MoneySavingExpert.com has a facelift

MSE_Martin

As you'll see at the top of the page we've a newly designed masthead. Huge thanks to all the forumites who gave their feedback on the various design iterations (and the off-site non-forumites too) we've tried to take into account as much possible.



What's changed

• The design... We hope its cleaner, more modern, and helps you navigate round the site better (see the old one below), perhaps a little more professional (horror of horrors!) and a little less of me
• Future proofing. The new version has space for more tabs, plus we're planning to add like secondary navigation to help even more (coming soon).
• Its a line and a half less high. It's got all the same info in, but in much less space - buying back height for the growing number of small screens on phones and netbooks. The only content that's gone is the links to 'content' (which is for disability access screenreaders, we now offer the same link but hidden only for screenreaders to see) and 'email a friend' as we now do that at a page level.
• Search is now in the masthead. For consistency the site search is now in the same place on every page - this also frees up space from below.
• New tabs. As well as the design there's a new Income & Family tab and we've got rid of the old protect your pocket. All the sections of the site are now in the new easy read style (compare to the old style via www.moneysavingexpert.com/protect )
• The Masthead tells you where you are. You'll now see that wherever you are in the site the masthead reflects that as that tab is on (like the forum tab above)
• The Forum and main site are slightly different. The main site has a fixed width as without it the formatting of tools and articles simply wouldn't work. The forum however is stretchy to fit your screen. Therefore we've adopted the same policy as before which means in the forum we left align the masthead and if you see a lot of green on the right it means you've a wide monitor.

Hope you like it - though do remember like any design and colour - how you see it depends on your monitor (on my monitor the pink and purple are completely different - but on my laptop they're quite similar colours) so we have tried to work as best to accomodate that.

For a reminder the old one is below.





Do let us know what you think - hope you like it (be gentle if not, we've worked hard and gathered lots of feedback but know you can't please everyone all the time).

Martin

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MothballsWallet

Me like the new one - it's cleaner, simpler, doesn't require a lot of time to download, but Martin, what's up with that photo of you? Your eyes look like you're a hypnotist

meher

thanks there's such a remarkable difference in that the header no more overwhelms you

but I appear to have so much empty space on the right hand corner, also as if there's an alignment issue, would that be because I'm on vista or a case that my eyes are quite sensitive to patterns, I'm not sure

The Forum and main site are slightly different. The main site has a fixed width as without it the formatting of tools and articles simply wouldn't work. The forum however is stretchy to fit your screen. Therefore we've adopted the same policy as before which means in the forum we left align the masthead and if you see a lot of green on the right it means you've a wide monitor.

only just read your post ^ explains

MSE_Martin

meher wrote: »

thanks there's such a remarkable difference in that the header no more overwhelms you

but I appear to have so much empty space on the right hand corner, also as if there's an alignment issue, would that be because I'm on vista or a case that my eyes are quite sensitive to patterns, I'm not sure

I've amended my first post to answer this - actually you've the same amount of space as before, perhaps you're just noticing it now as its changed

SunnyGirl

I like it thank you :T It's much cleaner & brighter. Great work by everyone involved.

LimeLight

looks rather rubbish on Opera Mobile

Justicia

MothballsWallet wrote: »

Me like the new one - it's cleaner, simpler, doesn't require a lot of time to download, but Martin, what's up with that photo of you? Your eyes look like you're a hypnotist

"Look into the eyes, not around the eyes..."

:D

withabix

You've still forgotten to add the s after the apostrophe, Martin :rolleyes:

pitkin2020

Such a small change but makes a big difference, thumbs up. Definetly looks fresher and more modern

fire**fly

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=28971447#post28971447

cupcakelady

Hmm I liked the old style more!! I don't like the colours of the new one - the shade of green on the banner and the colours used for the category headings...and the weird grey division lines between category headings that fade out near the top for some reason. And the heading doesn't appear even, with too much space on the upper right side. Before, u had 'set as homepage' etc written in that space, so it didn't seem as empty. And the search box looks as if it's been just plonked at the top.

U could have changed the formatting but at least retained the old colour scheme! Ah well...