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Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

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Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#121

Post by thelck »

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…

Mike,

Nice reply. I agree that this guy seems to have it in for The New York Times. He says, "CNN has a nice format halfway down the page". How is that different from the INSIDE NYTIMES.COM section of the Home Page?

His case for clean design rests on his assumption that the Times can charge enough for content to pay the expenses of the newsroom. He says nothing to back up that assumption. I love his confidence, and I wish shared it!

Tim

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#122

Post by chadgeidel »

Tomek_ wrote: post #84
rjd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think they've learnt a lot from BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ (also in terms of how they coverage news). Edit: http://www.bbc.co.uk might be even better example of a good news site design.

Of course the BBC doesn't have to deal with advertising. I'm assuming why their site is so "clean".

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#123

Post by scott_s »

biaxident wrote: post #108
innes wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does his political position really have any impact on his ability to redesign? How would knowing his political positions help you to come to a judgement on whether the redesign made a position difference or not? However, knowing his political positions would immediately put you in either a positive or negative (depending on your position) frame of mind and would stop you from having a fair and balanced opinion.

I think innes had tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#124

Post by snorkel »

sjwright wrote: post #47

Andy's redesign is a disaster for various reasons stated by others, but this is possibly the most important and underlying reason for its failure: The existing design visually demonstrates that 'there's a lot going on here'. His does not. He failed to communicate the good type of busyness in his re-imagining -- the redesign makes the site look like a five-articles-a-day blog.

Exactly. nytimes.com gives the visual impression of being dense with fresh content and that's what keeps news junkies coming back for more.

His redesign not only lacks compelling visuals (huffingtonpost.com wins that category, sorry but tabloid style is here to stay) but also advertising: still a necessary evil, got to make room for the ads.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#125

Post by Jason757435 »

Anyone else see the irony in the fact that the very bottom of Rutledge's web page where this article is found is improperly formatted on the iPhone (background color not extended far enough to the right to cover all offered links). Petty? Yes, but if you're going to blast away at NYT, you better make sure your house is in order.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#126

Post by rationalbeats »

jonknee wrote: post #97
rationalbeats wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually I did not realize that. Thanks for that clarification.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#127

Post by dredmorbius »

vacri wrote: post #69
dredmorbius wrote: post #19

I don't like the final result, and Rutledge dismisses many of the realities of site design. I think the existing NYTimes site is among the examplars of good Web news site design. My principle gripe is that there's too much whitespace around the primary content. That's probably a consequence of both a 1920x1080 display (laptop), and highly aggressive ad blocking. (Yeah, yeah. I'll stop blocking ads when advertisers st…

I sit in the middle of blocking ads - I block flash, but leave images. Animations are distracting, and 'proper' advertising tends to use low levels of animation in their images (by 'proper', I mean that newspaper sites don't tend to have "you are the 1000000th visitor!" animated gifs) The worse ad culprit I ever saw was an ad on article pages that would wait on a timer that would have you about halfway through the se…

Animated images win an instant ad-block from me.

Regarding headlines, Jakob Nielsen addresses this too: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/headlines-bbc.html

Traditional print headlines fare poorly in Web form.

There's been a fair amount written as to how HuffPo writes web search/link/click-bait articles and headlines as well.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#129

Post by benohear »

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…

Do you think there would be a market for rapidly produced lo-fi infographics? I'm thinking it might be possible approaching it somewhat like XKCD does with comics.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#130

Post by innes »

scott_s wrote: post #123
biaxident wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does his political position really have any impact on his ability to redesign? How would knowing his political positions help you to come to a judgement on whether the redesign made a position difference or not? However, knowing his political positions would immediately put you in either a positive or negative (depending on your position) frame of mind and would stop you from having a fair and balanced opinion.

I think innes had tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Yes indeed. Maybe too deadpan for some.
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