As a web designer of 25 years with a speciality in design and UX I'll offer constructive criticism here:
1. The bug previously mentioned of Ctrl+F then search and BORK needs a fix. Sort of amazing that got through testing.
2. The colour palette of white, red, but then different shades of grey, even a pink grey just doesn't work. It looks like some boxes have typical AI bordering, each with different thicknesses. It's not an improvement on what you had before.
3. Roboto.... if you are going to have a refresh.. at least change your typography. Roboto is just so bland and used everywhere. Most sites have 2 typefaces (any more than 3 doesn't work), just one is a bit limiting. It's devoid of any character or spunk, and oh boy.. does El Reg have plenty of both of those.
4. Arranging content in columns on a desktop browser makes little sense. There may be some very isolated cases where it works. You end up with everything not aligned with each other which is hard on the eye. However, if you are going to have something that resembles a masonry layout... at least put the bricks/ cards. But instead you just have floating content with just a line at the bottom of each story. They just bleed into each other and the eye doesn't know where to look. Some sections have 3 columns, some 4 equal, some 4 of differing widths, it's a mess. I think on one page I saw a card background but it was so faint, I hardly noticed it.
5. The images on the website are not particularly useful. A massive image of a finger pressing an OK button that takes up about 30 % of the screen has no value. A box with a chrome logo on it at a beach does not help its story. Not saying don't have images (you need them for sharing), but less emphasis would go a long way and an option to turn them off would be good.
6. You have buttons and badges that are similar (red boxes with white text). This is just confusing. I realise that the reds are different shades but still. Then further down the home page you have a HUGE transparent button with a black border. It looks like it doesn't fit. Additionally some badges are opaque and some are transparent. It's just all so disjointed and out of place with each other. You should have a brand style and stick to it.
7. You have an italic header style that starts to appear down the page but looks like it's from another site.
8. You have section titles on the home page - some are underlined, some are not. Some of the underlined ones link, others don't. So what is the underline supposed to represent?
Overall I don't want to throw out insults. Graphic design is subjective and criticism can hurt a designer, I've been there many times. But it just looks like you wanted something modern but you've ended up with a mismatch between what you had before and what you should have. Nothing is coherent or easy to use. Don't get me wrong... I LOVE El Reg and have been a member for 19 years and reading probably a few more years than that. I just think the site deserves better. I understand and fully agree you should not go back, but hope over time you can improve what you have.
Credit where it's due for fixing the read /unread bug so quickly.
