What do you think of the new Japan Today design?

It's OK, but will take a little getting used to.

It's ok, but will take a little getting used to.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I hate the new format, so I will be wasting less time on here from now on. Thank you!

I LOVE IT!

It's ok, but will take some getting used to.

I like it a lot. It was a problem for me to see the tiny low res pictures. Now the photos are large and clear.

I like it. I complained before about the pics being too small and low res. Now they are larger and much easier to see. It looks good.

A fresh and simple design!

Not impressed. It looks too busy.

The redesign looks fine to me. Things are still roughly where they were & it is all clear & crisp.

I'm positive. I think it has become at bit more easy on the eye to navigate than the piles of text Japanese websites tend to like. The old design wasn't so bad in that aspect, but it's even better now. I feel it's easier to kind of get the idea of daily headlines.

Clicking to vote a comment up or down puts me back to the top of the page. dislike

Time will tell, change always kinda sucks, where did my name go?? I liked to click on to see my posts so I could easily see posts after my last visit, now appears to be gone.

Also if you click +/- the page refreshes & leaves you at the top, not good.

Since there is less to click on the top page it likely mean I will read less.....

I liked the compactness of the old format.

Also the comment history goes from oldest to newest making it almost impossible to see my latest posts.

I like the enlarged and clearer pictures.

I liked the old design better. I have the impression the new font is huuuge, same with pics, titles etc. Feels like am at the large print books section at my local library.

A more compact format like the previous one (with more on it) is better for those of us who read about politics, sports, national J news etc i.e a quick look is enough to see what are/were today's news.

It will be OK once you have fixed it! Pages refresh randomly and trying to vote up or down logs me out. The new format is fine, the old one had become dated and needed improving, it's easier to read but as I said, it needs fixing.

This is like WINDOWS 8 all over again.

I hate it. It's difficult to navigate, and it's ugly, it's all white. Where all the colors went?

I preferred the old format as it makes better use of the 24 inch monitor I use.

This is not an entertainment website, design is not of great importance. Thereby, you did some unnecessary work. That is what I think.

It's a superficial redesign to a site that has deep flaws regarding its content, management, and customer service.

And on the style side it's odd just how many different fonts you try to cram onto a single page. Instead of looking visually cohesive or encouraging me to navigate and explore, it's like there are 6 different sections on the page competing for my visual attention all at the same time. And at least two of them are ads.

Failed endlessly from my pc. Let's see if this works from my smart thingy.

Similar layout to the JT app. Struggled with that for a while and gave up. Having much the same difficulties here too.

Good format.

Things I like:

The photos are more prominent. It has a really clean look. The mobile site is alot better and has improved functionality. The spell check in the comments is great, as well as the preview mode. Overall, a really good job if you can iron out some of the issues below.

Things I don't like:

The up and down votes now refresh the entire page. This make voting anyone up or down a huge ordeal.

Also, If technically possible, could the up and down votes be improved? Could a separate running total be calculated for each? A bit like on the Daily Mail site? Often the most interesting comments are the most divisive but they will often hover close to 0 because an equal number of people vote them up and down. The bland comments that few people disagree with tend to slowly accumulate many upvotes and rise to the top when you sort them by most popular, but they don't add much. I think people are interested in seeing a debate rather than consensus.

The recent comment tab cannot be expanded so you can't see what's happening on various threads.

When I click on my user name (or any other user), my very first comment from 2014 is displayed, rather than the latest.

I couldn't log in at first because I had a 7 letter password. The system now seems to demand 8. I ended up resetting my password and it worked (but maybe some people have lost access to their registration email and will have to create a new account)

Do hyperlinks still work in the comments? It seems not.

Search function doesn't seem to work, I had to google an article I commented on today because I couldn't find it with the new layout and I can't see where my user name is to click after logging in to see the other comments that followed my comment. Overall, not impressed and will certainly spend less time here which means less money for JT due to less clicks. It wasn't broken so not sure why it's been "fixed."

Very eye-catching. I like it. :‑)

I dislike that I can only see two articles listed under Sports, Tech, etc. rather than the 5 we could see before.

I don't know anyone who likes scrolling endlessly through a webpage. This is not 2005. The new looks don't look awful because it's new. I will definitely be wasting less of my time here, what can be good.

Just a few things that stick out from the desktop version: • I think I can count 5 different fonts in use in the right hand side bar. Ugly. • Everything looks very blocky - it's like you've downgraded from v10 to v3. • The 'Voices in Japan' / 'Here and now' speech bubble things (red with black shadow) look like they came from the 1990s. • The front page is all over the place. I don't know where to look.

All in all I'd give it a 3/10 - on the presumption that someone who isn't a web designer has 'had a go' and played around with some default settings.

If you've genuinely had it done by a professional, then I can't give it more than 2/10.

Not loving it. Can't find my own profile so that I can quickly access recent comments or discussions I am interesting in following up. When I did find my comment record, it's got really dated ones at the top and I appear to have to scroll through pages and pages to find the ones I want. Needs to be fixed.

This new version seems too "big" and widely spaced.

The original version was better:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010202085100/https://www.japantoday.com

Please go back to the old format - QUICKLY!

Had to make a new password 8 characters or longer without warning - not cool.

Pictures are big and clear - cool.

First page (headline?) is only one headline / article so readers have to scroll down - not so cool but not so not cool either; in all, maybe not so cool.

Post history is oldest first - definitely not cool. Who wants to read their own comments on an article from five-six years ago they can no longer access?

No preview of comments - not cool.

As it is new it will take some getting used to in finding articles I'm interested it. In the old format, I judged by the headline. Now you have Category headlines on the front page (landing page) - maybe not so cool.

What are those numbers in the lower left hand corner Lines, Words, and ?/?

I will wait and see how I get used to this format. A new design is not always bad or good, but definitely takes some getting used to. Good work (next time, maybe a bit of warning?)

Now that I think about it, I like the landing page.

However, liking or disliking a post sends you back to the top which means liking or disliking several posts on one article is cumbersome and will put people off liking or disliking.

What does the eye next to the quotes, italic, and bold symbols do?

It's not that bad, but the previous design was more accessible and easy to browse through. Everything seems too big and crowded. Like I don't know where to go. It needs getting used to but there's more hassle it seems, and maybe a bit buggy. However, I like the more simple and modern approach, but make it less stuffed like before.

Having the new comment box at the top rather than at the end makes it a tad more difficult to respond to previous posts; especially the last post. I'm putting this in the not-so-cool column.

Let me try again.

It looks nice. Good pictures. Too busy looking. Too confusing. Can only see two headlines of each section. It was much better before when I could see many of them. Sometimes those headlines in sections that I am generally not interested in, grabbed my attention and I clicked and read. That really needs to be fixed. Our comments are from oldest, first? Who wants to see what they wrote a long time ago, especially when you can not even access the story cause it is no longer there? We all like to keep up with how are comments are doing and that was the easiest way. Speaking of which, it used to be that we could click our names in the top right corner and we would find our comments easily. But now that is not there so it is really hard to find our own comments. I have to find my comment on a story, then click it and then I can find my comments from years ago. That just does not work. Clicking on a vote send me straight back to the top which makes casting votes harder and not worth the effort.

I really like the old system better.

Where is the function I used to be able to click to see my comments? (upper right of the screen) That was very useful.

What for? The old one was fine.

Much cleaner. Visually it's a step up. The old design was well outdated, and this one is modern. The responsive design, rather than a separate part of the site for mobiles, is also a significant improvement.

But, I don't like the comment form being at the top of the comments - you have to either read to the bottom, then scroll back up, or re-order the comments newest to oldest, and scroll to the bottom, and read them in reverse-chronological order. Neither of these is particularly user friendly.

Ajax missing on the vote buttons is a big oversight.

The recent comments page is gone. It will be hard to track conversations we're having without it.

And finally, I would have hoped for a private message system to be included with an upgrade, so that users can contact each other. I think that one of the reason there are so many conflicts on the site is that posters are unable to meet and form real relationships. If people actually knew the people they were debating with, they'd be more likely to be a little less uppity.

So overall, it's a large step up in my books. It just needs a little additional love to finish off the job.

I'm wondering if we'll ever get feedback on our feedback though - or if our comments are just to go into the ether.

Where is the function I used to be able to click to see my comments? (upper right of the screen) That was very useful.

You can click on your name on a post to see the same.

Ok, I just found a huge oversight. If you click on your posting history, it shows your oldest post first. That makes no sense from a usability perspective. It should be ordered newest to oldest.

I love the absence of the floating header. I couldn't stand that thing. This is much better.

I think it looks good. Nice work.

Are we going to hear anything back from JT about the concerns many people have addressed? That would be nice.

Please change website back to previous version cuz I'm not too fond of it. At least it should've been a beta version for people to try out and give feedback on beforehand.

SORRY but this is hard to read. WAY too difficult and TIME-CONSUMING to read the news in a reasonable amount if time. Over-sized photos and formatting not necessary. Simple and Clear was better. In my opinion.

Looks ok to me.

Everything M3M3M3 said.

Thumbs up for the clean look, larger font and bigger photos. I don't like the new like/dislike function which catapults me to the top.

Thumbs down I posted something earlier in a different section and it didn't show in the comments after.

Also: Were did the preview option go? I like to proof read my comments before posting.

I accidentally clicked on an advert which looked like news content. FIX THAT, please.

THE OLD FORMAT WAS MUCH BETTER!

Not loving it. Can't find my own profile so that I can quickly access recent comments or discussions I am interesting in following up.

This is my biggest issue. But I do like preview system for new comments much better, especially the side by side view.

Another feature I would like is the ability change the email address that is associated to a displayed username or at the very least setup secondary email addresses. The issue I'm having is that my email address I use for this account no longer exists, in fact it hasn't existed for the past several years.

"Ajax missing on the vote buttons is a big oversight"

I giggled as you'd just said it was more modern. As my son would say, "no one says Ajax anymore, dad." (I recently stopped saying dhtml.)

Massive waste and inefficient use of sceen real estate. Will spend less time here, don't like to waste time scrolling and searching around.

Japan Today, attraction is the manner in which the article information is presented, above all readers comments will fundamentally influence the capture factor. Japan Today simplicity of presentation is the grab, hook and hold

This change combines symptomatic imprudence with hasty slipshod implementation. Time constraints contribute to browsing choices, and expose elementary drawbacks to allow change adjustment. Collaborative goals, aims and objectives should be simulated against aspirations, a clear sample marketing strategy to present definable win/win for adverting revenue. I fear Japan Today may have lost the very stand out and shout factor, dropping instant reader collaboration.

I find there are too many full page refreshes. Doing a 1+ (upvote) refreshed the entire page, losing my place.

The default fonts a little too small.

Some old capabilities haven't been added back. Hope they do AND I can find them.

But it takes a few days for humans to get used to any changes. I'll give it a few days. Wouldn't want to miss out on the abuse I get here from all the far, far, far, lefties. ;)

The introduction of big headline top story is a welcome, eye catching. Pivoting a monitor vertically works for me.

Personally speaking, there was no need for a change on this scale, now this page looks an awful like Japan Times.

It was a problem for me to see the tiny low res pictures. Now the photos are large and clear.

I see that there are some members that really are just attracted to visuals and not content.

Its ok, but I don't like the fact that you have reduced the stories in each section down to 2, it was a quick and easy way to see what was in the news without having to go searching for it. But now I guess I will have to click on each section to read what is in it.

HollisBrown Apr. 17 10:44 pm JST All in all I'd give it a 3/10 - on the presumption that someone who isn't a web designer has 'had a go' and played around with some default settings.

Well said! If Trump is an idiot's idea of a smart man, then this site looks like a complete design amateur's idea of a modern website design. Someone's pet project they're hoping will get them a foot in the door to doing real work.

Clean Crisp well thought out. I would still like to see welcome zenji on the home page

it needs to be changed back to what it was......

hard to navigate, can't find recent comments, no need to change

Not that keen, perhaps I need to Zoom out or something, seems like I need a lot more scrolling around now..

I would strongly recommend a thread allowing members the opportunity to point out bugs in the system that the administrators can work on to correct. As a former admin of a board a lot of things can get missed that user's would point out and I (we) would fix.

Just getting censored or having posts deleted because the admin doesnt like the comments is counter productive as well, meaning along with a number of other observations so far posted here, that are not in line with the topic, I have noticed a few "bugs" that could be easily corrected;

The quote functions does not work properly Example:

The quote functions does not work properly

(as previously mentioned) +/- refreshes or brings the page to the top

Recent posts are out of order and difficult to find one's own posts to check if there have been pertinent replies

There is no "home" tab/button

(others feel free to add.....) Hopefully the admin will start an appropriate thread for these comments and suggestions.

This "error" came up as well, The form submitted did not originate from the expected site

Takes a lot more scrolling. Don't have time for that. With the old design, I could see most headlines at a glance, and click on what I wanted to read more about. This new design is time-consuming, and I can't be bothered to deal with it.

For over a day I thought the site was down, trying to access my bookmark (recent comments) just gave me a 404, no explanation. Not good.

Once I got that sorted, my password no longer worked and I had to reset it. Not good.

No way to access one's own comments directly, you have to find a previous comment from somewhere and click on your name. Doing that brings up comments listed old-new, which effectively means more recent comments are unavailable without time-consuming scrolling through dozens of pages. Not good.

Clicking the 'Toggle side by side' button logged me out. Not good.

The top page is OK I suppose, though a bit 'busy'.

All in all, I don't see the point.

As other posters have said, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I hope someone is at this moment working on fixing all the problems people are pointing out. Or you could just save time by putting things back the way they were.

Superficially, I love it! I am certain that you will quickly address the multiple bugs and issues that are mentioned in the comments others have made. But my first reaction is: "finally!".

It's a real mess.

Ugly, blocky, too many typefaces / fonts, vast acres of empty nothing yet too busy at the same time. Scrolling like it's 2005 or something, comment history upside down, no hyperlinks, not enough headlines visible. Waaay too much clicking, intrusive ads...

As somebody posted above though, what's the point in a makeover if the contents are still going to be LDP press releases rewritten by Kyodo? It's just old wine in a new red and white bottle....

The new format appears much slower to respond and load. Maybe too many ads and a bit more difficult to navigate. Out of 10 I give it a 6, where the old version was an 8.

Not fond of it, a lot more scrolling,  page loads and refreshes.

Liked that 'recent comments'  provided a single  access point.

Guess many come here for the comments rather than the news

Looks good, with removal of the user page we should have no more vote down bombings.

Ur spel chek doesnt work. It recognizes mistakes and words not in its, apparently, limited dictionary, but offers no suggestions. Haven't tried signing on anything other than Chrome, which is still the buggiest web browser known to mankind.

Also, treed comments pages are sooooo much better than the "stacked" format.

I thought I might have been overly harsh yesterday so decided to give it another try.

It's a complete mess. It used to be ordered and really user-friendly. Now it's just a jumble of everything with no clear layout, but hey it has bigger photos! Does anyone know a site that presents the news like this site used to?

The search bar doesn't seem to work either.

There seem to be some serious problems with the site now. It really was so much more user friendly before. Please go back to the old one.

Old version was better; too much going on now.

I can't find "profile." It seems to be designed to discourage comments.

Not really! It isn't very user friendly or easy to navigate. You can't find your comments easily unless you commented on a recent article then you have to scroll down to find then click your name to view all of your comments. In addition, they order from oldest to most recent. They takes forever to find your most recent comments depending on how long that you have been a member. The location of the comment box at the beginning is also not user friendly. It would make more sense to place it at the bottom after reading the other comments first.

The larger pictures maybe the only good point

I don't like it because it takes a longer time to load.

It wasn't broken! Why'd you "fix" it?? It's just a jumbled mess now! I might as well start reading the National Enquirer...

I can't easily see my recent comments. The first one that comes up is a comment I made about the last redesign some years ago.

It does look like a copy of the Japan Times website.

This is why you should NEVER outsource to India to save a dollar!

OK as long as it's easier to comment system doesnt use the machine dhortcuts, etc BAD no improvement worse

No. It's unappealing. Was easier and faster to get the news I needed with the old site. General reviews so far seem negative...will you do anything?

I agree with other posters that when checking your comments, the most recent ones should be listed first.

The removal of the recent comments page makes me think they may be trying to discourage repeating posting on stories.

But then they ask this question, which is most likely to be answered by those of us who regularly post.

Seems like a bit of a disconnect.

I do like this side-by-side posting/preview feature though - it works well.

Clicking on a comment no longer brings you to that comment. It just brings you to the thread that comment is on.

Terrible. As others have pointed out:

Layout is a mess. Hard to find what you're looking for. Neither intuitive nor alluring.

The dislike/like icons are tiny. And when you press on one, the entire page refreshes and you have to scroll back to where you were.

List of user's previous posts are from oldest to newest. How dumb is that?

A lot of people are going to stop using JT unless it fixes these issues. Shouldn't be that hard.

I come here for the Comments section, and that is now pretty borked, as many have pointed out before me, but I can't be bothered to + all their comments as I then end up right back at the top of the page and lose my place.

Like many others, I hate it, it is overbusy , too many bold face fonts everywhere with big thick red lines, too hard to read and decode at a "glance", you need to read everywhere, already having headache after 5 mn here and feel tired and just giving up, the comment box at the top while the default is "sort by oldest" is obviously a lack of common sense in the new layout, for me: 1) stop using bold everywhere 2) use thinner red lines to separate 3) put back some graphics in the +- votes, now looks so cheap and do not reload the whole page 4) decrease the space between the text lines in the comment section because right now, every single comment is taking twice the space as it should therefore we need to scroll like in 2000. but at first ....fix the home page, now it is a mess

and fix the "comment did not come from the original website"

I like that the bright red bar at the top is gone (it was too obvious when reading articles at work), but the way the whole page refreshes when up/down voting comments is terrible.

The main story is way too large on the front page. Reduce the size of the photo as it takes up all of the page and you cant see the other articles.

NICE! I like it!!

Far too little on the front page. Old version had far more content in terms of number of stories on front page. Now it is just a couple of stories per section. Which means you have to go to the sub-page for each section for more content. Which I don't have the time to do.

Too much white space, too much scrolling up and down, constant page reloads, no easy access to old comments, only 2 articles on view in each section, no need for such big pictures (old system of optional click to enlarge worked just fine), surprised with need to set up new password. Old format was quicker to search, more choice of articles, and easier to access. News should be quick and accessible, with option to dig deeper; it does not have to be a work of art.

A page that lists all news items, newest to oldest would be nice. Right now it requires too much navigation to find the new stories - you have to go into each section to find out if there are new articles in it that aren't appearing on the top page. Being able to get everything in a single list would be the primary page I'd be viewing.

Also, with the old design we could post comments without having to reload the page. Now the page reloads when posting new articles.

And the new editor thinks that numbers are spelling errors.

I still have problem with the lay out where sections like lifestyle are placed in the middle and Domestic, Politic and Business is pushed to the side.

Too much white space. It takes 2-3 times longer just to scroll down on your smartphone. I also prefer a quick list of headlines to scroll through to get a feel for the day. I can dig in deeper later on. A read layer button might work.

And I won't be voting any post since it resets the whole page everytime. Maybe it's my smartphone, but when you comment it tried to full capitalise every word and it's also much harder to type than before which is annoying.

@Daisan Apr. 17 10:15 pm JST Very eye-catching. I like it. :‑)

Trouble is, I don't want it catching the eyes of my boss or coworkers. ;-)

The previous version was visually much easier to take in.

"I hate the new format, so I will be wasting less time on here from now on. Thank you!"

Agree. Articles are harder to find, quote system is not working, and I have to click "Post" twice to post a message.

The new format should not have been put on until it was working properly (which it isn't).

I can't find any 'Remember me' button - every time I come back I have to log in afresh. Also sometimes when changing pages.

The spell checker is broken.

How do you get back to the page after clicking the 'Toggle side-by-side' button? Clicking the button again doesn't work.

No Recent Comments page, voting up or down loses you your place on the page, comments history is upside down.

It's like JT is trying to discourage comments and reader involvement.

Wonder if JT is going to act on all the feedback they've got.

I don't know why you changed it....it had more 'body' before and everything clear. There is too much white space. Why? Did it not strike you there was or did someone say "Look at that white space...fantastic....just what we wanted". As for comments / views....where are my past ones? Deleted? No warning everyone's past views were going to be deleted? Maybe its there somewhere but I can not find them nor can another viewer I note.

Everything is so huge...is this so those flicking through on a mobile 'phone can read the text? Going to 3, 4 and 5 news stories on the righ of my LapTop screen.....just the three headlines take up a third of my screen on the right.

It looks like someone in the office one day said 'Hey, lets have a re-design'...someone was dispatched to put the kettle on whilst a few of you fiddled around waiting for the kettle to boil.

So...no...sorry. It just does not work for me.....and, judging by others comments, an uncomfortable mixed bag tending towards the 'grudging' when there is anything positive. I would not be happy if I were you.

Its average. Doesn't look professional enough compared to other news sites. Think this will take time to get used to...

Tips: Please avoid bold fonts. Reduce the size of images so that on each page the news article is given importance. Not everywhere is the internet speed is high. Please consider this while designing the pages.

If the general criticisms re logging in, ordering of comments, etc. are not dealt with I'm going to assume part of the reason to change format was to reduce the number of comments.

The old format was better for all of the various reasons as pointed in the previous comments.

I really can't say that I like it. The layout feels less simple to navigate. It's become more complicated than it should be. It looks a bit more... sterile now, I guess that's how I'd describe it. The vibrant layout has been replaced with a dull, unattractive one. You don't attract attention by making it look more boring.

another dislike: no preview function

You can click the second to last icon in the editor, which gives you a side-by-side preview while you're typing.

Oh, turns out quotes don't work. That last post looks like the text I was quoting is something I wrote myself.

the ONLY thing I really enjoyed is the "Articles, Offers & Useful Resources" that substituted the old JAPAN TODAY Insight at the bottom of the page. Still, there is just no comparison with the old page, random articles scattered all around.

https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20170328152723/https://www.japantoday.com/

Taking a look at the old site in the link Thunderbird provided, I can see that while I find the new design more aesthetically pleasing, the old design was much better suited to getting to the actual content of the site.

I would not be surprised to see a reduction in traffic to the site as a result.

Looks like the Recent Comments is back, and automatic login, good.

no preview function

The little eye icon after the quote marks toggles to preview. Toggling the 'toggle side by side' works only one way, you can't get back by clicking the button again.

Please, put the New Comment box after the comments, not on the top.

And gimme my profile/past comments back. Pretty please.

Agree looks impressive at 1st glance beyond that ...

Order is weird on the top page, functionality is meh at best.

Don't see much IT knowledge nor skill in the new layout.

Plus, who decided to do the cutover on a Monday afternoon?

SMH.

Not a fan of this. Looks like the Japan Times website, waaaaay too much whitespace. Couldnt easily find my profile so that I know what are the l commented on last and I dont see enough of the recent comments so that I can know what things people are actually still talking about and what things have already been left behind

Get this error when I try to post The form submitted did not originate from the expected site

Heavy and a lot of gateway error messages which shut it down or freeze it.

crashes, gateway errors, and service unavailable messages.

I come here to read the news, but the new design forces me to scroll down an entire page to get to the first stories. Serious accessibility & usability flaw.

I really like it - cleaner and more modern look.

As predicted, edited out. no remember me button. Less accessible.

Thumbs down until the kinks get worked out, but I think once they do it'll be better. I didn't like the changes in the last design when they came out at first, but couldn't remember the old after a little while. I suspect it'll be the same here. BUT, really, the kinks need to be worked out, and fast -- FAR too many redirects to bad gateways, errors, you can't see recent post history (actually, it doesn't say what year the comments are at all, but I don't recall the ones I had made that I saw in the history), screen refreshes when you click on like/dislike, and while the design is simpler in a way there is too much play with bold and all caps, serifs and serif-sans.

Anyway, like I said, once the dust settles I'm sure it'll be a plus. I think if the kinks aren't worked out soon this will be the reason some people need to stop coming.

Heavy with many gateway errors

and when you click on a thumbs up, it sends you to the headline, and changes the order of the comments

Seems OK but will take some time to adjust.

I only come here to read the news. The old site was much better for me. Now it's too loud and busy, confusing and cheap looking. Looks like some kind of generic marketing site. My eyes are burning!

big figures and characters are easy to read but i also take a little getting used to

The bad gateway errors are likely due to them fixing things on a live site, since they are inconsistent. It makes me wonder if they don't have a staging server to work on though - doing development on a live site is pretty amateur. Fixes should be developed on a staging server and migrated over when they have been confirmed.

Now that all said, they do seem to be fixing some things. The recent comments page is back, and if you go to your posting history, it's now newest to oldest again. So they're fixing things. Thanks for listening to our feedback.

Today it works fine on my PC, and the layout is bright and smart, but it is still an uphill struggle to get comfortable with the new format on my smart phone.

Delivery of the new format was executed poorly. The first I knew about it, was when my iOS app stopped working... (still doesnt work, and is no longer to be found within the AppStore).

Then when trying to login, at first I thought my account had been disabled, as I was continually informed that the password was incorrect, and that it needed to be 8 characters or longer... that was actually the issue, so I changed it. Would have been better to allow login, and provide a prompt to change it. (Again poorly executed delivery).

The Web page layout doesnt have a very smooth feel to it, and the comment positioning at the top of the comments listing is just wrong. Unless you reverse order the postings below it, where the most recent posting is shown immediately below the comment box.

"The first I knew about it, was when my iOS app stopped working"

You're one up on me - I never got the app to work. It was so inconsistent.

After using the site for two days with the new design, I have to agree with many of the other commenters about the problems. As I see them:

Too much whitespace requires too much scrolling just to find what I want. The front page only shows 2 articles under each topic (Sports, Tech, etc.) whereas it used to show about 5, and that makes surfing really inconvenient. Up/down-voting comments bringing you back to the top of the page is ridiculous. Having my personal comments list be oldest-to-newest rather than the other way around makes no sense. I miss the "Recent comments" section. The organization of the top page makes it hard to find things - it's too scattered and random.

The image is sleek, and the larger pictures are nice, but this new design makes me much less likely to spend time on this site, much less contribute as a commenter.

Wake me up when you've fixed it.

502 Bad Gateway

nginx

The form submitted did not originate from the expected site

I think you'd improve the look of your desktop home page hugely if you switched from a 3 column layout to a 2 column layout.

There's no need for the middle column. It makes everything look messy and unorganized and as a result difficult to read through.

If I were you, I'd have:

• featured post with the big graphic - full width • 3/4 left hand column with all the news stories separated / grouped by category. • 1/4 right hand column with the ads, recent comments, quotes, polls, most popular etc.

A 3/4 column for news stories would give you more space to display more than just 2 stories per category - which would make a 'news site' more appealing!

Also, it would make the reading experience more 'horizontal', rather than 'vertical' as it currently is.

Where is the "remember my login?" I don't want to have to type my password everytime I visit the site!

Personally, I don't like to have this big picture hiding the main topics. I would prefer to have a smaller image and the main topics available right from the start without having to scroll down...

Don't like it at all. What everyone else has said, especially about getting all the headlines in a quick view and the comments page. I see you fixed the auto spell check or it could be what type of phone/PC people are using. I'm no IT person but the format looks like you scrimped/downgraded on PC power. Lastly, what's the idea of asking if we want to "view more" under the adds. Waste of space, but maybe more revenue for you. Don't you know nobody clicks on those.

I don't see a post preview either.

Can't agree more with all the negative comments. I'm no techie, so I can't understand how "experts" could make such a mess of "improving" the site. No patience left to navigate this nightmare. I'm going to take a break and get my news from elsewhere. Hasta la vista, JT.

What do I think? It's pretty horrible. Yes, the photos are larger, but we could click to enlarge them. Other than larger photos, I see absolutely no benefit and no reason for changing your site. I also don't see a lot of consideration for the feelings of posters here. How could anyone think this is an improvement over the previous design in any way?

Sorry, you blew it and I think you are going to pay with a loss of readers to the site. Changes are supposed to make things easier, not more difficult. It seems the management of this site have forgotten there is a world of options for both reading and posting comments. I don't think the readers have, though.

As others have said, when you attempt to post, you get the enigmatic message that 'The form submitted did not originate from the expected site'. I have to say this is the first site I have had trouble either reading or posting in in many years.

I agree with the other posters. Not that I posted here that much, but I think this is a good time to take a break from this site. Thanks to all I have conversed with.

I'm browsing JT in a giant iPad Pro in Yodobashi Camera, it, still the same mess. Even with the 12.9 screen I still have to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the news I had in a glance before.

• The headline definitely needs to be under the picture, not above it. People may or may not scroll down by why make it harder for them to see the headline?

• More headlines per category. People won't click on unseen articles and clickbait is our main source of income, isn't it?

• Visually, you have National, Top Stories, and Quote of the Day in a horizontal row but a red bar only under the first two. If there were a red bar above Quote of the Day, it would look both more unified' and like a barrier.

• I think the new design requires the reader to click more (more clickbait?) than the old design. It definitely requires more scrolling but for iPad users thats not too onerous.

• What happened to the podcast? (not that I ever listened to it, just wondering).

• I meant, the headline has to be above the picture, not below it.

Noticed people can now post multiple times in a row.

I prefer the older design - it was easier to follow and select interesting stories - this design is not as good.

LIKE THE OLD ONE BETTER, EASIER TO SKIM FOR DELICIOUS ARTICLES.

Won't be using it anymore, it's too difficult to navigate compared with the old format - I'll be looking at the Japanese section on International news sites.

They've moved the comment form to the bottom of the comments now. Much better. It's good to see they are dealing with some of our feedback.

From Educator's comments, it sounds like the new editor is borked on phones. The problem is that it's overriding default text-areas, which iOS and Android are built to deal with, and creating it's own editor (likely a content editable div). These are not phone friendly, so the editor probably needs to be disabled for mobile devices.

"Noticed people can now post multiple times in a row."

I've done it a whole bunch already in this thread alone. But I'm not entire sure it's a good thing though - I think not being able to post multiple times in a row forced me to consider carefully what I was going to say.

I do have to wonder if they hired an outside agency for the rebuild, or if they are using internal staff. If they used an outside agency, they may have just run out of money (or tried to do it on the cheap), resulting in a product that was only 80% done when released.

Seems now if you +/- a post you dont shoot topside anymore, still more to go, I think this is the only topic I have looked at today.

Still think the old version is better, with less posting it could put some mods out of a job!

But when you post you still get shot up topside haha!!

Lookin good. Of course it'll take some getting use to but I'll manage. BTW I noticed there isn't a box to check to keep me logged in. Or am I missing something. Anyway, the change looks better and navigation seems easy so far. Thanks for your hard work. Now we just need more details in the articles.

Also the comment history goes from oldest to newest making it almost impossible to see my latest posts.

Thanks Japan Times for reversing it from the newest to the oldest!

I like it very much

Have a great day folks.....it aint worth it.

Interesting. Normally when people ask me to review their websites, they appreciate the help. And usually say thanks even when it's critical. Here at JT I gave an honest response about why the new site is terrible, and it was deleted. That is stunningly unprofessional. Tells me there is no real interest in providing a quality experience.

Which is just as well. I have been wanting to cut down on wasted time, and the new design will discourage me from visiting. Good luck.

link to username missing at top beside settings, so I'll be unable to find my posts.

"The form submitted did not originate from the expected site"

Clicking on link in user list doesn't bring me to my post but just loads the thread from the top. Same with posting, I'm returned to the top. Not cool. Also the list doesn't display the number of likes/dislikes No link button in textbox. Words like textbox that are unknown to the form block posts.

Looks like a number of features have been removed, not maintained. Therefore it's not an upgrade but a downgrade.

testing a harmless link to see if previous issue with underscores converts subsequent word into italics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_futurepopulation(United_Nations,_medium_fertility_variant)

new text box is nice. Has more space to type and hyperlink isn't mangled. That's an improvement. Preview is immediate. Not sure what it means when a word turns pink in the textbox. Unknown word? Spelling help?

A few bugs as noted already. Looks okay otherwise

Hyperlink not displayed correctly, it was missing the trailing bracket on click. Might be a Markdown bug or whatever this textbox is called.

No way to report a post or mark it as spam or offensive

Might be nice to be able to delete posts or edit them

Might also be nice to reply to a comment and keep it all in its own thread rather than fill up the page

Liking the new layout. I find it clean and easy to navigate. Uncluttered.

Absolutely awful. Navigating this website---or trying to---makes going to the Department of Motor Vehicles fun by comparison. It's cumbersome and very, very user-unfriendly. JT will lose a lot of traffic because of this change with no warning.

Well,

Let's start with the fact that I had to scroll down 186 earlier comments in order to make mine = please add a new comment button at the top!

About the layout design, frankly speaking not much new. As someone said above, if t's working, don't fix it. And if you are doing it anyway, instead of readers anding up on unreachable page during the transition, please redirect to a page saying that you are revising the site! And would be nice to answer those support emails where users are asking is your site down...

All in all, not very impressed - about the layout and especially the process...

The overall appearance isn't bad. There are problems with ordering the comments, et. al.

The previous version was better.

It could be worse.

As I said, far above in this list, it sucks. And some of the other comments bear witness to what I just experienced. I had to sign in before being able to 'thumbs-up' a few comments concerning a story about the ridiculous amount of overtime Japanese workers force upon themselves, due to their reluctance to actually perform at their jobs in efficient fashion. The former format of JT always had a little 'Welcome Back, TrevorPeace1, which meant simply that their back-end programming recognized my computer's unique internet signature. Now, I'm no longer recognized. And JT gets a lot less of my time.

"The former format of JT always had a little 'Welcome Back, TrevorPeace1, which meant simply that their back-end programming recognized my computer's unique internet signature. Now, I'm no longer recognized."

No, it still recognizes you, or you wouldn't be posting with your username, it would be something random every time. They just don't have that little welcome message for you anymore.

This is Better .... I like it.

Looks nice but a bit hard to use and confusing. Need time to get used to it.

HORRIBLE. I GET CAPS LOCK ON MY I PHONE EVERY TIME ONLY ON THIS PAGE. WHAT SETTING FORCES THAT? Auto correct doesn't seem to work either which is weird and the red highlight is really annoying. I really don't want to be scrolling down with 2 thumbs for 20 seconds just to write a comment. I won't be back for a while.

Now trying on desktop PC and it's just as bad. Pink highlight which is super annoying when typing. Far too much white space and a waste of real estate from right to left. Spell check doesn't work on chrome either. The scroll bar on the right is sooo thin. The vote up down buttons are far too small.

All in all it used to be really clean and easy to navigate and now it's just too much effort. No idea why you wanted to change something that was working just fine. Oh well, time to move on just like IMDB which I quit using since they removed the comment section.

Much clearer, cleaner, and more coherent. No more redundant listing of articles. Good job. What's to get used to?

The auto-sign-in feature has not been working, at least for me, with the redesign. Otherwise, no complaints. Of more interest to me is to get a Japanese view of things, and that worked with both the old and the new format.

Overwhelming. I'm traumatized!

It is very hard to navigate your website now. You may find a lot of people not coming back. I will stay, but it is uncomfortable to use. I am using it less now daily.

I really prefer the old one, there was much more usable information on the front page.

BRING BACK THE OLD WEBSITE!!!!! THIS NEW ONE IS WAY TOO HECTIC,MESSY AND "EXTREMELY NOT USER-FRIENDLY". PLEASE CHANGE IT FOR READER'S SAKE. BAD CHANGE. REALLY!!!!!

RSS feeds seem to be broken. Logouts happening too often too. Forcing a re-login after a few days would make perfect sense on a site like this, but not after a few hours. IMHO.

I completely understand why changes were made. Sometimes a migration to newer code base is mandatory to avoid being hacked. Then it takes time to bring in all the old features. I'm doing the same sort of thing across my websites due to ending support from the OS in a few weeks. There simply isn't any choice except to upgrade.

I'll check back in a week to see if things are better. Keep moving forward. Folks here will get used to it.

Yet another change unannounced. I suppose we'll just have to get used to it, eh?

It is not the format that is the problem, it is the Editorial staff. When my respectful comments are removed SOLELY because I am in disagreement with the content written, then I see PROPAGANDA, not News.

Perhaps the new Title should read: "Japan Propaganda Today"?

Sorry, I don't really care for it. I agree with Mike L.

NO, don't like the new format!

Now you have place the comment menu back at the bottom . yesterday it was on top off the the comment. Since the new site page, I have to log in every time I visit, Is the new format finish produce ?. Because you have change yesterdays format again. So which format are you asking to comment on. I prefer the comment menu bar at the top where it was yesterday. Get you act together JT. And what made you think that the page needed changing. JT can you give us a reason why, other then you have too many hire people with not enough work, So Why have you change the format two time. So you have a mandate to explain why you change. The mandate being that 90% of the comment are not for the new pages. So you need to comment and explain to you readers why ?

Visually, it's nice and clean with everything spread out. I didn't think the old design was overly cluttered though, and I prefer being able to see more on a single screen without scrolling. The default image sizes are a bit too conspicuous for viewing at the office during work, and I think they make the site slower.

Maybe I'll get used to it, but I really prefer the old site...

"Why have you change the format two time?"

They didn't. It was changed once, and they've been adjusting based on commenter feedback.

Having to log in all the time is a PITA!!! Hell I left my computer for a bit but DIDNT sign out, try to +/- a post & NOTHING, scroll to the top, ok still logged or am I......

Turns out I wasnt, refreshed the page I am on & I have to bloody log in again, this timing out crap needs to go! Not like I am booking a hotel room or something!

The new version is WAY TOO much work

Struggling to log in and post comments, so the design itself is secondary to that.

I prefer the old style. This one has no structure and is all over the place.

Stranger do you work for JT because if you read the comment it was directed at JT. If I want your opinion it world of been worded as a open comment. It is not. It directed at JT. Changing the position of the comment bar from top of the Comment to the bottom is a format change, it is not a adjustment. Because by placing at the top I don,t need to scroll down and notice others comment, like this THis was posted yesterday before my comment and did not notice it until the FORMAT was change. "But, I don't like the comment form being at the top of the comments - you have to either read to the bottom, then scroll back up, or re-order the comments newest to oldest, and scroll to the bottom, and read them in reverse-chronological order. Neither of these is particularly user friendly." So liking the menu bar at the top I did not see your comment until today. So by changing the bar to the bottom has change the way I use the Page therefore the format. I can see that it would not change the way you use the Page so the format has not change for you. But it has for others. So you scoll down reading comment before commenting. this prove that you have a passion for reading others comment before commenting which I have pointed out numberous time to you before Stranger. So I wish it the page to return back a to yesterday format so I don,t have read your comment on other,s comments.

The bugs seem to be getting fixed on the fly but it's still a long way off finished; putting up untested software for the users to test is most unprofessional. I think I'll stay away for a week and then come back and check, everyone else should do the same however more than a few may never come back.

I like the older one.The previous one was easier to browse!!

Its OK....but it would have been good if you told us you were going to change first... I didn't know what was going on . love Japantoday.com !

It's great! Cleaner, simpler, modern.

"Stranger do you work for JT"

Nope.

"because if you read the comment it was directed at JT."

And I replied to it anyways.

"If I want your opinion it world of been worded as a open comment."

And if I cared about whether or not you wanted my opinion, I would have asked if you wanted it first.

"Changing the position of the comment bar from top of the Comment to the bottom is a format change, it is not a adjustment. Because by placing at the top I don,t need to scroll down and notice others comment, like this"

And if you scrolled down and read the other posts, you would see that there were many posters who didn't like the comment form at the top, and you are literally the only person who has said they preferred it up there.

"this prove that you have a passion for reading others comment before commenting which I have pointed out numberous time to you before Stranger"

Wow, you're observant. Are you going to tell me the sky is blue next? Or that sugar is sweet?

"I wish it the page to return back a to yesterday format so I don,t have read your comment on other,s comments."

Here's a suggestion for you - if you don't want to read people's comments, there is a REALLY easy way to not read them: just don't read them.

One thing that really needs to be fixed is the quoting system.

Another thing: If you go to a user's profile and look at their posting history, you cannot see the thumbs up/down score on their posts. Previously that was visible.

Sucks, have to login each time. Fix this.

Great work so far taking in the feedback and fixing things on the fly.

I'm having fond memories of the last overhaul, which also started out buggy as all get out and led to a dynamic back and forth between the development team and the users/testers (aka the product).

The JT iOS app has been removed and is no longer available for download. Will it be updated and restored?

Concur on removing the up/down voting.

Never saw the, purpose here or on other sites.

Have had to login with a different email address because I got an 'account deactivated' message.

I absolutely hate it.

Moderator Today 03:49 pm JST Please tell us why.

Probably for the same reasons as listed in the previous 200-odd comments. We appreciate the ongoing fixes but does anyone else at JT have anything to say in response to all this feedback?

Looks like the quote function is broken too.

Moderator Today 03:49 pm JST

Please tell us why. Mod, didn't you read the other 230+ posts telling you why?

I'll add another one; when I click on a post in Recent Comments,it takes me to the top of the relevant tread. If it's a new thread with not many comments, that's no problem; but when it's a very active thread with lots of comments, I'd rather be taken to the comment I clicked on (as per like wot it was before) instead of having to scroll through metres of stuff I've already read.

And please revive the direct link to the user's own comments.

And the quote and/or preview functions are broke! That's not what my post looked like when I previewed it.

yeah, well done JT! using a smart phone is disgustingly laborious! the autotype dies not work, nor does the auto-capatilsing or the double tap period! its terrible!

then, you need to fix the auto log in. i modtky use my phonr to post wuickly on this sitr and now i have to go back and correst every littke typing wrror

i hate the bew site! its a step backwards!

I used a mobile to post for the first time today, and it's absolutely horrendous as others have mentioned it's overriding the default phone functionality making for a frustrating experience. I notice the voting system is working properly though.

As far as the voting system, I think it should stay. The practical purpose of voting (on this, and every site) is to stop people from cluttering up the threads with comments like "Excellent post", "I completely agree with poster X", "I couldn't have said it better", "You are so right" etc, which add little or nothing to the conversation and can be expressed by a simple up vote.

The down vote button is more controversial but it also stops people from posting worthless hit and run comments such as "You're comment is just so wrong that I'm not even going to dignify it with a reply". It's an outlet for people who vehemently disagree but aren't able to formulate any coherent counter argument. It's probably better to give them a down vote button to play with and leave the comments as a place where fully formed and rational arguments are presented. Removing the voting buttons risks increasing angry and worthless posting. That's just my opinion though.

However, as I said below, I think a separate tally of up votes and down votes would be useful. I wonder how many comments receive +15 up votes but also -15 down votes? It's a bit inaccurate to say that a comment like this is less popular than a comment which ends up with +5 up votes and 0 down votes, but that's how the site sorts them if the vote count is aggregated. There are also some people who consistently get a barrage of down votes on every comment they post, but I would be interested to see if there are any people out there who actually agree with them. It could give them a bit of solace to know that 3 or 4 people agree even if 20 people don't. Aggregating the votes seems to discourage minority opinions from ever being aired and could eventually limit the appeal of the site. That said, I don't know how technically feasible my proposal would be.

Honestly, i like the Design, but not the usability. I will not turn the back on you, but... hopefully i get used to it :)

Dont like it. Too busy

M3M3M3: The practical purpose of voting (on this, and every site) is to stop people from cluttering up the threads with comments like "Excellent post", "I completely agree with poster X", "I couldn't have said it better", "You are so right" etc, which add little or nothing to the conversation and can be expressed by a simple up vote. I completely agree.

Cool! 　I thought I wandered into a wrong site. But this face is now ubiquitous and it is time consuming to just check a list of today's topics; have to scroll down and down and down ...

I love the design, but the user functionality is ???

I like the bigger text size and pictures. I'm still exploring it though.

I hate your new layout :) ...but lets be honest : ask me once more in one month, i will probably tell you i love your new design !

@Strangerland

Another thing: If you go to a user's profile and look at their posting history, you cannot see the thumbs up/down score on their posts. Previously that was visible.

Yes, I noticed this as well, but I'm not sure this change is entirely bad. On the one hand, seeing a new up or down vote on your old comments was a way of alerting you to fresh activity on an old thread, and this was useful sometimes (but perhaps only for power users?). On the other hand, sometimes immature people who disagree with a poster seem to click on their username and down vote all of their posts from the past week. I've had this happen to me a few times when I've said something unpopular or been in a heated debate with someone. It's pretty toxic. Under the new system they will have to expend alot more effort to get their petty revenge. I sort of like that.

@The Original Wing

I couldn't have said it better myself.

The late 1990s graphics to 'Headline' a section, such as 'Voices in Japan'? Awful.

Too much "space". 4/10.

Navigation is easier with the drop in sidebar. That's good.

I must confess I'm not a fan.

Way too much white space everywhere. Who ever thought that this style was more readable? Those of us who need to make the fonts bigger (and if you're not one such, just wait a decade or three) end up with super-sized oceans of white emptiness surrounding each comment.

The "Gotham" font, while nice and readable enough, is way overused in the 2010s.

For up- and down-voting, the plus sign should be on the left, not the minus sign. Up comes before down and the "default" should be to upvote, not downvote. And in the English language, we say the more positive one first: good and bad, winning and losing, happy and sad, positive and negative, up and down. Not the other way around.

After using it for a couple of days I have to say...

I don't like it all.

Everything is way too spaced out.

This is Japan after all... we are used to having a lot of information in a compact format.

Look at any Japanese newspaper, magazine or homepage... there is a hell of a lot of information jam-packed onto every page.

Personally I like that style and JT was like that before.

We could scan over the top page and find interesting stuff in seconds.

Now everything is so widely spaced out it's just a royal pain in the @ss to find anything at all.

It's like "Design 101" gone mad... you know... when the teacher solemnly says something like, "Think about white space..." or some similar rubbish... as if "white space" is like some sort of holy grail that will magically make everything wonderful.

Now there is so much white space it's hurting my eyes.

Please JT go back to a more compacted format.

Now I have finally logged in to JT with my new password. It was an ordeal because I'd ended up getting nowhere a couple of times. And it turned out that I hadn't got necessary email to reset my password probably because of heavy traffic on the Internet and such. At any rate, I'm glad to boomerang back here. :‑)

How do I find my comments? There used to be a button on the upper right I could click on to see my comments.

gokai_wo_maneku, I couldn't help but agree with your remarks. Yes, it was very helpful.

Had trouble getting a new password as I was sent dud links for 2 days. I find the new site hard to navigate and where is the user's previous comment button? If you allow comments you must let posters see what they have said earlier.

nice, but too close to JT

Came to JT this morning, logged in (because I'm not remembered from yesterday). Found an article I wanted to read, decided to comment on it - and had to log in again. Wanted to point out this inconvenience, came to this thread, scrolled through the previous 250+ comments - and had to log in again. After which I ended up at the top of the thread, scrolling down again.

Come on JT, a few bugs with a new design are to be expected I suppose, but this is a teeming termite hill of bugs. Very unprofessional.

Please call in someone who knows that they're doing to get it fixed. Or simply restore the old site. It wasn't broke.

You are right Cleo Talk about a buggy site. I constantly am stuck on capslock. And pretty much everyone has stated that while the pictures are nicer, the site is way worse. WAY WAY WORSE?

In the old version, one glance got me the headline for the main story, the headline for another story and picture of the day. (and maybe an advertisement; I paid them no mind). One quick scroll and I could see five or seven headlines for each category plus the extras (polls, PR releases disguised as news, etc) plus some ads.

Now, I have to scroll just to see the main headline. This, I think, is not an improvement. If JapanToday wants more clicks/income I think giving the reader more information more Conveniently would be a benefit.

Plus, a login that remembered customers for more than one day, as Cleo suggests, would be a convenience for the reader and more clicks/income for JapanToday, wouldn't it?

I'm really not liking the new text editor. It's really bad on mobile, but it's got it's problem on desktop as well. For example, to clear a whole line of text in a standard textarea, you click command + shift and delete. But that doesn't work with this editor. And the whole highlighting of spelling errors with no way to right-click to fix them (which browsers offer as a standard) is frustrating. Also, if you include a quote plus a word, it highlights it as a spelling error, and any number over two digits is a spelling error as well.

However, as I said below, I think a separate tally of up votes and down votes would be useful. I wonder how many comments receive +15 up votes but also -15 down votes?

I agree. They don't even necessarily have to show the total of each up and down - just the number of votes total. From that it can be determined. For example if the score is -4 with 20 votes, then you can determine that it's eight plus votes and twelve minus votes.

That said, I don't know how technically feasible my proposal would be.

Entirely feasible. What you are talking about is not difficult at all with a voting system.

I'm in the middle. I liked the previous version more overall due to it's compactness and it was easier to view several news items at once. Now the front page is more difficult to navigate, but for individual news links, I'd say it's a slight improvement (mainly due to the larger images). Also, as others have mentioned, I think a counter for - and + karma would make more sense as controversial comments may end up being close to zero, despite a lot of interest.

Hmm, quotes still seem to be messed up. Half my last post was quotes of M3M3M3's post, but it looks like I just said all that myself.

One thing that really needs to be fixed is the quoting system. It is not needed . Thumbs up and down are for those need their ego,s pampeded Tip , try anger managerment before letting loss with ego inflated opinions, by quoteing or thumb downs. Thanks JT for getting rid of these useless function.

JT, are you paying attention to 90% of these comments about your change? Especially the ones in upper case?

Could the changes have been worse? I suppose they could have.

However, you have lost me. It was nice knowing you before the change.

Now it is just time-wasting, messy, sad.

try anger managerment before letting loss with ego inflated opinions,

Ironic comment considering the anger in your post.

the minus and plus need to be bigger, they are fonttype so almost unclickable at their current size, especially on a retina.

This is truly a painful experience, being logged out after leaving the site for a bit is nuts, you cant even leave us logged in for a day......

I used to scan the front page & usually see 4-8 things I might click on during the day & if I post follow up, but these last few days I have pretty much come this thread & maybe 4-5 over the last several days & logged in maybe 20times.....

Now when I show up I am lucky if a quick scan reveals 1-2 things interesting.

I was thinking of canceling my newspaper subscription but now think I need to re consider

But hey one good thing has come of this, I waste so much less time per day I finish my work by 15-1600hrs so everyday the last few days has been PREMIUM LOL!!

I guess Japantodays priority was a mobile friendly website? in that case you succeeded but the desktop version is not friendly to say it nicely. ive emailed a couple of bugs and suggestions but I guess that wasnt appreciated from a regular user.

anyway 270 comments and 75% negative. Should give you an insight to if you are doing it right or not.

on and please fix the capslock issue on mobile phones, very annoying.

It's very impressive - love it.

Yeah the design is nice and tablet friendly. However your RSS feed isn't working so not seeing anything since the change. Please fix

Well, that was a shock!! Why would you have everything so strangely set up for a computer user? It probably looks nice on a tablet but I ended up looking for info lost in the clutter. Sorry but I think the computer version of this site just went way down in user friendliness.

Keep it up though, I am sure you'll get there in time. Guess the last design was flawed but I really liked it a lot more than what you have put up now.

You did ask...

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I hate the new format, so I will be wasting less time on here from now on. Thank you!

Hate it too. Good-bye to this forum.

I CAN HONESTLY SAY IT IS THE WORST UPGRADE OF ANY "NEWS" WEBSITE I HAVE EVER TRIED TO NAVIGATE IN A LONG TIME. JUST HORRIBLE! THERE IS A VERY CLEAR REASON WHY DRUDGE NEVER CHANGED HIS SITE. BOTTOM LINE IS THE OLD WEBSITE WASN'T BROKEN..JAPAN TODAY SHOULD WORK ON ITS CONTENT, NOT ITS FLASHY NEW LOOK. BIG FAIL!

I'm sure I will get used to the new look.

Two suggestions:

I would like to be able to view my prior posts by clicking my username. I had that capability on the prior website. Your Up/Down votes should be color-coded (green = up; red = down) along with a + or - sign.

Well, a lot of negative comments here, but I have to agree with most of them. Nonetheless, let me add something positive: the pages for the individual articles as well as the section pages have a nice clean layout and are easy to read on different devices. This is a clear improvement.

After fixing all the technical issues, please don't forget to rework the layout of the top page. It's incredibly cluttered and confusing.

Cool. it's really easy to preview and edit.

But that caps lock is a downside, along with the removal of the autocomplete (iphone 7+ here, not sure if it is a phone related issue).

I'm fat, and tall, my fingers hit usually lots of keys, therefore autocorrect is almost a MUST.

OH! A "reply" button would be so nice as well. Almost every comment i make gets tons of downvotes, it'd be really fun to read the mean replies.

It would be nice to get some feedback as to whether JT intends to fix anything else, or if they're done.

My experience so far has been awful. I've had no problem logging in to my account, but there seems to be some serious errors if one tries to use Internet Explorer or MS Edge. You might want to look into that. The comment's section just doesn't show up at all or just isn't loading under it. I'm currently able to read and post from Google Chrome (my back up browser) on my PC without any issues.

Trying to post from my phone was a horrible experience as well, too many "predictive" texting errors caused by the site that made making a post from my phone a ridiculous chore.

The upgrade looks much better on the phone, but on the PC, not so much.

Missing: I still require a link at the top after I login so I can see my posts. No different than the list when I click my own username. Also can't click on my post for it to go directly to it, it only goes to the story. These features have been subtracted from the previous website.

Just do a poll. You love polls right?

1) Revert back to old design 2) Keep new design 3) Revert back to old design and update only certain features decided through another poll?

Exactly! How can I see my posts in two clicks now? I have to open five tabs one after the other to see how many are silently bashing on humanism or support me in my crusade against nationalization of the nation?! It seems redesign made it even harder to fathom the site as a whole, working system. Guess the design came under some American top-designer guidance (see what I did there???).

Testing a quote >

Testing a quote

Another quote

> A quote >

a quote Can we get some instruction on how to quote text?

Trying a quote Normal text

Trying a quote

Normal text

Trying a quote

Normal text

Trying a quote

Normal text

Trying a quote This is normal text

Final quote test Normal text

And again more text

Normal text

Well the quoting system is an absolute mess. But I think I've finally got it forward.

The quote has to be on two lines. The first line needs to have the greater than symbol () with empty text, and the next line needs to have the greater than symbol with the quoted text on it. Then there needs to be a blank line after that (make sure there isn't a greater than symbol on that line - the system will try to automatically add it, so you need to delete it).

Then you can write normal text that is unquoted.

Well that last post just showed me that it's not possible to use a greater than symbol in your post. I put one between the brackets - but it was stripped from my post.

The text editor is an absolute mess. It needs to be scrapped.

Trying a > symbol

Ok, I figured out how to get around that.

So to do a quote, you need to do the following:

>Put your quoted text here.

Write your unquoted text here (leave a blank line after the quote)

Oh, that didn't work.

Yep, the text editor is a mess.

I think that's probably already on their list. I was trying to figure out how to make quotes work before they stop the multiposting, or I may never figure it out.

Craptastic!

A partial newsite (many articles come from Rocket24) trying to emulate the aesthetic of big boy newsites like Japan Times, Daily Mainichi, etc...

Please revert back to old format. Plain, simple, nothing fancy. No bells, no whistles.

Quotes in previews don't match how quotes work in the final post. Did you even test this before you rolled it out?

Also, you took away our ability to thumb up/down mod comments, which as far as I'm concerned was the only improvement of the site to come out of this whole fiasco.

I find there is far less news on the site now. You have a big headline with a picture great, and then right beside it on the left hand side the same story. Why have you limited the number of stories? Also I find that you are not updating the site with new news as much as you did before. Some stories are on the site for a longer time. Unless everyone is working feverishly to fix all the bugs that have been mentioned above!

I feel sorry for @Strangerland who as up all night trying to make sense of quoting functions. There is always cut and paste, of course.

Nice to see the pro-activity.

Just to copy and paste from @Gorramcowboy above: "Please revert back to old format. Plain, simple, nothing fancy. No bells, no whistles."

One other thing: lots of your readers actually depend on JT for finding things out about their environment in Japan. Psychologically, this raises the stakes when the format is messed around with. The new format being virtually unusable for lots of people of course draws the highly critical and hostile responses above, including mine. I think @Strangerland may agree.

I hope your advertisers take note.

By the way, even with the old format I never used the mobile phone interface - I always used the PC interface because I could see everything on the same screen.

One nice thing though - now strange words and mistypes are highlighted. I make many errors, and rarely previewed. Typing now is easier.

There - I have been pro-active too. Now please do what @Gorramcowboy suggests.

ANd hurry up!

If the intent of requiring users to log in prior to posting is to reduce mod workload, that's understood. Just please say so.

Took me two log-ins to get to the comment box this morning.

Logging-in automatically takes you back the the top page, which isn't necessarily where a body wants to go.

The weird workings of the quote function make it almost impossible to know which bit of a post is the poster's own opinion, and which is the bit they're quoting.

Misspellings used to be underlined in wiggly red, and a quick right-click would offer alternatives: now they get highlighted, and right-clicking brings up a contextual menu that doesn't work.

Life isn't long enough.

A bit cluttered, but some adaption from time to time is necessary in order to move forward with new projects;)!

You have a bug in the quote system. Sometimes when you make a quote, it adds an extra at the end of the text that people miss, making their entire comment look like a quote.

Well, they are definitely taking some feedback from the comments in this thread:

to clear a whole line of text in a standard textarea, you click command + shift and delete. But that doesn't work with this editor.

This is kind of working now, unless you have or had a spelling error in your text. In that case it only deletes everything up to where the error is/was.

The only thing I like about it so far is that it is somewhat easier to read on my phone.

However, a link to my past posts is missing, so I can no longer revisit them easily. The editor doesn't accept the iPhone's auto-correct, or formatting options. The upvote and downvote sucks because it takes you to the top of the article and you lose your spot. Lastly, I would have liked to see a change in the way voting works, It would be nice to see the total votes, both positive and negative not just the final tally.

I notice that they've made the voting buttons bigger, though the alignment of the +/- in the boxes is weird, they are not centered vertically.

Another thing: If you go to a user's profile and look at their posting history, you cannot see the thumbs up/down score on their posts. Previously that was visible.

Yes, I noticed this as well, but I'm not sure this change is entirely bad. On the one hand, seeing a new up or down vote on your old comments was a way of alerting you to fresh activity on an old thread, and this was useful sometimes (but perhaps only for power users?). On the other hand, sometimes immature people who disagree with a poster seem to click on their username and down vote all of their posts from the past week.

The more I use it, the more I think you're right - people shouldn't be able to vote on lists of posts. But seeing the actual score of the post, both on the recent comments page, as well as a user's list of comments, would be a good thing I think. So the score without the voting buttons would be good.

Here I thought I had the quoting thing worked out, but the above quote didn't work. I used the double quote (two greater than symbols) for the text that beings with "Another thing...", and it just came out as regular txt instead of a quote.

I rather like it , eliminates need for the app

User story. As a JapanToday account user trying to log in, I want to enter my email, tab to Password box and enter my password, then hit enter. This is in order to log in without wasting time reaching for a mouse to click the log in button.

However your RSS feed isn't working so not seeing anything since the change. Please fix

RSS working again, thanks for the quick fix!

All those who have paid money for the JapanToday service provides should get their money back. LOL!

hate the red color as before.

All those who have paid money for the JapanToday service provides should get their money back. LOL!

I agree with your sentiment, but the fact is sites like this make money from advertising, based on the amount the site is used. As we are the users of the site, while we may not directly supply the money that allows the site to run, we are the means through which the site makes money to run.

So while they have no direct obligation to us, it's in their better interest to make the site user-friendly, to increase viewership, and thereby increase (the potential for) advertising revenue.

The old format was much better.

I'm struggling to find any improvement to mention.

For the last 24h have been unable to view or post any comments on any thread when on my laptop (other devices work fine). Can read the article all right but no comments section underneath. Was starting to get used to the new format though!

Glad a lot of the problems have been addressed, and the site has definitely improved as a result, but could you guys PLEASE put the user's name (link) back up next to the "settings/login" buttons (or somewhere else) so you don't have to scour for your own comments in order to get to your history?

Now I can see and add comments on an ipad, but not on my PC.

Finally! Good!

Before the changeover, was wondering why the comment box was wonky or even missing, e.g. couldn't login, or even when logged in, there was no way to comment since the comment box was missing, etc.

This is the 2nd revamp of JT's website that I can recall. I believe they're doing this --why all websites are now doing this-- is to make the website more mobile-friendly. But that also means the format is moving further away from the old desktop style that IMHO looks more tidy and could see more in view without having to keeping on scrolling down. Now all the pictures and articles look too big and all over the place on the desktop, but looks to be OK size on mobile devices.

Anyways, now that I'd had some time to test drive this new style, some things that could be improved:

the member post history should have the option to be sorted by newest to oldest, or vice versa

the links in the comment history should go back directly to the comment itself, instead of now just going to the article

unfortunately there are no longer the # of pages but just "Prev" or "Next" (although ya can manually type a page number on the URL itself

option to stay logged in, instead of keep needing to log in after some time

the quoting system still wonky, and missing post preview

New style growing pains, though some of those may have already been corrected

Getting better. Thanks for listening and making adjustments.

Please change it back. Don't fix something if it's not broken.

Yeah, there are a lot of things getting better. The editor actually works pretty decent on an iphone now - it's not subverting regular functionality. And they've removed the spell check that didn't work, and it's possible to right-click to fix spelling errors now. There is also a remember me checkbox when logging in now.

It took a few days, but most of the issues have been worked out. The release was a little premature - hopefully they'll remember that in a few years when it comes time to switch again, but things are much improved now.

As for people who keep saying not to fix something that wasn't broken - it was outdated, and that can lead to security issues, so it may have been broken and you just weren't seeing it.

Given it a few days to get used to. Still find the format very unorganized. I just find the whole change illogical, which tells me there were other reasons for the change; staff reduction, larger profit margins, ????. I've noticed on other redesigned sites as well that you have to click TWICE to gat back to where you were. I find this very offensive and vulgar.

I will probably get used to it, but the first thing I see on the PC homepage today is 90% of a photograph of a car crash - no headline even displayed. This picture is ridiculously big. If I scroll to the headline, then I lose most of the picture. The headline is necessarily large - I am sitting in front of my PC, not on the other side of the room.

I am viewing on a widescreen monitor, as I presume everyone does these days. Yet there is a huge amount of wasted space at the margins. Use the space more effectively.

Bring back pop vox:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050323185902/http://www.japantoday.com:80/e/?content=popvox&id=558

DDoesnDoesn't work. Just lots of capital As in boxes

Doesn't work just lots of upper case As in squares.

It sucks so much that I haven't been back since commenting on this thread. I used to check 4-5 times a day. Thanks for breaking a bad habit JT!

Also think JT should run an article apologizing

i love hearing people complain about free stuff. Anyway, not complaining but advice, since the launch I think the last thing you need to do to is give each user a page they can see their last comments, and when they click the comment it takes them to the comment.

The site was like that before and not it is not. You go to the top of the article. Much more scrolling now. Not complaining, trying to help

Glad to see improvements and bug fixes happening, but the whole section containing comments on each page is not displayed when I use my Windows 7 PC and IE11.

I can read the comments section in the Html on the PC by using 'view source', or by using my iPad.

Presume it's a compatibility issue.

Lots of fixes, but the quoting system is still messed up. If you don't do it exactly right, quoted text doesn't appear as quotes, or unquoted text is included in the quote. And it appears that second level quotes (putting two greater-than symbols) doesn't work either.

Browser issues.... Grrrr....

But phew!!! (Got it working on the smart phone early on, but with no comments visible and no reply window option on the pc. With Internet Explorer these were not working.)

I had to install Google Chrome to get the full new-version JT format, and to be able to post here!

The new website interface is not good in so many ways that I don't have time to list.

It's nice to see the summary values of + and -, that is something we never had even on the old site.

Also, it's nice that there is a link directly to posts within threads now, though the text sounds like it was written by a robot (or maybe a robot translator) "see in context"

Just wanted to say thanks for adding the +/- count and taking onboard so much of the feedback. It's actually looking really good. I think the counter will add a whole new dynamic to the site and encourage a wide range of opinions. I'm already surprised to see some of the results.

It now displays comment section on my Windows 7 PC with IE11.

Thanks for fixing, JT!

zizhi, thanks. Having installed Google Chrome, and then updated Java, I found it to be working here on Microsoft Explorer too. It must have been the old Java causing the problem. (Need to make a fresh pot every now and then?)

zichi, even!

April 27

I like this renewed facade. Cool & user-friendly. It is nice!

And the quick action for improvement is impressive.

I am more of a fan of JapanToday.

The site is definitely an overall improvement now from the former site. Well done.

Two small points however:

1) 'View in context' as a link under people's comments is pretty unnatural, and a little too robotic for many to understand. 'Jump to post' would be much more user friendly.

2) Scroll to the top of this thread. Look at the "voice in Japan" speech bubble (at least I think it's a speech bubble). It's broken.

Why the oldest on top and then the most recent responses at the bottom of the page? And also: when I receive the overview in my mailbox, it's too large and awkward to read the headlines....the previous version was a lot more Hotmail-friendly.

The email format is not as easy to view as prior version. The news articles/pictures only partially show unless in full screen mode.

Appears none of this was tested with users prior to launch?