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I hate "minimalism" with a passion. I understand phone icons becoming minimalistic, as skeuomorphism started looking a bit outdated, but there is absolutely no reason for companies to change iconic designs and logos into shells of what they used to be. Sucking the soul out of something does not count as a redesign.

Now I'm curious, where were they putting out this warning?

This whole thing reeks of

Is there an option to have the old UI back? That way, people who like the old one can just keep it, and people who want the new one can do nothing.

Is there an option to have the old UI back? That way, people who like the old one can just keep it, and people who want the new one can do nothing.

That would be amazing.
Alas, that will never happen. The staff are too far gone.

Can I also point out how it is kinda weird that this thread doesn't show up in the Trending Topics, even though it is one of the most active as of today?

That would be user friendly, so no, they aren't gonna do that.

Question for Discord users, because I don't visit that hellhole you call Discord Server, do people there complain about the new UI?

Whelp, you straight up can't look at, or leave comments while on mobile. This is slowly turning from a meme site into a shitty news site.

I don't like it either. The reasons for this have been already elaborated by many users.

Don't know, I was recently banned.

2 Days ago, I got access to KnowYourMeme Redesign's Image Gallery. So far, this is what it should've been, a mix of Old and New, no wasted spaces.

I was the first who brought that up on that server when I first discover the redesign on the Gigachad entry.

as you probably guess, the reception there is also negative.

For fucks sake's, the userbase wouldn't be revolting if this were what they did to articles, as well. The banner may be different, the text is a bit off, but most importantly, It takes advantage of the fact that most desktop screens are wider than they are tall. It's just enough to bring us into the modern age, and for fucks sake staff, this would have been enough.

This is the sort of 'minimalism' one can get behind – minimalistic in its deviation from what came before.

My prediction almost came true: Quitting the website because of the UI Design.

now my next prediction: "Still stays in KnowYourMeme despite quitting the website", forcefully getting used to the redesign, and when a website do another redesign, the person will complain about it again, saying the same "old ui better" stuffs… despite them saying the same thing to the previous redesign less than [insert Redesign period here] year ago."

as a person who experienced YouTube Redesigns (and host a website who previously received a redesign) and played with Twitter and Reddit's Redesign for 3 years before forcing it on everyone (funnily enough, Twitter's Redesign is already functionable from the start), they ALWAYS don't take account of functionability.

if you look at the Redesign's Image Gallery and Upload Images/Videos, it should've been THIS type redesign from the start: keeping the functionability of the website but have a UI reskin. KnowYourMeme is capable of doing it.

But no, they rather make it "Modern UI without substance" over functionable.

Look, the only reason I'm still on this website is to see if anything changes. If not, then I'm outta here. I was never really all that active here and I mostly just browsed images, so it's not like I'm super attached to KYM. In most cases, when a website has a complete redesign, my usage of it decreases. I used to spend hours on YouTube, now I barely open it. Facebook's redesign was what finally drove me away from it for good. At least old Reddit is still accessible.

And as others have said before, KYM was fine with the old design. Don't fix what isn't broken. Forcing it will just alienate everyone.

So I'll lurk for a while and see what happens. If the design is there to stay, I'll leave.

And of course the main pages for all the entries won't load. New format doesn't even functionally work now.

I don't know if any staff are actually reading this, but I'd like to bring up two things that haven't been mentioned yet.

1. The Menus in the Entry Submission screen are broken, so you can't actually create proper entries now.

2. The new code is completely incompatible with the adverts. I don't use ad blocker, as I just ignore the adverts; but now the vast majority of the screen is just blank grey squares.

I understand this is mainly being done for the mobile users; but wouldn't it be most cost-effective and practical in the long run to just create a mobile version of KYM form scratch like YouTube and IGN did for their sites and leave the main desktop one alone?

At the very least, it'd be nice to have a "Classic/Desktop" Option that we can use; just like other sites do.

It's in the image galleries now. GET RID OF IT.

As it stands, if the new UI rolls out in-place of the current, I shall leave this site for good.

Hmm, every page 404s now.

Knowing how common website redesigns are, you most likely going to leave the entire Internet (or, technology in general) than staying in KnowYourMeme.

Otherwise, my stances with the current work-in-progress KYM Redesign haven't changed and I already voiced my feedback there.

That's the polar opposite of "cost-effective" if we're talking a separate Mobile Website built from the ground up (instead of mobile-optimized layout or Progressive Web App/Web Application), and KYM Mobile Web already exist. (And frankly, the Mobile Redesign is superior to Desktop Redesign right now.)

as a person who have a website and done a redesign before; I rather take a Mobile-optimized layout of the same website over making a website exclusivity for Mobile devices.

For now it is gone.

Agreed. I would be down if this was the redesign for the website.

For the love of god stop changing the UI, it's shit and no one likes it.

Okay, now I'm having an issue where the comment page numbers and arrows randomly won't display at all, meaning I can't access any comments beyond the first page and the two top comments.

Specifically, it's happening to me here: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/second-impeachment-of-donald-trump

The UI is unironically hurting my eyes. That ain't even a joke. Also can't tell what's an ad and what's part of the site.

Hmm, I gotta say I absolutely don't like the new UI like, at all. I just hope that this whole redesign isn't some thing the staff are forced to do by their parent company. The new UI is bad, the main reason being that it doesn't even look like a easily readable wiki page like the current familiar UI anymore, it's more like a "trendy hip" online news article and those have awful UI issues that makes the content borderline unreadable.

Honestly, I've been thinking about this idea about the situation so, how about this. The Staff/Mods organise a contest where the community designs the UI and whoever wins, well becomes the site's new UI. I'm sure someone will do a design that will satisfy both the majority of the "core community" and whoever who wanted this site to have a more "recent" design.

Eitherway, I'm a strong supporter of the whole "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and the option for users to keep the old UI intact. Nowadays, websites don't even give you the option to customise your website's layout and they force you with this slow, data collecting minimalistic UI garbage. Reddit might be the big exception with it giving you the choice between the shitty, Facebook like new design or the old, dated but perfectly functionnal and fast design.

And 'bout the Ad spam/problems that could be a reason why they redesigned the site, to maybe attact more users. I legit hope the KYM Staff are considering having a Patreon/Donation page if they haven't thought of that already. Because I would love if they eventually trade out ad revenue with donations (if they get enough donations ofc)

I will literally stop using this site and tell everyone I know to not bother if this new user interface goes through, as I will not want other people to have to deal with it. I use this site because over other sites for meme browsing because of the nice ways in which it is formatted largely. This site has very little in the way of original content, by design it hosts things from other sites, which is fine.

Because of that though, it means that it has to live by the usability of its interface. Without that, I will just actually go spend time on twitter or reddit or something.

Its hilarious how even on mobile it looks horrible and doesnt seem to fit without adjusting the screen.

If the UI becomes permanent, I am leaving this site and I hope every other user does as well. What is irritating as of now is that it keeps flickering on and off. Stop trying to "ease us into it". While I realize it is the staff and not mods that make web design decisions, what gets me is the condescending and threatening attitude coming from some of the mods.

"You should be grateful we even give you a platform to begin with."

Ok, you're not 1% corporate bigwigs so don't try to sound like them. At least part of the reason there is so much civil unrest these days is because people don't want to live under a totalitarian corporate oligarchy, whether online or off.

Haven't checked all the pages but I noticed the ones I did were back to the old UI. Good.

If the game of 'musical chairs' between the UI continues though, I probably will leave as others have pointed out.

So we are making it so logged in users are getting served the old UI. There maybe some issues with this as we investigate a cookie validation issue, but we are looking to make the new UI completely optional as long as you have a KYM account.

Thank you. The new layout is extremely difficult for me to read, so it's nice that you're looking into keeping the old layout for users. This is how site redesigns should ideally be handled, and it's great to finally get some words on this.

Ah. So you're going with the Eclipse rollout strategy of 'only allow old users to use the old UI until we decide everybody should suffer', eh? I guess it will work to silence critique – those who can complain get the old layout they can actually use without gouging out their eyes, so they don't complain, while new users who aren't logged in will take one look at your ugly, bloated, ill-fitting new UI, see that it is ugly, bloated and ill-fitting, and leave forever without bothering to post a complaint on the forums. It's a smart move… until you decide that everyone should enjoy this modern UI, flip the switch, and then everyone is back at your throat again.

Just admit defeat, go back to the drawing board, and come back with a UI that allows you to jam in the ads you want without trying to turn a database into a news site. Like I said earlier, this isn't the Washington Post or the Montreal Gazette. This is a compilation of user-generated information, nominally intended to get you information on things you don't understand and give you further reading if you still need help. If you want to redesign your UI, look to Wikipedia for your answers – especially since it, too, has seen little need to change, given that the optimal way to serve text and images was stumbled upon early in the site's life. Update the header, modernize the text, maybe get rid of the skeuomorphism if you feel like that's a dire emergency, and fix your damn ad setup so it's not entirely broken no matter what UI you use. As shown with the previews of the image gallery update, we're not entirely unwilling to change – just so long as the core functionality and format of the website is preserved in the change, and you resist the urge to mutilate this site into something it isn't and will never be.

If you want to look 'fresh' and 'modern', adapt the current format with new fonts and slightly slicker page elements. If you want to make more money off of ads, make ads that load correctly, quickly and consistently, so that site usability isn't dependent on how strong your adblock is. If you want to make a news site, make Cheezburger the news page and have us go there to get news. If you want more money off of this dying site, ask your userbase nicely and wait for them to provide. If you want to piss off the userbase and kill the site entirely, get your stuff and leave.

What are you talking about this looks great on an ultra wide

That's pretty chad of yall

Best of both worlds.

Looks like shit.
Minimalist mobile design with 90% being blank space is complete shit.
Might as well scrap the logo and swap it for one rainbow colored characters in stock Serif font.

I'm glad that those with user accounts can get the old UI.

However, I have to say, for a website that's supposed to be about memes and internet culture, this UI redesign is incredibly-- sterile. It's baffling. The word "hospital" keeps going through my head as I navigate it. The old one had color; it was "cozy", for lack of a better word. Like others have said, I also fear that allowing us to use the old UI for now is just to tide us over until an "improved" version of the new UI is released, but this time the designers will dig in and not even allow us the option past that point.

I was going to post my thoughts but everyone has already said them much better than I could. So I will simply add my voice to the crowd disliking the new UI and believing it doesn't reflect the sites status as a meme documentation site.

Random pages are showing the awful UI now.

I haven't seen the new UI for a while so I'm hoping the staff have listened to the overwhelming feedback from their userbase, but if it keeps flip flopping I am genuinely considering leaving the site. I've been here for 7 years and it's been one of the best places to catch up on trends and read articles on whatever popular thing is flooding the rest of the internet so I'm not left confused and out of the loop. It's been a great place for fandoms and fandom content as well.

However, recently this hasn't been much of a meme site. The trending bar is almost always full of politics and news, rather than, you know, memes, and while yeah, this site also covers events, we don't need to focus on those. Gas stations sell sushi but you don't go to a gas station for the sushi.

It feels like the staff are trying to turn this into another shitty news site with the new layout. It's gotten to the point where I have a better time finding actual memes on twitter of all places, at least there I can block out the politics and avoid the toxicity. But here? All too often the trending images is flooded with shitty political memes and redundant articles about the same event, most of which have people that have made accounts here solely to get into internet fights with. I've had multiple people stalk me for daring to have the wrong opinion in the past few months. As in, go onto my wall and either imply that I'm a nazi or straight up post shock images.

TL;DR: I believe the new UI is just the most obvious of the problems that have been plaguing the site for far too long now, and only getting worse. Wherever this site's going, I don't like it, and if it doesn't change I don't think there will be enough left here to justify coming back to it. It really hurts me to say this because I really like the (non political) community on this site, and I've had my account since the days of MLP and Skyrim. I just want my meme site back…

I am logged in, and I'm still seeing the new layout.
Also:

Good shit KYM, I though we were over the autoplaying bullshit.

Not a fan, that's all.

In addition to what I wrote earlier, that solution for those who complained seems to have broken already – I'm getting served the new site exclusively now, and I'm not sure if I can even change that at this current time.

>minimalist design
>huge white spaces
>large text and buttons
So they're trying a responsive web design thing and merging the mobile and web sites. Does the first UI update in a decade at least mean they're finally going to fix the image back end and implement booru tags and filtering at long last?

Mothman said:

I just want my meme site back…

I miss it, too. I hope for a return to the old days, but I doubt it'll ever happen. Cheezeburger's implosion showed them memes didn't make money. To make money, you gotta rile people up and get them to stay on your site arguing and expressing outrage.

Someone please just GET RID OF THE NEW FUCKING UI FROM MY FACE!!!! IT IS A COMPLETE FUCKING PAIN FOR ME TO READ THE ARTICLES!!!! JUST STICK TO THE OLD UI FOR DESKTOP AND MOBILE PERMANENTLY!!!!!!!!!

why changing something that isn't broken in the first place ?

this website now looks totally unusable.

not only reaching the comments section feels like a nightmare, but then, you have to push a button just to see the comments for no reason.

the website is now vertically 4 times longer than before, which is not only a nightmare for PC users, but even worst for any mobile/tablet users.

now the website looks pretty amateurish.

that's just my opinion, but the person who made the new design should just be fired, especially for the waste of money and the potential good loss of users.

This seems to be broken right now. I'm still getting the new website on articles even though I'm logged in.