I delayed responding immediately because I tend not to like change and figured it would be more fair to give it a chance. I really, really don’t like the new layout. I agree with many of the problems other people are raising.
To me, the two most serious are:
the way many of the headlines fr anything besides for the top two stories are truncated, (ditto the beginning of the article) such that I can’t really figure out what it is about. You may feel that then we are more likely to click into it and see (curiousity?) – I can only speak for myself – I just turn away and say forget it, I can’t waste time on this site the way it is now. There’s so much to do, so little time and with it all, I used to read so much on yeshiva world – because I could see so much of interest to me. But it’s not worth having to click into every story to see if it is or is not of interest to me. I will first forget the whole thing. So far, I keep checking in to see if you’ve made changes based on the comments, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.
Then there’s the issue of the separate categories, which is nice for people who have only specific interests. But what if you have no specific interests or very wide ranging interests. Why do yo have to scan every single one of ten different headings? Isn’t it obvious that for people who want to keep on top of everything, there should also be a section where everything is posted sequentially without regard to topic, much like the old version? This doesn’t have to be instead of your new categories – just in addition. Why can’t a story show up both places? It would be soo much better!
I’ve loved your site until nw, had no problem with your last redesign, but please bring back some more of the old. This is so much more just like the other frum jewish news sites now….