I think this is an implicitly non-constructive question by design. Before I get to the point, let me clarify a few things:

• Whether you like it or not, Hashnode provides you this service free-of-charge in exchange for you offering content and helping others. Just because this is the nature, it does not mean that 100s of man hours went into it. It is up to you to admire this work or not of course, but at the very least it deserves respect.

• Design is experimentation at its core and finding new avenues, creating need and perspective out of thin air is in the nature of this profession. Subjectivity is more then welcome. Therefore as users, we should first try to understand the "direction" Hashnode team wants to go before we give comments. Once we understand the goal, then we should make constructive comments towards that goal.

• Since the website contains a lot of different parts, APIs etc, it might be that the Hashnode team is also doing a work in progress/adaptive approach, and the end result is possibly "clear" to them. But it might be obscured from the users, in that case I think it is best for the users to wait until the dust settles before they make their comments.

As for me, I sense that direction Hashnode team wants to go is for a simpler, more elegant design that offers the same capability and perhaps even more (now you can log with your github etc.). Based on this goal I think they have done a fabulous job! I wish them luck and encourage them to continue down the avenue that they think fits their website best.

I've got mixed opinions. I still hate the use of serif fonts either way; just something else for me to override client-side with user-CSS via Stylish. Say it with me people, serif is for print, sans is for screen. Screens (or at least normal screens normal people have) lack the dpi to clearly render serifs. PERIOD. Do not pass go, do not collect $100. They compromise legibility!

The new layout has some severe issues for large font/non-standard DPI users since the content column is declared in pixels but the fonts in EM. -- making it painfully narrow. If you're going to use EM to make it scaling friendly and meet at least SOME WCAG minimums, USE IT!!! EM fonts inside a PX container? /FAIL/

But then I HATE narrow content columns like how facepuke pisses on their pages.

The fixed sidebar is more annoyance than help, though perhaps a toggle to show/hide it might be nice? In either case it is WAY too wide thanks to WAY too much side padding. Same can be said for the right column.

The overall "left alignment" of the design is kind of wonky. Feels "incomplete" on a 2560 display even for a user like myself who puts the taskbar on the left and the tabs (Vivaldi user) on the right.

The editor is broken trash, but then given this uses some bizzaroland markdown-like that just pisses me off when trying to post things like CODE -- I still end up screaming at the display "Oh for f* sake, just let us use BBCode!"

Of course the not quite white text on the bright green for the buttons fails to meet accessibility minimums the same way the garbage white on light blue did on the old ones, meaning at least half the population likely can't even see what the submit button even says. Colour contrast, LEARN ABOUT IT! Also consider AAA small the minimum if using thin-glyph fonts since modern font-smoothing is NOT accounted for by the WCAG 2.0 spec. (often helps to test render instead of declaration)

Or if you're feeling lazy, use an online tool like webaim's to make sure you're not telling large swaths of users to sod off.

webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker

Which if you test, white foreground over #2FC681 is /FAIL/ even on the highly permissive AA Large. Hell, the devil grey #666666 text over #E8EAF5 fails AAA normal, not good when much of the thin-glyph and lineart is being done in it, after sub-pixel hinting ending up as bright as #888888's level (though coloured) -- an instant /fail/ even at AA Large.

Don't even get me STARTED about the ridiculous bandwidth and processing overhead. Even just a view source of the markup screams "WTF" with static images in the markup pissing on caching models. Yes, I know they're SVG, yes I know you're flipping the bird at accessibility by AJAXing in content out of the "pageloads are evil" paranoia, that's no excuse.

Given what this site DOES, I'd not be surprised if at least half the code client-side could be pitched in the trash with minimal impact on functionality.

Mind you, MOST of the above complaints are nothing new.

Absolutely love the new design. It's refreshing, far more solid and snappy feeling. Everything just seems better.

I like the new one except for font in posts and comments :)).

I'm a fan towards the movement of a more modern aesthetic using more padding and illustrations. I'm liking some of the things happening on the frontpage of the website.

There were a few UX/UI decisions that I'm finding to be cumbersome.

The sidebar is a bit large, distracting, and I've lost the ability to easily accomplish key functions (check notifications, make new discussion, and search).

The profile pages are a step backwards, I actually really loved the layout of the previous iteration.

The colors still need a bit of work. It's too low contrast at the moment, making the site difficult to read. And the fonts just aren't doing it in some areas (like the buttons, or the mash up between solid sans-serif titles and the very curly serif description). A few tweaks in font choices could elevate it to another level.

The new editor looks better, and improves upon the last by adding quick buttons for Markdown that I couldn't recall. That said, it does need a few UX improvements to make it more utilitarian. When I hover over text and click the link button, it just pops in a sample link code, instead of converting my text selection into a link. Little things that make the experience less clunky.