new ableton website is a total mess!

[hgt]

yo,
whats up with the new ableton website?
besides from being ugly as hell, its a total mess! there is no link to the forum. and its all setup to just sell the update and new boring controller. the color theme (diarrhea) represents the state of mind you must have been in lately.
navigation and links are often loops. it all reminds me of the frustration you get on the ebay site when looking up information and account data. hiding and loops.
please clean this mess up asap!!!

[Tall-Timber]

Agreed, each page feels like scrolling through miles of ads, lots of unorganized info and really goofy font sizes, just confusing overall. Thankfully I spend more time on live itself as opposed to the website.

[beatz01]

Yep, definately a case of "verschlimmbessert" just for the sake of trying to come accross modern and Apple-ish..

Like they wanna be a lifestyle brand now or something.

[Evengy]

Yep, definately a case of "verschlimmbessert" just for the sake of trying to come accross modern and Apple-ish..

Like they wanna be a lifestyle brand now or something.

modern yes but they don´t wanna be apple-ish or something. it´s a necessary step for touch/mobile devices. many other sites are turning it into a windows 8 like style.

[SpeedKing]

Yeah, I'll be the first to admit I'm a Ableton semi-fanboy. And I'll also be the first to admit that the website is almost embarrassing to show people in its current state. There's no question that the feel of the site is less professional than literally every other DAW out there.

I purchased Ableton about 1.5 years ago. It was after many, many hours of research online about all different DAWs. And I can tell you, if going to the official site was one of the first things I did when whittling down the list of DAWs, I would take Ableton off. I hate to say it, but it's true. I would assume that Ableton isn't as serious of a DAW as Reaper, Logic, etc., and I would've probably invested my time and energy at that point into looking into other DAWs. There is a 100% chance I would've thought to myself "Wow, if this is the best designed website they can come up with, I don't even want to think what they do with a complicated program".

The couple occasions when people have asked me about Ableton in the last few months (if they hear me mention it), I will send them to a youtube video or a third party website for them to get a feel for the program because the official site is too much of an unprofessional looking mess.

As I said, I hate to say it, but it's true.

[UltimateOutsider]

Yep. One of the worst site redesigns of 2012. Not only is it butt ugly but it's so confusing it took 3 days for the existing community of Ableton customers to figure out how to navigate it. If EXISTING customers are lost on your product site, how are new customers going to fare?

[Evengy]

If EXISTING customers are lost on your product site, how are new customers going to fare?

maybe faster because there is no need to readjust

[H20nly]

new ableton website is a total mess!

it sure is.

[joerg@hoewner.de]

At least I am not alone with that:
- It is difficult to find information
- The color scheme is a total mess, e.g. with regards to contrast, consistency
- You utterly destroyed (!) the users help users forum, it is now non-inviting, non-navigable

I can only hope that you invest the money you saved for not hiring a proper UX designer into something useful...

[Eventful]

Like they wanna be a lifestyle brand now or something.

I'm not opposed to this. Ableton feeling like more like a lifestyle is a nice thing.

I think that the new website is aesthetic and interesting, it doesn't feel like I'm on Microsoft's office page or some boring mess like that-

[Angstrom]

Yeah, it's not like we need to use the website to manage our product licenses and access our relevant downloads and other crucial product information, eh?

So why not have the "packs" page deliver less information than before but do it in a big splashy hip way. Why would I want to access my Live 7 packs at all on the packs page ?. Let's just get rid of that function eh! Because I'd rather look at a stylish big cropped thumbnail grid, rather than actual boring information for my products. I dont need legacy pack access, that's just OLD.
Be cooool. Gimme that sand, plaster, yellow, grey, another grey, another slightly different grey, yellow, purple, turquoise, pink, green and Win95 blue to really reinforce the brand identity as stable and trustworthy. And yes, I want all important buttons looking exactly like the things which aren't buttons, or just all different from each other. What people want from a product site holding account and credit card details is confusing interface elements and instant crash-ability on a range of browsers.

And really - everyone uses Google now anyway, so why should the site provide information findable, logically. Google is how most people are finding the pages now! That's just modern.

So, what's not to like about this design? It's coool! Web designers have said so. The only people who don't like it are the stupid users. Thats why the forum was hidden, because the users are wrong with their opinions about the functions and information they need, and the hip designers are right. Just check out what they said on the minimal web twitter "#mnml it's great, see you at #webdevconf 2013 for som back slapping! ".
Proof indeed that the site achieves its stated purpose.

Information is overrated, lets have style! What's that phrase " function shold follow form" ? Is it?

No.
No it isn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function

[H20nly]

^

+

[dnbhallifax]

+ 100000000000

It sucks and It has been soooooooooo dumbed down. SUCKS!!

(I think Ableton is moving in the direction of killing themselves out of the market they worked hard to create. Closing the users help forum is only going to hurt them. I hate FAQ! )

[Lye]

I personally think it's better. It looks more modern and it's not really about the website... the only issue is the help forum, that should have remained. I suspect they might be trying to do something bigger with the site, like turn it into a social network or something which.. i think is probably not the best idea.

[login]

Everything is better except downloading your packs, it needs to be alist, easy to navigate. But then , you only download packs once and then maybe if they update them, so not really worried about dealing with that mess.