update. My favorite new feature is the headlines at the top of the page; I also like that when you click on a story you want to see, it opens in a new tab. The redesign seems as though it was well thought out, a nice combination of form and function.
I like it! I’m so glad that you’ve retained a ‘desktop’ look to it. Too often, sites that get a facelift now end up being optimized for mobile/tablet viewing and look horrible on desktop (huge images, text that even a 100 year old grandfather wouldn’t need reading glasses to see, wasted space along the side margins, overhanging frames, etc.). Good job, guys.
Really excellent job guys – first-rate changes without messing up what was already good.
Very nice. My only suggestion is using a darker and/or larger type for the comments. The small grey on white text is tough on my eyes.
Are only the replies hard to read for you, or all the comments? I didn’t even realize it wasn’t black.
All of the comments are grey. This is on Safari but I don’t know if the browser makes a difference (can send you a screen shot if that helps). The typing box uses a thin sans-serif type that is even more difficult to read than the serif posted comment text.
Navigation should probably stick as well. The further down you scroll the more difficult it becomes to navigate somewhere else. Also a back to top bottom that sticks at the bottom right is hepful when scrolling for a while :). The current scroll to top link does not work.
The scroll to top link has been fixed!
You need some way to handle multiline headlines that the top-bar headline scroller. The one of this article just says “For Manager” right now.
Maybe you can send a screen shot? Scroller looks OK for me with multiline headlines.
The headline “Jennings Likely To Return To Marlins Front Office; Team To Interview Bowa For Manager” seems to be out of range now, but it was line-wrapping after Bowa and only showing “For Manager.” The first bit showed for a moment on scrolling before kicking down.
Might just be missing some handling logic for really long (> 70 char) headlines? Something that’d produce “Jennings Likely To Return To Marlins Front Office; Team To Interview…” would probably be ideal.
Gotcha. That headline fit for me, but maybe it’s a screen size thing or whatever. Send me a screen shot if you see something like that again, and I’ll keep an eye out for it.
I like the old look better.
I had already written your “contact us” section—this is very hard to read :FIRESTORMER” has hit the nail on the head—Please reinstate the old look it was much better. Those of us who look at your site many times a day want content not looks and a speedy, easy on the eye read. MLB (the big leagues) keeps changing things (on and off the field) and it always cosmetics -not content. While mlb traderumors should always follow baseball in a “reporting sense”—forget the “looks” and stick to what made you a great site—up to date content. Baseball on the field is a far cry from what it used to be–don’t let your fine site slip into the same trap.
Obviously you are all entitled to your opinions, but I suspect you will get much further if you actually explain why you liked the old design better or found it easier to read. Maybe some of what you liked can be incorporated.
Your comment seems to imply that improving, or attempting to improve the look of the website affects the content negatively somehow. But it doesn’t…we should be trying to continually make both things better.
Your argument is a weak one. Baseball is thriving now more than ever in this history of the game. If MLBTR keeps growing as MLB has, that’s going to be a good thing for Tim.
Not to argue with an aesthetic opinion, but what exactly is so different about the re-design? The site looks very similar and is speedy and pretty bare bones. What about this isn’t ‘easy on the eye[s]’? It’s basically just an updated font with a new Headline banner and side links to Hoops and Football rumors. This isn’t a major overhaul.
By the way, check out sites like ESPN or Deadspin or Yahoo Sports. *Those* sites are difficult-to-navigate and gaudy. MLBTR is so much more stripped-down and pleasant, imo.
The MLB sites are the worst. Overloaded with video and other fru-fru and a navigation nightmare.
A very common response to new web designs (for example, SB Nation had tons of comments like this a few years ago when they rolled our their new design). Simply saying “I don’t like it” isn’t helpful. If you can list specific things you don’t like as much, that will help MLBTR to improve their site.
Looks really good. Great job.
I do not like the changes to the coloring of the site. There is way too much white. Change the colors back to how they were on the old layout. Change the headline colors back to black. This feels like just another example of change for the sake of change.
As I mentioned in my email to you, it’s definitely not change for the sake of change. The aesthetic changes were made because we had what I (and many readers) considered an outdated look, and now I think it looks better.
It’s fine to say “This doesn’t look better to me!” But I wouldn’t invest time and money if I personally didn’t feel it looks better. I mean, what website owner would?
One other thing, what’s with the giant arrows on each side of the page linking to hoopsrumors and profootballrumors? Are they there because you don’t have anything better to do with that space? If I wanted to go to those sites, I would type them in the address bar. They already have links at the top of the page anyway.
They are there because those websites are great, and tons of MLBTR readers are fans of those sports but aren’t fully aware we have those sites.
Honestly you don’t have to defend whether it’s better. Just like a retailer, web site owners change their “look” occasionally if for no other reason then to maintain freshness. People expect that whether they know it consciously or not.
So what about that small, grey text in the comments?
Great new look. You are right when you say “contemporary”… this has a great feel to it.
Maybe it’s just the change and I need time for my eyes to adjust, but the font can be quite difficult to read. It doesn’t pop very much, and in some cases (your quote on the C.C. Sabathia article, for example), the font is light-colored and almost impossible to read.
If you can find a way to change the font so it sticks out a bit more, it will look incredible.
I just went and altered the text color on the Sabathia quote from light gray (which our back-end defaults to when block-quoting in such a manner) to black, so hopefully that alleviates that concern.
Looks significantly better.
Again, great job on the new look. (Referring to the website…)
While it looks pretty, it has the typical problem that IS people miss: Black background with black lettering = impossible to read. For instance, when I logged into the Matt Williams firing story, I cannot read the lead paragraph as it is in black and the background is black/gray. If you are going to use pictures in a story, the text has to go below it for readability.
Actually, every story that you bring up does the same thing. Its OK reading from the main page, but as soon as you go to the story link itself, the top background drowns the lettering.
You’ll have to send in a screen shot, I’m not sure what you’re referring to regarding black text on a black background. Maybe a bug?
Agreed with Tim. I’m unable to replicate that issue anywhere.
Now it is not doing it. Before, the white box was not there where the article resided, and the script was going straight against the background picture. If/when it happens again, I will get a screen shot of it.
Looks good. I personally liked the old one but change is usually good.
Only thing I can really complain about is a few changes I’d like to see to commenting, but that has little to do with this specific edit.
the generic baseball player at the top looks more like an arizona diamondback. needs to be more generic.
That headline scroller is nifty.
very nice; nice change to an already great website!
Looks great guys, although the serif font is absolutely killing me.
This has been and continues to be the best blog/ news/ rumors app that covers all the bases and is unparalleled by other sites. Great jobs guys
Still don’t know why I can’t see the comments section on my iPhone thru the app. Any ideas????
Do you have the latest version?
Yes
The red (for links) is really off-putting. Otherwise, it looks excellent.
There’s a lot to like. The tabs on the sidebar are great – I won’t have to scroll as far to see the recent posts in order. I think I will use the headlines on top a lot as well.
As far as constructive suggestions, if there were a home link in the persistent top bar, that would increase its utility. I would use that all the time.
I used to use the Previous article/Main/Next article nav at the top of articles on desktop all the time, and so I guess what I’ll use now is the “Home” link. I note that you still have the previous post/next post in mobile but removed it on desktop — I think that is a big omission. You absolutely need to have that to keep people on the site and keep clicks up. Without that, I will just wander away, probably to fangraphs.
I think it’s fine to promote your other sites. However, I think those big arrows are just far too prominent compared to all the rest of the content. The text on those arrow is bolder than any other text on the screen after you scroll down into a long article (or into the comments). If they were in a persistent bottom bar, that would be pretty handy — maybe you could use that area to re-establish the previous and next article links, because there isn’t anything quite like that that I can see anymore.
Anyway, great work so far, and I understand how hard it is to do all of this. Keep it up. 🙂
Am I the only one not seeing the arrows everyone is referring to? (I’m on the desktop version)
They show up if your window is wider than about 1132 px, and they get HUGE at 1300 px wide. Like bigger than anything else on screen by far. (I didn’t mention this in my main comment, but I don’t follow basketball or football.)
We’ve got some options here. I could lessen their impact, like at PFR, just by having lighter text. I can also see if my developer could add something that would allow people to hide them, but I’m not sure what that entails yet.
I think lighter-weight text would help a lot. Again, kudos and thanks for being so open to feedback.
As I make my browser window larger, they appear. I guess if my browser window were larger and I had them there, I might have an opinion, but alas, I do not.
At least I know I’m not going crazy.
I didn’t consciously remove the previous/main/next nav. It seems like something we can and should add back. And I also think a home link in the top bar probably makes sense, especially since we’re doing this really long homepage thing where someone might scroll halfway down and want to go back up.
Awesome. Thanks for listening, Tim. These are the kinds of things that are easy to miss on launch just making sure that everything works but are good things to tweak as you go. Ideally you get to the point where you’re constantly making small improvements instead of launching big redesigns every five years (though that’s just me pushing a design philosophy). I appreciate your hard work and your commitment to your readers!
It looks fine and all that stuff, but the one thing that I noticed is that a lot of blog responders were lost when you did away with Disqus. I always thought it was more important to have responses and discussion rather than having a stylish site. I am not trying to be negative, but I just don’t see as much traffic as I used or it’s the same four or five people responding. Also, a lot of Oriole types seemed to have disappeared, not that there were that many to begin with a lot blog on MASN, but they never really came over here. Now as to why that is the case, I don’t know. Anyway, a lot of time and effort went into the updates, but the end goal should be to get more people to blog and I am not sure if this update does this. Oh, one other thing, you can’t sort responses, I like that feature because right now all the new responses go right to the bottom when, I think they should be the first ones that you see.
Totally agree on being able to sort comments. WordPress commenting is a little less user-friendly than Disqus (in terms of having to sign up and then being a little clunky around logins), but Disqus injects all kinds of content into sites that use their comments, so it’s 100% worth getting rid of them. That said, FB comments might be the way to go… who isn’t signed up for facebook, and people can have the option to post their comment to facebook, getting more eyes on articles.
I also agree – I do want to have comment sorting. One way or another, I expect we’ll add it.
Jason, I agree on Disqus. There are lots of reasons not to use them, even if they have a few features we haven’t brought back yet. But, I’d rather not force FB either. So we just have to add that sorting to WordPress comments somehow.
I agree, WordPress is definitely robust enough to do everything you want to do with comments and a fine choice. The case for FB is that it allows you (similarly to Disqus) to not have to worry about managing a large number of users and has the added benefit of built-in ability for commenters to promote their comments on their facebook wall (but who knows how often they actually would do that).
I can agree that the amount of commenting has dropped since switching from discus. I personally liked discuss better, but I can live with the current model. Please, for the love of all things baseball, do not go to FB. I do not want to have to activate my FB page to be able to comment on this site. I won’t speak for others, but you will almost certainly lose me.
I have been a reader of tim’s website for many years. I’m not a huge fan of the “update”. I have a hard time picking up on the red headlines. Maybe a change in font color/size would help the new site. Overall I love the work you guys do at mlbtraderumors.
Love the feedback, good and bad! Definitely a lot of stuff here that I plan to look into.
Thanks for allowing us to give feedback directly to the horses mouth. While I may not have liked all the changes, the fact that you are so approachable and accessible makes it easier to handle.
The single hardest color of text to read is red. Blue would be much more palatable to the eye.
Love the new look! Great job! Thank you!!!
New design looks great.
Not a fan of the new site. It’s way too bright with way too much white and grey and not enough black. There’s also way too much wasted space on the left and right. Okay so there are huge arrows for hoops and football rumors. I couldn’t care less about those so to me they don’t make sense, especially when there are links at the top for it and you already advertise them on the site every other week.. But beyond that, there’s still even more white space beyond the arrows (~1-1.5x the size of the arrows).
It is much harder to read some of the longer posts where the paragraphs are now all crammed together in less actual website space (rather than just background or menu/arrows/links)
You’ve got to scale down the arrow links taking visitors to hoops rumors or pro football rumors. It takes up a third of the screen and forces readers to scroll down quite a bit to read pieces of even a moderate length. If I come to MLB rumors, I want to read about those rumors — not give up so much of the screen to take me to other sites.
Not sure if anyone is still reading this thread. But in our footer on the lefthand side there is now a link that says “hide arrows.” Give that a click and the arrows should disappear for you.
I appreciate at the response. Thanks — However I was more focused on the size of the space used for the arrows. On my screen it appears to take up a good two inches on either side. IMHO, that’s a lot of space that could be better used.
I find it harder to read. Something is different with the font or the contrast that makes it a bit more difficult
I really like the new look! Nicely done! Clean and smooth!
awesome!
Bring back the black & white! Just kidding (sort of). Watching this site grow over the years has been amazing to watch. The new look is a marked improvement over the last and as always the content has been top notch. The gradient on the top of the site from the dark field to white is a nice touch. Completely subjective but the coloring & tilt of “MLB” & “Trade” in the MLBTR logo isn’t flattering. The color & cracking effect is a very nice touch in “Rumors” though.
The only issue, exacerbated by only having a single home page, is that when a visitor goes back to a previous page their place on the page is lost. So if you haven’t been on the site in a few days (crazy I know) and click “load more posts”. If you click on one and go back to your previous page you are returned to the last post before the “load more posts” button. Super small but can be annoying if someone is constantly scrolling.
Keep up the good work!
Open stories in new tabs and you won’t lose your place on the main page.