Hello. User#1200 here, I have been here since almost the beginning.
I am sorry, but the new look for Daily Kos is almost useless. Not only does it present a confusing look, it fails to emphasize what had made this site great — community.
Before anyone defends it — yes, I know you can click on a specific place to see the site in the old format. But that does not work on the mobile site.
What the world now sees when they see the site is a jumble of headlines, mixed in with advertisements, and frankly it looks like some sort of Newsmax type propaganda site. IT FEELS LIKE A TABLOID. The clear organization of community diaries that get promoted by the community, evident to any new user, is gone in the current format. Worse, when I have a spare moment and check Daily Kos, I have to navigate on my phone to find “Community” to see any breaking news or commentary. It has made using Daily Kos as a way to see instant commentary on news not really practical. It has essentially made my use of Kos drop significantly.
When I click on the menu I see:
Staff
Community
Trending
Elections
Liberation League — what the hell does that even mean?
Prism — again, what the hell is Prism?
From Markos’ Desk
Comics
Other than the last two and maybe trending these categories are useless as organizing principles. I feel like the solid structure that was put in place that clearly lays out the structure of our community is defunct, and as web designers know, structure defines content and how people interact with the site.
Also note there is still the issue in the old format that an ad window appears and blocks the right side of the screen unless you scroll all the way up. ALL of these issues are not a big deal if its some blog. But this site is the #1 liberal site. An achievement, but I doubt it had anything to do with the jumbled, amateurish format the site currently presents, especially on mobile.
By the way, I’m not a neophyte, have experience with web design and programming, and if you have to explain in the comments how all I have to do is this, this and this, it’s not a good intuitive design.
I fear Daily Kos is going to slide into irrelevance or be slotted into a place occupied by the less scientific, reality-based media. Because, again, design drives content.