RateItAll: The Opinion Network

In our overall opinion of the new RIA design section, I gave it a 3 ie I didnt like it, but I could see the benefits and the good points. Well Im going to be fairer this time because my main complaint was the huge size of the writing and the fact it wasnt as compact. But now, simply just changing my settings has made things a lot easier to see and made RIA look more compact. What i mean by settings is screen settings. One way of doing that is to press ctrl and move the mouse wheel back or forth (if you have a mouse wheel or have Wondows XP) Overall, I still liked the old better but I am slowly getting used to this new design. All as I can say is that I admire Lawrence for taking such an innovative turn by changing the whole RIA design. For anything to grow, there must be change. That is why successful businesses are usually innovative and try different things out. Anyway although I am getting used to this design, I still prefer the old one because for a start, with the old design, I didnt have the problem of having to change my settings but I liked the colour scheme better with the old design. It stood out a lot better. Plus I liked seeing whether you had a new message or not (displayed at the top). But I will try to be fair here because Ive noticed that every time I come onto RIA, it is always improving. So I almost feel it is a bit unfair for me to make any strong, negative comments when something is just getting started. If something is new, give it a chance! Overall, my overall feeling now would have to be a 3 and a half star. But since I put a 3 in the other similar topic, I will put a 4 to balance things out.

My first thought was, "Holy crap, why is everything so big and colorful?"

It will take some getting used to. I had just gotten used to getting around the old one, and this caught me by suprise.I don't like unexpected change, or indeed most any kind of change- it scares me.

I honestly wish we could see the messages at the top of the pages - it was so convenient.

I also find it hard to navigate the site.

I'm glad the cancel/submit thing was fixed because I always had to retype what I was posting.

There is a lot of information crammed onto the website and it would've been better to change it slowly.

Not good because now I'm concentrating on what to do or where to go next, rather than on the substance of what I'm composing or attempting to relate.

I like the new look but it will take a while to grasp the feel of the new RIA. Change can be good and this change is no exception.

Bird: I'm just glad I'm not the only one who is having an issue with accidently hitting cancel, rather than submit when rating something. You don't know how mnany comments I've already messed up; I've been too lazy to try to write them all again. I mentioned this to Lawrence during the test phase, but I guess no one else had a problem with it (or didn't mention it) so maybe he thought it was a personal problem ha!

This is probably the strongest aspect of the recent redesign. The look is significantly more modern, although it still seems to be a work in progress. The old site was much more cluttered and less streamlined.

Not too hot on the design and look, the submit button would be better on the left side rather than the right as I've pressed cancel by accident a few times today when submitting a review. Like most things I suppose its about changes and getting used to them.

This is a jarring change in my opinion. I think that it would have been easier for a long time user like myself to adjust if the changes were implemented gradually rather than a sudden shift. It seems to me that there is too much information crammed onto each page, and it might take a while to get used to navigating the redesigned site.