About two weeks ago we told you about upcoming changes to ToolGuyd’s look and feel. Well.. what do you think?
It’s not all quite finished yet, but I have the site looking almost like it used to, and hopefully better. Behind the scenes, it should look a lot better on tablets and smartphones than ever before. At this point, most of my work will be polishing the look and feel with minor tweaks here and there.
There are still a couple of broken pages, and I’m working on them too. If you notice something out of place, please don’t hesitate to let me know!
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Joseph wrote in:
I love the new mobile layout! Since I only read Toolguyd on my phone, it’s an incredible improvement. So much easier to read, no more manually adjusting the size to zoom in on the text.
Also, I learn so much on your website, and I’ve saved a lot of money from the deals you post–although my wife would say you make me spend a lot of money, too. Thanks so much for the effort you put in Stuart!
I’m the guy who was complaining about the new website layout. I apologize if I was too harsh. I do have do admit you’ve improved it infinitely since the initial changeover, especially on my tablet. If I could suggest anything it would be more subtle indentation in the comments. On a phone the replies end up with a column width of about an inch.
I also wanted to suggest/ask about two things for articles.
1) While in Sears today I ran across a bizarre combination wrench set:
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It’s a really strange selection of metric sizes and if I’d ever seen this series of wrenches I have long forgotten about them. Full polish, gloss finish, and an unusual squared off profile. I got the set for the roll it came with, the entire thing was less expensive than the wrench roll I went in to buy and fit my needs better.
2) What does the SEN suffix on Klein tool part numbers signify? For example, a set of cable cutters comes in part numbers 63050 and 63050SEN. In this case, at Home Depot the 63050SEN is more expensive than the other. Other SEN items are less. There isn’t any difference in the tools or packaging. I originally thought it was something exclusive to Home Depot but my local electrical suppliers have tools with the SEN as well and they have told me they just sometimes come in. Not a huge deal, I just thought you might have a contact at Klein who could give a definitive answer. Maybe others are curious as well.
Hi Mike,
Don’t worry, I didn’t take offense to your feedback. Harsh feedback is often better than no feedback.
It’s unfortunate that it took a day or a couple before things smoothed out, but that was the easiest way for me to roll out the changes. I cut as much whitespace front the front page as possible, to where it looks comparable to how it used to.
I’ve looked into the padding around threaded comments for mobile devices, but there’s no clear and easy fix. Adjustments to the indentation tends to break some of the rules keeping them tame. The level of adjustment needed to widen 4th and 5th level comments, such as this one causes the comment to break out of bound and create horizontal scroll bars.
It might be fixable, but it became a lower priority since it would require extensive adjustments and testing. The easier path would be to limit comments to 4th level thread depths, but I’d rather not do that.
1) Great find! You’re right that, for the $7.19 sale price, it’s worth it for the wrench roll. That is a bizarre assortment of sizes. My feeling is that someone at Sears looked to see which sizes they had in surplus and tossed them together into a budget set to sell for cheap.
It’s almost as if you buy the wrench roll and get 5 random wrenches for free!
2) It probably just has to do with packaging. Brands will sometimes package tools different for retail sales compared to online, industrial, or specialty distribution channels. Maybe one version comes with clamshell packaging, the other comes with shrink-wrapped card. I’ll ask.
Confirmed: Klein responded back and said that the SEN suffix merely a way to differentiate packaging requirements for retailers.
P.S. I tried to respond to you directly via email, but I received this error twice: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in relay recipient table.
fred
I think the new site layout is excellent – but I never had a problem with the old layout – as I’m typically looking at it of either a 20 inch laptop or 23 inch desktop monitor.
Stuart
Desktop and laptop users will be seeing improvements as well, such as wider columns and larger images.
I’m working to determine if I should enable a third navigation column, on the left side, for users who view ToolGuyd in larger browser windows.
John
I only view ToolGuyd from my desktop computer, and have it bookmarked. About two weeks ago, I noticed a BIG change and it took me until a couple of days ago to realize what the “problem” was. For whatever reason, the updated site arrived on my screen (via my bookmark) greatly ‘enlarged” (i.e. zoomed in), so that the default view only showed one topic/review at a time (full screen), and there was no right column containing the usual advertisement or two, plus recent comments, buying guide, etc. I was none too happy about this… but, I’m so glad I didn’t write in to complain. I’ve now simply re-bookmarked the new site, and all is good. Can’t believe it took me the better part of two weeks to realize what was going on. Anyway, the site again seems familiar to me, only a little crisper and cleaner.
Stuart
I made a lot of changes early on. It’s possibly your computer cached the files when I had something broken or mis-styled. A hard reload should typically fix things. I also have things “versioned” to help push updates along.
It is possible for desktop users to see the tablet and mobile layout, but if you were able to see the full width of ToolGuyd.com before, you should see the full sidebar now as well.
Don’t hesitate to send in criticisms, complaints or feedback. Too few do, and so I’m not always made aware of problems right away.
Anyway, glad it looks crisper and cleaner now!
I was happy with how it looked before, but I must say – I too am happier now.
Mike
The wrenches turned out to be not such a good deal as I thought. First, they apparently were $5 after the first of the year, along with a standard set (3/8″ – 5/8″). The Sears I went to didn’t have the standard set and I got the chance to check again this evening as I exchanged what I bought yesterday. After work I decided to try them out by adjusting the belts on my car. On the first pull on the 12 mm wrench, the box end snapped right off the end, leaving the ring sitting on the nut. I’ve never had one break like that before. Exchanging it went much like I expected. I couldn’t trade just the wrench as they have none like it in open stock and they wouldn’t just get one from one of the hundreds of other sets sitting unsold. They had to exchange the entire set. So now instead of having 4 new wrenches they could use for other exchanges they have a full set going to recycling or wherever their defective tools go.
Come on, Sears. This whole experience is exactly why you are losing sales. Can’t trust the tools any longer and the exchanges are such a hassle, especially if the item is not stocked in stores. With so little open stock available in the stores that ends up being nearly everything but a screwdriver. They really had to ask what the concerns were a week or so ago?
Thanks for contacting Klein, Stuart.
Gary T.
Stuart,
After the changes, your site has a familiar look but seems easier to read.
KL
I guess I’m gonna be in the minority but I hate the new smartphone layout. Too much “zoom” and not enough navigation or big picture…….I feel like I’m trying to view a panoramic landscape thru a keyhole. It feels like TIA, but without the atrocious spelling & grammatical errors.
Stuart
There’s unfortunately not very much I can easily do to bring more navigation to the top, such as the “recent comments” section.
I plan to continue working on the navigation menu contents, and mobile nav styling.
There might be some consolidation of current menu items, such as “hand tools” and “power tools,” which would leave room for an additional “sections” heading or similar. Tell me what you’d like to see up on top and I’ll see what I can do.
Adabhael
I also pretty pleased with where the site design has ended up to date. I am glad the logo is no longer centered on the home page, but wishing it aligned with the left edge of the nav bar! I am very grateful that you squeezed the excessive white space off the home page, and I think it looks quite nice, full of information but not crowded. Can you do something similar on the article pages? For example, this page has a white space under the title that is equal in height to it before the content starts. The body text size feels big to me (relative to other sites, although I did not measure) and the line spacing on text is very generous (almost double spaced?) As a result of these two things, the blank lines between paragraphs feel huge. I mostly read on laptops and desktops, so maybe this is fine for mobile users, but to me it just feels very spread out.
Stuart
About the white space below the post headlines on article pages – are you by any chance using an ad blocker? If not, clearing your cache might do the trick.
The body text is a little large, and I hope to squeeze the margins down a little bit.
I have to use 125% magnification on my desktop monitor and laptop, due the fine pixel dot pitch, and so it’s now always obvious to me when font size is too large, although the paragraph spacing is a little excessive. I’ll give that a tweak right now and will test and check for issues tomorrow.
*Done* Please let me know what you think!
Phil
I like the cleaner, more modern look. I view this site mostly on wide, high-resolution monitors, so I get a lot of wasted grey-white space on either side that should be put to better use, but I understand that would make for lots of issues for people with smaller screens. I’m not a fan of the delayed “like tools?” pop up (or any such page features, for that matter), and while the added ability to have email notifications sent for followup comments was a welcome feature, there’s no way to turn it off if I’m no longer interested in that thread. The latter is a problem for anyone using the WordPress or some similar comment systems, so this isn’t an isolated case.
Keep up the good work!
Stuart
Thanks!
I’m working on that too. I can’t allow for the page to stretch all the way out, but I’ve been collapsing padding and margins where possible.
The newsletter lightbox popup thing should display MAX of 1 time every 15 days for 3 times MAX. So 3 times in 45 days. Any more frequently and it’s because the cookie’s not saving. Only I think 2 others mentioned having issues thus far. It’s also not delayed – it’s set to only activate when the mouse heads towards the top of the browser window to X out a tab or leave the site.
There are a few things I want to do with the newsletter, but to be frank I can’t spare the time or effort unless it grows a little bit bigger. A lightbox is the most effective way to do it, and I’ve tried to adjust the settings to make it as unobtrusive and least pestering as possible. I might have to look into a more refined option if it’s troubling people.
You should be able to unsubscribe to comments. At the bottom of your confirmation email, it should say: “Want less email? Modify your Subscription Options.” You don’t need to be registered with WordPress in order to unfollow or unsubscribe. If that’s not the case, I could try to look into it.
Phil
I think what’s happening on my end is all my various ad/cookie/privacy/webclutter filtering interferes with the operation of some elements. And, yes, it does show up when I go to close the page or pick another bookmark or tab. Many sites use a similar mechanism to ask the readers for subscriptions, etc. by popping/sliding in a box, usually on the lower right that carries that info. Others toss in huge, content-blocking billboards that grey out the remaining window and force you to try and find the closing mechanism as well as uncheck boxes that make your actions posts various crap to Facebook, etc. By comparison, yours is not bad at all. 🙂
Oh, and my bad for not looking at the end of the email for the unsubscribing option. It’s there. My days recently have been unexpectedly hectic and painful.
Stuart
The light box newsletter thing was deactivated yesterday, so you shouldn’t still be seeing it.
I made sure that the box could be closed by clicking the X or anywhere outside. The ones that force users to hunt down a tiny x as the only way to move the box are infuriating.
Phil
Thanks for being one of the few people that actually as for input for ways to give the readers what they want and make them happy rather than throwing as much revenue-generating clutter as possible and giving little thought to content.People who do the latter achieve some short-term gains, but if people don’t have a good experience, they stop visiting. It takes more work to make a site where the majority of the people are happy, since there’s no pleasing all the people all of the time. Finding the best balance works best for you and the readership.
Stuart
You’re very welcome!
Right now I wear most of the hats, which gives me absolute freedom and control. I’m somewhat of an idealist, and this helps define the lines that I stay between.
A lot of big magazines must throw all kinds of ads in readers’ faces because they are desperate for revenue. That, and they’re big enough that brand name recognition will keep readers coming back for more and more. They also have separate ad sales teams who have one single goal in mind – to maximize ad sales and revenue.
One day, I might very well need to explore advertising options that presently annoy me. But I hope that day never comes.
firefly
I gotta admit the first few iteration for the new layout was horrendous on my phone. Since then it has gotten a lot better and I do mean a whole lot better. It’s actually one of the few decent mobile experience around the web.
With that in mind, there are thing from the old layout that I still miss on my phone. Especially the ability to quickly glance at the post header. It’s a trade off for sure and I do have a pretty big phone with a 5.5″ screen. So I am not sure how would you really improve it. Perhaps detect the mobile phone resolution and ofter a more desktop like layout. I do think that the current mobile layout should make it a lot easier for people with smaller screen to read.
Overall great job…
Stuart
Thanks! I’m definitely open to ideas and suggestions. I’m exploring a few options for minimizing the height of the ToolGuyd logo, menu, and search bar for smartphones. I’m also trying to work out a slider-style feature for recent posts, but it’ll probably take up too much space on smartphones.
With smartphones, the screen resolution width is usually a limiting factor. The 5.5″ iPhone 6 Plus is only 414px wide, and the 5.7″ Samsung Note 3 is 360px wide. It doesn’t matter that these and other devices have larger pixel arrays, what matters is the size of the browser viewport.
Unfortunately, modern usability guidelines, including from Google which pretty much controls all search traffic, dictate that it’s better for mobile users to scroll than to zoom in.
Even in landscape mode, most smartphones just aren’t wide enough to be able to display the same view as with desktops or tablets in landscape mode.
Brian
Stuart,
I like the new layout a lot especially the white space around the comments, as it is more discrete for reading in the office, when there are loads of pictures it definitely looks like I’m not working.
on my phone it looks good apart from when there are more that 4-5 comments the column width gets a bit narrow, but I recognise this maybe outside your control.
I like the content though and will keep on reading.
Greg
STOP the dang “like tools” popup. My cookies are disabled, therefore it’s displayed every time. I usually exit site instantly if nothing on the news feed catches my eye.
Jerry
New layout looks just fine on the tablet. Frankly, I read for content more than looks, so I guess I’d have to say I’m neutral on the change. It was fine before, and is fine now.
Mike
I happened to run into a Klein representative at a supply house and asked about the -SEN suffix. It designates that an antitheft sensor has been placed inside the package at the factory. I knew the rest of the world was as curious as myself so now everyone can rest a little easier with that bit of useful trivia.