Dilbert.com Redesign

Recently we redesigned the Dilbert.com web site and added a ton of features, such as animation, deeper archives, mash ups, and more. The reaction from readers has been fascinating.

www.dilbert.com

Let me get this out of the way: I realize the Beta version of the web site has lots of issues. It’s overloaded with Flash, slower than it needs to be, and the navigation is confusing. We’re fixing most of that over the next few weeks. I apologize for the inconvenience.

The fascinating thing about the responses is that it revealed three distinct types of Dilbert readers:

The first group is the ultra-techies who have an almost romantic relationship with technology. For them, the new site felt like getting dumped by a lover. Their high-end technology (generally Linux) and security settings made much of the site inconvenient. Moreover, the use of Flash offended them on some deep emotional level.

The second group objected to the new level of color and complexity, and the associated slowness. They like their Dilbert comics simple, fast, and in two colors. Anything more is like putting pants on a cat.

The third group uses technology as nothing more than a tool, and subscribes to the philosophy that more free stuff is better than less free stuff. That group has embraced the new features on the site and spiked the traffic stats.

For you first two groups, if you promise to keep it to yourselves, we created a stripped-down Dilbert page with just the comic, some text navigation, and the archive: www.dilbert.com/fast. This alternate site is a minor secret, mentioned only here and in the text footnote to the regular site as “Linux/Unix.”

The main site will be getting a Flash diet that will make it speedier soon, so check back in a few weeks. That’s where all the fun will be.

Enjoy.

Comments

[Al]

I'm somewhere between the second and third types. I lean more toward the third, though.

[Dan Jolt]

One more vote for (optional) black and white dailies.

With color they are only half as funny.

[Naveen Sundar G]

Hi Scott you are the coolest!! thanks for the fast and ad free site for nerds!!!!!

[=bg=]

PS- I have 3 popup blockers on my PC. One from IE6, one from Google, one from Yahoo.

Old site or new, a cheesy popup ad ALWAYS comes up from Dilbert.com. Do you need the cash from that, that bad?

PS- how bout a Dilbert theme for iGoogle?

[=bg=]

ashok does look like a lobster, but a minor thing. i just got the sunday strip for the first time via email (which is the way I prefer, almost never go to the site.) I consider myself very Net-fluent; live very close to Silicon Valley; yet mash-ups just hold no interest for me.
But since it's very Web 2.0, ya gotta give it a shot. The old site was stagnant for quite a while, so kudos for the facelift.

[Leora]

The Luddite community thanks you for your prompt attention to our concerns.

We have restored our 2D version of Dilbert in black & white (except Sundays, which remain intractably in colour). Glory be!

The rest of the newpaper is used for cat litter-box liners.

[Steve]

Glad you're listening. Although the /fast link should be in black & white, and the images are currently too small, especially on the Sunday strips.

I think you are misappropriating the spike in traffic, though. Much of the spike in traffic is due to the people who were having trouble with the new site and had to visit multiple times just to be able to read the comics. And I know I clicked a zillion links trying to navigate from day to day, or to read the Sunday strips (the new format is AWFUL for those) -- what pinhead decided we didn't want or need a calendar to catch up anymore?

Not only that, it almost seems like it wasn't implemented correctly. I have a fast machine and connection, yet the site was fairly slow, because some of the Flash stuff would load, display, disappear, and then reappear again. It was weird and annoying.

But, sorry, I like my websites fast and clean -- so, Flash Dilbert isn't pants on a cat... it's an entire frickin' tuxedo.

[Chuck]

Might want to make sure your site works with Firefox and other browsers. Us geeks who relate to Dilbert don't use IE crap.

[Shrink]

loading............loading...........loading...........loading..........I grow so old so fast...........loading........loading......(last breath)

[T.I.M.]

Marshall McLuhan defined the terms Hot and Cool in relation to media in Understanding Media. Olde Dilbert was very cool. Cool means "open mosaic" Cool means "less defined" Cool requires viewer participation. Hot means "all the spaces filled in"
B&W lo rez TV was ultra cool. Big screen Movies are really hot. Sparse Jazz is cool, orchestral classical is hot.
Comics are so engaging because the audience has to fill in gaps between cartoon figures and what they represent in real life.
McLuhan said the shift between hot and cool, in the mind of passionate adolescents using inside hip language, was the clearest vision into the changing media of the moment.
In B&W Dilbert the user puts in all the colors (at least one of your commentors put in drab colors) All your character voices are supplied by the reader. When you create animations you are providing a single window into character movement and voice quality and inflection that overrides the wonderful characters each reader has inside her head, hence ruining your tale.
Bruce Springsteen talked about making his early videos "My first thought was to shoot visuals of what the song was talking about. Like show a guy in a garage with his car when the lyrics suggest it. Turned out this was totally wrong. My fans already have a car and a garage in their heads for the song and it means a lot to them. When I show them my car and garage it ruins their picture. So when the lyrics talk about a car and a garage I now want to show anything but."
Your fans already have a voice for Dilbert and Wally, they already know how they move, they already know what color everything is...inside their own head. When you heat up your presentation by providing all these details you lose their participation in your art. And soon you will lose the interest of your serious Dilbert fans.
However There are other people who really want all that definition because they don't have the imagination to fill in the blanks. They are empty vessels waiting to be programed by state propaganda.
So I guess you are doing the right thing to be in line with the emerging police state. In the federal reserve bank you trust. Hell you could be the next Hanna Montanna. However your dream of saving the world will have to be about saving more zeros in your bank account.

[Kirado]

Thanks for listening it means a lot! I had to give up on Dilbert for a week because your site took so long to load the most recent comics. Then trying to figure out if that was the most recent comic was another battle.

I thought I'd never get to see any current Dilbert ever again. While the mashups idea is interesting.. using flash is a big no no!.. It's slow clunky and annoying. Maybe when we all have web 3.0.. anything that makes it hard to see the latest strip in less than 1/4 of second is baaaaad.

While you might have more traffic temporally because of the latest features, this will quickly wear off as people get tired of it.

[Nimrod]

I don't think so man! The new site is less usuable than the old. That's the problem. Scrolling the Sunday strip = bad. It ruins the comic. Browsing older strips = hard. Which is usually what we want to do.

A lot of the new features are good, though. Like voting, comments, mashups, and search by character.

Also, when you allege that your site is "free" you're oversimplifying your business model. Don't imply that we're not appreciative... It's in your interest to keep us coming to the site.

In my opinion, your designers messed up in a few (important) ways. Good to know you're working on it, though. Look forward to the next version.

[macuga]

I'll definitely be using the fast site. Also, when someone patronizingly calls people's reactions "fascinating," he's usually setting himself up for a nice shin-kicking.

[Neil Wilson]

Sorry already gone to

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/dilbert

That way I can read them in glorious monochrome.

It'll be interesting to see if the 'traffic spikes' continue or whether it is just people wanting to view how awful the site redesign is.

Bad tech, Scott. I'd sack the jesters that came up with it.

[belt]

Sorry to go OT Scott, but I wanted to bring the following to your attention in line with my model of the universe which says we are all the creation of a single mind as well as part of it. http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/brain-universe.html

Isn't that cool?

PS: Not sure if the multipanel strip worked as well for me.

[Anthony Howe]

Thank you for the "fast" site. There is still hope. Now if we could get rid of the colour, which reminds me of badly colourized black & white films.

[bumpman]

Add a RSS feed to the fast page and it would be complete. :)

[bumpman]

Just keep the image shrinking aside and the fast site will be perfect. A browser shrinking images can usually make them look blurry and all compared to an actual image editing tool like Photoshop doing the same job. So I'd suggest to keep the original comic strip sizes from the original site.

[Jayre]

Uh, I think you killed the dilbert strip rss feed with the new site. It hasn't updated since the 16th.

[smsoom]

Thank you.
http://www.roo7oman.com/vb

[Dan Beeston]

I'm just glad that I've got a legit option for RSS now.

[Les Ross]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for Dilbert/fast.
I thought I was going to have to remove the link from our web site.

[elmindreda]

Thank you from a first group Dilbert reader.

[Traume]

Scott,
I hope you have the proper funding for this project. Don't forget to involve marketing, engineering, quality-control, and of course, the legal department.

Traume

[shryko]

I prefer it in colour, hate how slow it loads now, don't use the fancy features (too slow for my patience...)

really, I prefer the way it was (but would prefer it being colour to strictly the way it was)

that in mind, I don't mind the new version... at least, not THAT much...

PS. yes, I use linux, but no, I don't romance my computer. I'll find a person to romance, as computers won't love me back... yet.