Liked the old site because it was easy to use and contained the up-to-date relevant news in logical locations.  The new one is a mess.  Start over.

This new site is pretty awful - hard to navigate, unorganized, and very confusing.  I think readers are looking for simple, clean, and quick.  Who has time to scroll through sort our all this stuff?

THis is pretty awful.  Who has time to sort through and scroll through this mess?  I think people want clean, simple, and navigable!!!

Hard to navigate, unorganized, and cluttered.  No one has time to scroll through and sort out all of this.

And another problem with the new on-line web site. I posted a comment on November 23rd about the new site and each day since I have received an email saying that someone has posted a comment to my comment. However, no comment is posted, just a repeat of my original posting.
Will this continue for the rest of my life?

I agree with just about everyone that has already posted.  The site is way too cluttered and incredibly slow.  A good rule of thumb is if I can’t find what I’m looking for with fewer than 3 clicks, I’m leaving - and needless to say, I can’t find ANYTHING on the new site with just one click or two.  Get rid of the huge scrolling video and section piece on the front page and feature headlines and the most viewed stories.  As many have said - there are a lot of good examples out there (NYT, WP, etc).

Also, I’m on the go a lot and used to read inrich.com on my blackberry.  It was a pain, but at least it could be done.  With the new site, it’s nearly impossible to read even a single article.  So either change the site to be more blackberry-friendly or make a mobile version.

Wow, what a robust forum.  No shy responders here!

Fibson is either clueless or an idiot.  Possibly both.

The lead story introducing this ‘wonderful’ site, uses the word functionality twice in the first two sentences.  Ouch.

The site is so error ridden and has been so error ridden that it’s an embarrassment.  Fibson, as has been pointed out by other readers,  could not possibly read his own site.  There are repeated identical stories all over - as has been the case for more than a year. What a joke. They could not have an editor. Could they?  Do you think a third grader could spot duplicate stories?  Just how hard can that really be?

The content has been out of date for years.  Fibson again is apparently asleep.  For example, just today if you click on opinion, you get editorials from NOVEMBER 19!  I think today is Nov 25. WHAT A JOKE.  Top management seems to not care.

Last, the gosh awful ads have saturated the site.  The Arby’s ad last week was an ad from hell.  Fibson is so foolish that he thinks getting paid per click from the Arby’s ad, is a money maker for the RTD.  The joke is on him. It only makes readers hate his site, and therefore avoid it.  It’s particularly insidious, because like a snake in the grass, you ‘click’ it without meaning, or wishing to, so it’s really a dishonest click.  I always thought the RTD strived to be ethical.

I won’t move my mouse over that ‘snake pit’ top right area, and if I accidentally hit it, I’ve turned off the audio on my pc so I don’t have to listen to the sound.

Times Dispatch if you are listening, Fibson is way over his head, and is single handedly ruining your online content.  Sad. 

Maybe top management figures that since it’s a free service, they have no concerns over accuracy, timeliness, or convenience.  It’s a choice they make at their peril. 

When a news publisher is no longer known for accuracy or current content their reason for being ceases.  Online, there are tens of thousands of other choices for news!

This is one of the most ill conceived redesigns of a media site I’ve seen in a long while.  Change is great, but if you have the opportunity to change a content rich site like the RTD site, you’d expect that usability and ease of navigation would be high on the list.  The issues that draw my ire are below:

1. Why the emphasis on video?  This is a newpaper website.  I’m here for content in text form.  Video is fine, and if you’re trying to move towards a more diverse content base, fine.  But at least make sure your videos aren’t so under-produced.  Then what’s the point?
2. Why the attempt to move towards web coding standards if the validation is going to fail so horribly?
3. Navigation looks awful in every browser.  Why go live with a new design when the MAIN nav bar doesn’t line up with divider marks or render the overly javascripted dropdowns?
4. Speaking of javascript, why not use a framework like 100% of the other large content site out there to reduce the amount of bugs in browser rendering?
5. I’m posting the main forum here at the RTD site - it took 5 clicks of digging to get here, it should take 2.
6. Amount of ads.  I get it, you want the site to make money, there’s nothing wrong with ads.  But, only if done properly.  The ads implemented on the new redesign are MySpace-esque indeed.  There’s no rhyme or reason or logical structure to their placement.  That of course makes sense as the rest of the site is poorly laid out until you drill down into an actual article.
7. Cohesive design.  You don’t have it.  This is obviously a prepackaged content management system that someone skinned poorly.  CMS’s are great if used properly.  This was done by an amateur or a professional with his or her hands tied by silly management.

I’m not asking RTD to be CNN.com or WSJ.com, but a little design aesthetic goes a long way.  White space is your friend, even on a content rich site like this.  I look forward to the reboot.

Not only is the new site not aesthetically pleasing, but it doesn’t even work in Firefox!

I can understand browser incompatibility if this was 1995, but in 2008 this is outrageous (especially so if you paid someone to develop this site).

Please let us know who you hired to develop this site.  Whoever was responsible at RTD for hiring this firm and launching this site should have some explaining to do!

How do you expect to stay in business given the economic pressures print media is facing and the migration of newspapers to online news? 

I can’t even read the Richmond news online anymore.  More than anything, that is the supreme disappointment.

Thanks for abandoning some of your recent “improvements.“  Your site was truly miserable there for a while.  Now, could you please give us back a Metro section?  It’s unnecessarily cynical, although probably still appropriate, to call it “Crime.“

Also, what has happened to this Forum section?  It’s become incredibly complicated and I wonder if it’s an attempt to discourage the outpouring of feedback you received several weeks ago.

I finally figured out that the old inRich.com is NOT the right site for the Times-Dispatch. I was very vocal about the changes…hated all of them. However, now that I realized I need to click on the Times-Dispatch banner at the top of the inRich.com page, I found things much, much nicer. I’m going to guess that it won’t be long before the other site is gone.