Welcome to The A.V. Club: Now more beautiful and powerful than ever

By A.V. Club Staff and Tasha Robinson | January 11, 2009 | 3:00pm

Aux Features Article

Hello and welcome to the new-look The A.V. Club. Why launch a redesign now? For the best reason possible: We outgrew the old design. We've been working on this project for a while, pretty much from the moment we realized we were churning out more content on a daily basis than our old design could handle. We wanted to create something that featured our pop-culture coverage in a way that was attractive and easier to navigate, and that allowed us room to grow. We spent a long time tinkering with different looks before developing this one, and we hope you like it as much as we do. We've also added a few new features for you to explore.

Channels: At the top of the page, you'll see tabs for various A.V. Club channels. Want to look at, say, all of our recent music coverage? Click on the music tab—or scroll down to the recent music reviews and click "see all" next to "music." Why, it's almost like tuning into a channel!

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Improved commenting and registration: You asked for it. You (eventually) got it. Registered users can now upload user icons and post personal profiles. Want to read every comment by Lexicondevil? Now you can—just click on the user name. Want to know what movies Bee Man Caught In Sting likes best? If Bee Man Caught In Sting posts about them, you'll know.

Improved search engine: No more apologies or telling users to use Google. Our search engine works now. Really!

Improved feature breakdowns. Want to read all of My Year Of Flops, New Cult Canon, and other regular A.V. features? Use the "feature jump" pulldown menu to see them gathered in one place.

Better scrollback. Miss a couple of days of content? New features still disappear off the front page after a few days, but now they don't just evaporate into the archives; hit the "see all features" button at the bottom of the left column, and you can scroll back through old content in order. If you're bored enough, you can scroll all the way back to 1997. Warning: It isn't pretty back there. Not everything will import perfectly to the new layout, though we're working on fixing our import system. Feel free to let us know if you spot problems that need immediate attention.

Decider callouts. Reviews of live music and particularly noteworthy articles from our local editions around the country.

And feel free to chat about reactions to the new site look here or anywhere else, but keep in mind that we aren't everywhere at once, and if you try to let us know about bugs via the comment boards, there's no guarantee that we'll see it in a timely manner, or that the right people will see it at all. That's what the "Contact Us" page (linked at the bottom of every A.V. Club page) is for. Find a problem with the site? Hit "contact us," choose "Technical Problem," and tell us about it. Have a question, a suggestion for a feature, or just thoughts you don't want to share with the rest of the world? Choose "general comment or question" and let us know.

And remember, no matter what page you're on, you can always click on the A.V. Club logo at the top to go back to the comfort of the home page.

So, we now go boldly into a new A.V. Club era. And while we're sure there are some kinks to work out, especially in these first few days, we think you'll like what you find. Or, at the very least, recognize our intentions and not beat us up too badly in the comments below. Wait. Don't say a word. Don't spoil this moment. Let's just look at each other for a second.

Okay. What do you think?