Lifehacker has undergone a major facelift. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll have noticed that our entire site looks different. Very different. Here’s what you need to know.
It’s been a long time coming, but Lifehacker Australia has finally received a major redesign. Over the past few months our dev team has been beavering away behind the scenes working on a completely new look for our website. We think you’re going to like it.
In this makeover, we aimed to make the site cleaner and simpler, highlighting larger images. The text fonts have been rejigged and our logo has been given a bit of a refresh. Yes, there is a lot of white space and the main column is wider; this means we can show bigger images and more texts within articles.
Those visiting Lifehacker Australia on a smartphone should get a better mobile experience too.
The change is visual only at this point, and there will be a couple of features that won’t be activated straight away. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll notice that comment notifications and the ability to adjust your user profile are currently missing. These features will be reinstated very soon.
In the days to come, you might also notice a few minor bugs. (This is a complete overhaul — a few bumps along the way are all but inevitable.) If you’re reading an article and something doesn’t look right, please leave a comment below and we’ll add it to our to-do list.
We realise this is a big change cosmetically, and big changes take some getting used to. With that said, I’m sure you’ll agree the site was in sore need of an update. Again, please let us know about any bugs you spot in the comments section below and we’ll endeavor to fix them asap.
Comments
55 responses to “Welcome To The New Lifehacker Australia!”
Hey guys! Please do let us know what you think of the new site! We appreciate all the feedback and it really helps us out a lot. Bear in mind that this new site is a work in progress and it’s good to know what works and what doesn’t so that we can make tweaks in the future.
Please just try to keep it constructive 🙂
Thank you!
Spandas
My biggest issue is about navigating between sites. I used to be able to jump between my three favourite sites at the top via hotlinks. Those are gone. The other issue is the screen feels cramped. I’m sure the right side panel is equal to the two side panels when it was centred but it seems overly large and the screen being off centre is weird giving a cramped feeling. I like the brightness and crispness though.
comments are showing up on this page, but on no other page for me. this is using firefox with all add ons disabled.
I hate the new look, will spend less time here I am afraid
Looks kinda like the US site. Seems to have lost its warmth somehow. Sorry, I’m sure we’ll all get used to it eventually.
Thank you! I know it’s a big change. I’m still getting used to it myself! 🙂
A lot like the US site! I actually did a double take to make sure I had put the .au in the URL. But perhaps that’s a good thing – brand consistency?
Does that mean more shamelessly US content will find its way here too?
Looks kinda generic.
Also doesn’t show y9u pending notifications/replies.
And the share on Facebook etc at the bottom, yeah I come here to read articles not play a popularity contest.
I do like after several articles on the homepage you have a next page type link rather than auto scrolling which sometimes forgets where you are when you travel back and have to start from the top again.
Hi g-man,
We’re fixing the comment issues, so please be patient with us! 🙂
We’ve always had an option to share our articles and personally I think the bar at the bottom is pretty discrete. I’ll bring it up when I get back into the office tomorrow.
Thanks for the comment! 🙂
I have to say I have an issue with the “deals”that pop up every new and then. Last one was select tv. Advertised As if its a Netflix like streaming service.
Very dodgy service, why guys? I could come to lifehacker and trust the content, now there’s ads made to look like deals, and from very dodgy companies?
Hi kangabangas,
Thank you for this comment! Really good feedback. I know what you mean and I’ll pass this on to our publisher so we can get this sorted as soon as possible.
This kind of feedback is very useful to us. Appreciate it.
I can understand the need for revenue, but Stacksocial come across as very dodgy. Also, it seems a little draconian not allowing comments in those “get this deal” pages. I’ve actually bought Bluetooth earphones from Stacksocial that did not work and even the replacements were useless.
And on a side note, please tell them to get rid of that big laggy confirmation bar, it’s far too big and slow.
As has been commented on the Gizmodo article. The left bar is distracting. Would be much nicer on the right side.
Hi da user,
Really? Personally, I like it on the left 🙂 (not that I really had a say in it). Going to do a straw poll in the office to see what others think about this.
Thanks for the comment!
Hi Spandus,
Congrats on launching your new look – I know how much effort goes into preparation. I just have a few UX observations – the Trending Articles bar on the left makes the display definitely feel lopsided for me.
Having the ‘newsreel’ area in white lightens everything up, but having the extreme left and right flanks in white distracts the eye from the ‘main attraction’ and the whole screen seems busier, because there are two strong visual prompts (the Samsung laptop images) that overpower the otherwise white space.
If the laptop images HAVE TO stay, putting them on a darker (even SLIGHTLY darker) background would help guide the eye down the main column. Hope you find this feedback helpful.
BTW – So sorry about incorrectly spelling your name!
+1
+1
Also, voting is broken
The gray text is a shade too light for my eyesight.
Interesting! I didn’t notice it myself, but will raise it with dev team nonetheless 🙂
Yet anothother bookmark that tool(bars) up my screen realestate. if i dont ever select life/work/it pro. 8mm wated. right now i have not text visible isn the editor because all i can see it keyboard and toolbars.
cant see sht and cant fix tpyos
Does the censorship of comments still exist?
Hey guys, keep the comments coming! We value your opinions and will be taking your feedback to the dev team. Just try to keep it constructive.
Excellent font.
Auto scroll [finally] dumped.
Background two shades too light.
Not liking your shade of green [but that’s probably a personal thing]
As already mentioned, we read from left to right and so, YES, the ad bar should be on the other side. I know that some marketing whiz, probably trying to justify their existence said to put it there so we see it first, but I’m betting everyone just skips over it.
I’d like to second everything in this comment 🙂
yeah, ill third these comments for feedback’s sake.
ALSO
didnt the old site allow you to click the ‘reply’ button on comments and immediately start typing in the text box.
whenever i click reply now and start typing it ends up scrolling down page once i hit space bar. so now i have to click reply, then click in the text box – not a major issue, but more of a streamlining thing.
Hiya!
There are a few bugs with the comments section. Dev teams already knows and we’re trying to get them fixed soon!
Cheers,
Spandas
cheers Spandas
I’d like to 4th it. Totally agree.
Yea not liking the new look, way too in your face with the big (stock) images for all the articles.
Makes viewing this site at work far less discrete.
Also the persistent column on the left with trending articles seems unnecessary when it’s at the bottom of the article as well.
With all the added white space, it would be nice to have a darker option
Yes, that left hand bar is over sized and distracting
i do feel the site is a bit too bright. makes it a bit painful on the eyes for long reading or constant browsing. i like the layout of the article and comments section.
is there any way to add in trails to replies to comments? (im not sure what the technical term is) in scenarios where there are lots of replies to a particular comments and comments within comments, it starts getting hard to see who is replying to what after you’ve scrolled down a page or two.
Please make the trending articles on the right side, its unorthodox to be on the left.
There is an awful lot of screen real estate wasted in the new layout. It feels cramped with 35% of my screen on the left taken with the trending articles. 25% from the top is taken with the lifehacker bar taking 15% by itself. That is just under 50% of available screen real estate showing actual article content. Admittedly this is an old laptop with 1366×768 but moving it to my 1920×1080 second screen seems to just expand the white space making the ratio as bad if not worse.
Auto hiding the top bars when scrolling down would help a bit, and changing trend back to the right may reduce the perception of how much space is wasted somewhat.
Edit: it may just be a perception, as the old site could have been as bad, screen real estate wise. Don’t like the new layout on computer (Edge). Seems better on chrome for android though.
Edit2: Ok the links to gizmodo, kotaku etc are missing at the top. That shouldn’t be too bad since the removed auto scroll means you can get to the ones at the bottom of the page. This user will have to adjust habits to suit.
Not a fan of the new site on a desktop computer. Images are far to big, well everything is far to big. I can really only see one heading to an article at a time. Makes my visit on your site longer (good for you, bad for me) but eventually I might have to find another site where I can see more content in a smaller time frame… #bringbacktheold
+1
I want to see more than one article at a time in the main feed. This new giant images layout is inefficient and slowing me down 🙁
Yeh.. the actual content is dominated by everything else..
+1 to every single comment above. As an overall look and feel upgrade, I absolutely hate it. It is at the limits of my “Do I look for another source of information because this one hurts to look at” senses.
A special mention to the lack of your cross site buddies links at the top of the page. I flick between your sites (K, G, L, B) and do not want to have shortcuts to get to all of them.
Having two header bars is a huge waste of space. The “Life Work IT Pro” line could easily fit in the main header bar.
Also the alignment of the items in the header is off. My display picture is on top of the Lifehacker logo. My username and the social icons aren’t vertically centered like everything else in the header.
I’ve got a question about the AU RSS feeds. There used to be an RSS feed for just the AU articles, rather than “everything posted on the AU site”. Now this feed seems to have switched behaviour from the former to the latter. Is there any way to get the previous behaviour back?
It is so much harder to skim the site now. Before articles were like their own card. Now everything blends together.
way too much white for my liking!
Just as messy as the previous one. Navigation is not good, sometimes the only way to work out where you are is by the URL. I didn’t like the previous theme and I don’t like this one either.
How about adding a top of page button to the r/h side?
When Boing Boing changed to their new layout they allowed a blog version i.e. http://boingboing.net/blog rather than http://boingboing.net/ I always prefer a blog type layout. Tried the rss feed .. its ok but lags behind by several articles. At the moment on my 27″ monitor the articles are starting nearly half way across the page but only take up a quarter of the page. What was it another commenter said? Oh yes #bringbacktheold 😉
The new layout doesn’t look right on my phone. The column on the left gets squashed so it’s only one letter wide, then somehow gets merged with the left margin main article. Looks fine on my computer though.
The new site design looks boring and bland. The old site was more functional and looked better. Fire your web dev team and go back to the old design.
Hi Guys,
Since 3 days ago Google play newsstand app stopped receiving feeds from Lifehacker.
Could you please let me know when it will be fixed?
Ta
Ealia
Few Points, It takes 4 or 5 tries before my login will work. Which as you could imagine is frustrating.
And if it’s at all possible, a “night mode” version of the site would be greatly appreciated.
I miss the extended scrolling feature, I could scroll down to 5 pages, and now have to click “next page” a lot more.
but it is ok. a lot of white but will get used to it.
not a fan, new site looks too busy. I actually spend less time here reading than i use to.
as I’m typing this I see Trending Articles to my left and Trending Stories right below the chatbox with the same articles 1st and 2nd.
good luck with it.