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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  • 3ogdy - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    let me correct that : "if not...well...-THOUSANDS of readers"
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    I agree completely on the search side, noted and added to the list.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Silma - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Congratulations on the redesign which seems nice enough.

    However, if you are serious about Smartphones, please optimize/offer a smartphone version. Of all the tech sites I regularly read, Anandtech is by far the most painful to read on my not so small 4.7" smartphone, with huge loading time as a bonus.
  • 3ogdy - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    oh...don't be like that...they screwed up the PC version of the site in order for people who read this page on the move to enjoy it more....what you're telling them is "what you were trying to do with this page for us, mobile readers, is a complete failure and a pain in the neck (or eyes)...so CONGRATULATIONS - you also managed to screw the desktop users in the process!
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Noted and already on the list :)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • bernstein - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    May i kindly suggest adding an option to hide all the pipeline articles (and show only reviews) on each category...
    Sure you want to promote pipeline, because it attracts daily visitors, but honestly anandtech biggest asset are it's in depth, high quality reviews.
    People who visit the site weekly or even less frequently exactly because of that content, currently won't find these in a sea of news... which kind of makes anandtech yet-another-tech-news-site that somewhere deep down has great articles ***if you can find them***.

    This kind of happened with arstechnica on their redesign, gone was the ability to filter out news from the articles, gone was i... now you can browse their featured articles and i'm back, but miss a lot of the in-depth reports because they are still mangled with news...
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    We don't post all that many Pipeline pieces per day, and often times we end up posting some very good analytical content there as well. Significant announcements but ones that we don't have tons of time (or the necessary info) to go really in-depth with end up in Pipeline as well (e.g. our Clover Trail+ piece was a pipeline post).

    I don't believe we do a lot of rehashing of news without analysis, otherwise I'd be right there with you in keeping Pipeline excluded from the main feeds.

    I do think the mitigations here are 1) to make sure we can beef up our search engine and 2) make sure we don't end up posting news content with no value. One of my primary goals with Pipeline was to meet the same standards we set for our long form content, but with short form content as well. Whether pipeline or an in-depth review, I hope you find the quality of the content just as good - the only difference being how much there is to talk about.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • RippaSplitta - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    Reminds me a lot of The Verge, not sure if that is a good thing though. Going to take some time getting used to.
  • Zink - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    nope nope nope
  • 3ogdy - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link

    it's fail fail fail....then bye bye bye ;)

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