Lifehacker, one of our favorite sites here at 40Tech, just got a redesign, along with the rest of the sites under the Gawker umbrella. The redesign has been a bit controversial, to say the least. Users have complained that the site is slow, hard to navigate, and clunky.
Personally, I hate the new design. Ajax and javascript can be great, but not when an entire site is built around them. I like sites to be scannable, and I want to be able to jump around quickly.
I love Lifehacker’s content, though, so I’ve been trying to find a way to make the site easier to digest. Here are three alternate ways to get Lifehacker’s content. They aren’t perfect, but I actually prefer them to visiting the main site.
1) Visit the full RSS feed
Even if you don’t subscribe to the RSS feed, you can still use the feed to your advantage by navigating to the feed address, and reading the site’s content there.
2) Visit the mobile site
You won’t see any post excerpts, but if you just want to see Lifehacker’s headlines, you can visit the mobile site in your desktop browser.
3) Use the new “blog view”
The new design does offer a way to see posts in reverse chronological order. To do so, click on the “blog view” button, which is hidden next to the date and time at the top right of the main column (see the arrow we’ve added in the image below). Scrolling in blog view doesn’t work as well as it does in a traditional blog design, but it beats scrolling through the new design. You also get blog snippets, to help you decide whether to read a full article or not.
What do you think of the Lifehacker redesign?
Daryl says:
uk.lifehacker.com seems to serve it up in a manner somewhat similar to the old style. Don’t know for how long though!
February 14, 2011 — 5:23 am
Evan Kline says:
That’s better than any of the ones in the article- thanks, Daryl! You’re right, though. I’m worried that it might not last long. For now, I’ve bookmarked it, and that will be how I visit Lifehacker.
February 16, 2011 — 9:34 am
Sunny S. says:
ca.lifehacker.com is using the old version still. New one is problematic due to the reliance on JavaScript :/
March 3, 2011 — 1:23 am
Evan Kline says:
Thanks, Sunny. I’ve been using the Canadian and UK versions whenever possible.
March 3, 2011 — 1:13 pm
Kanis says:
I loved my Lifehacker and Gizmodo, but since I can’t view it the way I want I’ve had to give up on the sites.
I hate the new layout so much that it made surfing the site visually impossible.
Always sad when you have to give up sites you love.
October 23, 2011 — 10:09 am
Evan Kline says:
I definitely go there much less than before. I tend to read it more on my mobile device than anywhere, just because that experience is actually bearable without having to jump through hoops.
October 27, 2011 — 9:19 am
Evan Kline says:
Just for kicks, I went over to the site. I don’t see the “blog view” option any longer. At least the whole page scrolls as one now, but it is so dense with information that it really has a cluttered feel and makes my eyes glaze over.
October 27, 2011 — 9:22 am
Daryl says:
That’s the beauty of reading it via the MobileRSS app on my iPhone/iPad – no clutter and quick tap and delete per topic if it looks like junk (which more and more of their posts seem to be becoming)!
October 27, 2011 — 9:25 am
Daryl says:
Sorry folks – don’t know why my last Tweet was included in that reply – something going on at the 40tech end.
By the looks of it if you put your Twitter “address” in the URL box for comments, you need to untick the box below “Submit Comment”? Trying that now…
October 27, 2011 — 9:27 am
Evan Kline says:
Thanks, Daryl. I’ll have to look into it. I’ve been thinking of dropping CommentLuv anyway, for a variety of reasons.
October 27, 2011 — 10:09 am
Daryl says:
Aha, I see now Evan.
Yep, it’s CommentLuv again. Looks like the plugin has changed from my recollection of it on 40Tech previously.
Never really knew what it was all about and I don’t recall seeing it elsewhere, so I guess dropping it isn’t going to be a massive hardship!
October 27, 2011 — 10:20 am
Martin says:
FWIW I just tried the UK site and even now (mid 2012) it’s way faster than the US version — which is also kind of amazing if you think about it.
What a relief, had just about given up on the website…
June 18, 2012 — 12:42 pm
scott says:
all I do is go to http://blog.lifehacker.com/
I’ve used this every day since they changed it over a year ago.
October 14, 2012 — 11:57 pm
Haider says:
Hi All,
The solutions, sadly, are not working anymore. As of 15 April 2013 , lifehacker has changed its platform and movedd to kinja platform. The only way to browse now is the infinite scrolling method.
Now the blog view is lost literally.
Do you know any workaround to the annoying infinite scrolling websites?
Besides of the major drawbacks of the infinite scrollig methods, I think killing the blog view altogether means killing browsing the all posts, unless there is a workaround that you know and hopefully you can help me with it!
As you know there is no browser capable to display the whole 2013 and 2012 posts (around 12,000 posts) in an infinite scrolling site to show 2011 posts!
Regards
Haider
April 17, 2013 — 10:42 am
Evan Kline says:
When I click the “latest posts” link at the top of Lifehacker in Safari on my Mac, I can scroll to the bottom. I’m not sure if that helps, or not. It seems that Lifehacker (Gawker) keeps thinking it can somehow discover a better wheel, when the wheel really doesn’t need any improvements. The designers seem to think that they’re smarter than everybody else.
April 17, 2013 — 10:48 am
Haider says:
This is the response of the help.gawker.com to my query : Where is the blog view? I cannot browse old posts anymore (let’s say posts in 2011)
Here is their reply:
————————–
Hello,
Unfortunately we no longer offer Blog View and blog view URLs do not work. The transition to Kinja involves both a site and platform revamp. For more information, please check out http://lifehacker.com/welcome-to-the-new-lifehacker-472650381
Thank you,
Steven C.
————————–
What a terrible platform revamp!
April 17, 2013 — 11:33 am
Evan Kline says:
Well that stinks. It’s all about the page views in the here and now.
April 18, 2013 — 6:36 am