Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com • Hacker News Board

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#91

Post by barrkel » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 11:01 AM UTC

jase_coop wrote: post #61

donohoe wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's your main reason for not having a mobile site No. I never said that. We do have a Mobile site. If you're not going to read the comment please state tl;dr so I can save replying and just go to bed. I said: because the iPhone has a very very advanced browser that is more than capable of handling our Homepage we do not REDIRECT them to the Mobile site automatically. You can still go there if you like. I am also a…

That justification is more acceptable, but still a poor excuse (which doesn't sound like your fault), and if anything highlights the problem with the focus of user-centered design. I'm sure you'd agree, design isn't a democracy. Clearly, your users are wrong.

Mobile sites suck; I detest when I get redirected to them on my Android phone. About the only time they are justified is when the site is heavily dependent on mouse hovering and other desktop-centric interaction idioms.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#92

Post by karl_nerd » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 11:13 AM UTC

Oliver Reichenstein, a swiss/japanese news designer, has been writing about some similar thoughts: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/business-class-news/

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#93

Post by hootmon » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 11:35 AM UTC

The old Yahoo, Google and Craig's List showed over and over that simple headlines and text lists, are the most dense and useable designs, efficient and readable.

The problem is the marketing types who feel that they have to 'brand' their product and then abandon the simple dense text list display, that people time and again vote for with their feet.

To a marketing droid, the text list display is the horror of horrors. With it, they live and die by the quality of the reporting, not the slickness of their graphic designs.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#94

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 12:04 PM UTC

rjd wrote: post #28

rjd wrote: post #13

Well having been in the person in charge of a major news website myself I can say we all have lovely designs like this pinned to the walls next our desks. And while I really like his designs and have turned to Andy many times for inspiration, there are some serious context problems... and while I'm bored and off work I might as well write a critique... I had an near identical sports section to the one he designed pin…

Also probably worth mentioning while on the subject all my research and experience added up to designs that are very close to Al Jeezera. Perhaps I just favor it because it resembles my own thinking but I believe they have one of the best designed news sites out there: http://english.aljazeera.net Clean, crisp, clear, all gridded up nice and tidy. Handling information overload well. Being a new kid on the block, no l…

I love having images to scan instead of just headlines (which Andy seems to detest), so when my local newspaper redesigned their page, I fell in love http://www.sydsvenskan.se/ (Swedish)

Breaking news at the very top, then a top story, then the other top 4 stories. Then a simple scrolling list of the latest news by time descending (great when you check in a few times a day).

Of course, as a local paper they have a lot less content making it a much easier job than something on the scale of the NYT.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#95

Post by gigawatt » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 12:35 PM UTC

donohoe wrote: post #42

Dear god, where to start. I worked on the Times web site for 7 years (dev, not design). Before I even saw his "redesign" I read his preamble. First, lets be clear, he is working from the wrong assumptions. He demonstrates clearly what is wrong with many news outlets but then he lumps the Times in with them too. Since his piece is about the Times I have to feel all assertions he makes are about that too, and not just…

Andy Rutledge has very strong right-wing/libertarian opinions and has long hated the New York Times. I think that's why he chose it to dissect, when there are more obvious choices with a clearly strong editorial bias that need a "re-design"

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#96

Post by spacemanaki » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 12:36 PM UTC

"If you’re using an app to deliver content, you’re doing it wrong."

He's completely wrong about this. I love the NYT Android app. I can start it at home, while I have decent coverage, and am then able to read the paper any where I am throughout the day, including the subway, because it caches every story on sections you open, even if you don't open those stories. It's one of my favorite Android apps because of this.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#97

Post by jonknee » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 1:05 PM UTC

rationalbeats wrote: post #37

scott_s wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same. I think the NYT's online page is fantastic - so much so that I pay $16 a month for it. I think they do an excellent job of laying out pages online yet still feeling like a newspaper . I like looking around the page for different stories, just as I would in a newspaper page. It's engaging, and I can't help but scan the whole page, read the headline, check out the picture captions. When I look at his b…

I thought it was $8 a week?

That's for the "All Access" package which nets you a tablet app and a smartphone app. The cheapest package is $3.75 a week.

I would have subscribed, but they gave me a free year after introducing the paywall.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#98

Post by jonknee » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 1:07 PM UTC

tjogin wrote: post #87

I think Andy's design is very stylish and presents the content in a tasteful way. I have no significant qualms about his design in any way. When he goes into business territory, however, he loses his shit. This is the money quote: "Since news is accessed only via subscription, most of the ads can be eliminated from the pages. Story pages could still have one or two tastefully-presented ads, but preservation of the co…

... The NYT uses a subscription model these days (though you get a handful of articles for free every month). That's what he was talking about. He was still wrong from a business point of view though.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#99

Post by innes » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 1:32 PM UTC

gigawatt wrote: post #95

donohoe wrote: post #42

Dear god, where to start. I worked on the Times web site for 7 years (dev, not design). Before I even saw his "redesign" I read his preamble. First, lets be clear, he is working from the wrong assumptions. He demonstrates clearly what is wrong with many news outlets but then he lumps the Times in with them too. Since his piece is about the Times I have to feel all assertions he makes are about that too, and not just…

Andy Rutledge has very strong right-wing/libertarian opinions and has long hated the New York Times. I think that's why he chose it to dissect, when there are more obvious choices with a clearly strong editorial bias that need a "re-design"

Thanks for the heads-up. The problem with the Internet is that sometimes you end up reading things by people with inappropriate political positions, and it's not immediately apparent. Hopefully the addition of social networking features to search, etc, will help resolve this problem in future.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#100

Post by palish » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 1:35 PM UTC

donohoe wrote: post #42

Dear god, where to start. I worked on the Times web site for 7 years (dev, not design). Before I even saw his "redesign" I read his preamble. First, lets be clear, he is working from the wrong assumptions. He demonstrates clearly what is wrong with many news outlets but then he lumps the Times in with them too. Since his piece is about the Times I have to feel all assertions he makes are about that too, and not just…

"In the end, the decision was made to NOT redirect those advanced browsers to the mobile site. You can still go to m.nyt.com if you like, we just wont force you too."

Thank you so much. Seriously. It's extremely rare for it to ever be enjoyable to use a "mobile" site on an iPhone. At least for me.

I feel like sending you a cake.

I wish there were some way to disguise the iPhone as a PC, so that no website automatically redirects me to any mobile version ever.

EDIT: For example, I just got an email saying I've been tagged in a photo on Facebook. So I go to facebook.com on my iPhone, and they've managed to completely break scrolling in their mobile version. I literally cannot scroll down on any page. 100% certain, and 100% aggravating --- and as far as I can tell, no way for me to get to the full site.