[besson3c]

What do you think of this mockup and the points made here?

Design View / Andy Rutledge - News Redux


I think the whole wall of text on pretty much all popular news sites is at least a little too much, but why do so many follow this model? Even Steve Jobs has praised the NYTimes website (although perhaps for its content more than its design), so perhaps conventional wisdom is that these sorts of designs work best for these sorts of sites?

[angelmb]

Prime example of why shouldn't put the cart before the horse. That's what you get by skipping true design classes.

Thanks for the link !!

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

Prime example of why shouldn't put the cart before the horse. That's what you get by skipping true design classes.

Thanks for the link !!

It's kind of hard to believe that all of these well known sites have shipped these design classes, but I must admit that I haven't ever really thought about critiquing the NYTimes prior to this article. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[ghporter]

There is a tendency for web designers to feel that "design" has to be obvious, and that it should take precedence over content. The mock up page is functional, but does not stand out as a "design." It further does not get in the way of the content, making it work for an average reader of news.

I like the way it sort of emulates the printed page, but I would prefer two main columns with a side bar on either side, rather than a wide column, a narrow column, a skinny sidebar with icons and a cluttered gutter. To be honest, skinny newspaper columns are a turn off, with dumb justification and dumb column width getting in the way of the printed content, so fixing that in a "newspaper" web page style, allowing the reader to read more efficiently (and with less effort) would make any online news page look, read, and draw readers more effectively.

Finally, I would think that the NYT would want to emulate their iconic banner better than this mock up does. The NY Times is instantly identifiable by that banner, and the reader knows what to expect inside - that sounds like a perfect example of branding to me, and one that should be retained.

[lpkmckenna]

The basic problem with new design is that they try to made it resemble a physical newspaper, which is just dumb. But not nearly as dumb as what magazines are trying to do on tablets.

EDIT: yes, the proposed redesign is very nice.

[Dork.]

How about this?

[andi*pandi]

Interesting, and I think he has a point that there is too much clutter and redundancy on news sites. Popular posts = most read = most commented is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

His mockup is nicer but not realistic. It is more readable because it has less clutter, but has hidden lots of info. NYTimes probably put that long left nav in there because user testing indicated people couldn't find things. Ads are necessary.

He hasn't solved the design problem, he changed the design problem. But it's a good start.

Also, moving to design.

[art_director]

I sincerely detest the NYTimes website.

[andi*pandi]

Well, what about some of the projects here? I think the skimmer HTML5 thingy is a good improvement in readability, using webfonts etc.

beta620 | Experimental Projects From The New York Times

You can even pick your own layout:

http://beta620.nytimes.com/viewer/times-skimmer/

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

Well, what about some of the projects here? I think the skimmer HTML5 thingy is a good improvement in readability, using webfonts etc.

beta620 | Experimental Projects From The New York Times

You can even pick your own layout:

http://beta620.nytimes.com/viewer/times-skimmer/

That skimmer is very cool, but it ought to use hashes as a mean of tracking history so that pages are bookmarkable.

I like that the cursor keys can be used to move between pages. Perhaps some sort of a full article view would be nice too, for those that prefer having the entire article on a single page.

Thanks for posting this!

[imitchellg5]

This is weird. About two years ago I was terribly bored and redesigned the NYT homepage in Photoshop. I can't find the files on my MBP, it must be on my PowerBook.