When I founded GM Authority back in 2009, I built it with the web equivalents of cardboard, crayons, and glue. But as you may have already noticed, GM Authority has undergone a significant change-up over the past 24 hours — a change that delivers the web equivalents of swapping out the flimsy and easily-to-fail bits with real aluminum and state-of-the-art paint and welding processes. And I’d love to present some of these changes to you here.
What’s New
Cleaner & More Polished
For starters, the New GM Authority features a cleaner, more polished, and more streamlined design than the outgoing version. What this means to you is a better reading experience (your eyes will thank you on those long-form articles), and better navigability — allowing you to go where you want to go, faster and easier than ever before.
A Unified (Responsive) Experience
Perhaps the biggest change is that the New GM Authority is now the same website across all devices, so whether you are using a widescreen monitor (we utilize that extra space when we can), a tablet (you can open and close the sidebar), or a smartphone (check it out in portrait or landscape), you will be using the same awesome new site — only optimized for the particular device you’re using at that particular moment in time. Hello 21st century!
Sign Up, Log In, Discuss
Now, for the first time ever, you can now register and stay signed in to GM Authority on any device.
So whether you’re reading the latest GM news on the blog and want to leave a comment, or want to start a discussion in our GM Forum (all-new, by the way), you can do both with the one single account.
Even better is the fact that account holders (accounts are 100% free) have gained the ability to edit their comments, and can now even ask us to delete them — both features that many of you have been asking for, for months.
Nested Comments
Speaking of discussions: one of the many benefits of a unified website is the ability to reply to specific comments on any device. Before, this was only possible on the full desktop experience — and led to some confusion when it came to heated debates. No more.
Fresh Off The Press
We also brought back the ability to browse recent articles, recent comments, and most popular articles with our Fresh Off The Press section.
Faster
Something else you’ve asked for is speed: GM Authority took way too long to load (most of the time).
The New GM Authority loads nearly four times faster than the outgoing version, and we have more speed-related improvements in the works.
Just The Beginning
So, The New GM Authority is more user-friendly, easier to read, and faster — among other improvements. I hope you enjoy discovering the various new features as you use the new design across all of your devices.
But not to miss the forest for the trees, The New GM Authority is only the beginning. It provides a much-needed solid foundation on which we will build going forward, while allowing us to be significantly more flexible than ever before.
Perhaps most of the improvements and changes that represent The New GMA are things that aren’t immediately noticeable to the naked eye… in fact, you may never notice some of them. But it’s these inconspicuous items that will allow us to continue delivering unparalleled General Motors coverage you’ve come to know and love from GM Authority — today, and well into the future.
So just as the 2014 Chevy Impala has retired certain features (front bench seat, or flip-and-fold rear seats) in favor of a significantly-better, more modern, and more competitive vehicle that Chevrolet and the vehicle’s owners can be proud of, so has The New GM Authority polished its act for a product that is significantly better in the grand scheme of things… a product that allows us to deliver a better experience now, and upon which we can build, later.
Thank You
I’d like to thank everyone on the GM Authority Team for putting in the countless hours planning, designing, programming, converting, and testing to make The New GM Authority possible, and I want to extend a huge and sincere Thank You to all of our readers for making GM Authority your GM community.
With reverence and love for all that we do,
Alex Luft
Founder, GM Authority
PS: we don’t let user feedback go by the wayside, so if you have suggestions about how we can improve The New GM Authority, please don’t hesitate to email me directly: alex [at] gmauthority [dot] com.
Comments
Lookin good! I was wondering why the site wasn’t working Friday night but it was worth it.
Excellent improvement. I like the cleaner look and the white background. It is much easier to read. Thanks
Nice change, a little shocking at first, but after a minute a reading and navigating it’s great ! Thank you & keep up the hard work. We hope that you can finally make a little money for your work too !
It threw me off at first.
I preferred the old layout as the colours of the darker theme were easier on my eyes. I always feel that when I look at a page that is predominately white in colour, I feel like I’m starting at a light bulb.
Users won’t get the ability to customize the page appearance from within their account, will they?
@Grawdaddy Ironically, every single UX study (at least that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few) states that black-on-white is significantly less fatiguing than white-on-black. Usually, the studies conclude that a reader needs to “focus” their eyesight significantly more on the black-on-white pages, leading to eventual vision fatigue; this escalates in exponential fashion with the length of the article.
“Users won’t get the ability to customize the page appearance from within their account, will they?”
Not yet 🙂
I have just completed my study black on white is is the way to go. At least for my age group 50ish.
Alex, Excellent work… Look forward to many mor years of reading GMA…
The redesign of the website looks great Congratulations!! 🙂
Good job Alex. It looks great.
The new format is definitely easier on my 50somethingish eyes, the website seems easier to navigate as well. You guys keep up the good work here. One other thing though. What’s up with the math problem that has to be answered before a posting is accepted?
To keep the clowns from the other GM website away.
@Paul thanks for the feedback! We’ll keep improving as we move forward.
About the math problem: its an anti-spam measure that allows us to (more or less) eliminate spam comments, resulting in a better discussion. And as Clifford mentioned, it keeps the conversation limited to those who are bright enough to solve a simple math problem, improving the overall quality of the discussion 🙂
Looks nice but I was getting used to the sequential time line of articles. The new multi view format is more efficient though. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think the search bar has gone, please bring it back and bring back the short descriptions of each brand when you open their tab in the menu. I liked having the link to Alex’s article on replacing Holden with Chevy there. Made it easy to find.
Preferred the old single column layout better, and the dark theme. Site speed much improved though.
I like the change.
I welcome especially that the preview images for each post in the post listing became smaller, leaving the full size for the actual post window.
And I like that the post list is in two rows.
Both result in lowering the superflouus traffic and make the scrolling of the post list easier.
I would like to see another improvement:
The possibility to navigate from one post window to the next and previous, without having to go back to the full post listing.
Ooops, I just found those links to next/previous story. Had that been a recent addition, or was it just hidden to my eyes?
BTW, I lost several times my posts as they did not pass the captcha test — couldn’t the wordpress software preserve the input?
Another great addition: the possibility to edit a comment after it had been posted.
But I do not know which URL I am supposed to enter in the edit form, and how the access to my comments is secured against edits by other participants. And vice versa…
Alex–
Good job! A bolder or darker font would improve readability, however. A narrower, columnar, layout, a la newspapers, is easier to “scan”. Is there a practical way to make the layout user-adjustable? I would prefer the narrow columns when I’m in a hurry.
A lot of work went into your revision, and it really shows. Keep it up!
Something else I just noticed here, there is no search “window” to type in a subject or key word and hit “search” to look something up like it seems there used to be.
Paul — there is a search box, but it is at the very bottom of each page. We will address that in an upcoming release of GM Authority 🙂
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