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Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

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Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#111

Post by gigawatt »

donohoe wrote: post #110
gigawatt wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Does he? To be fair, I would not have gathered that from his post. I think he kept that much separate.

In this post, yes (though he does insinuate that the NY Times has too strong of an editorial bias). In others, no:

https://twitter.com/#!/andyrutledge/status/95664717669994496

https://twitter.com/#!/andyrutledge/status/94536441488621569

http://www.andyrutledge.com/how-to-join-aiga.php

Again, if it works for him, great. It just makes it harder for me personally to be objective about him and his work.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#112

Post by scott_s »

palish wrote: post #100
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 automatical…

The Facebook iPhone app is much better - I find the normal webpage unusable on the iPhone.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#113

Post by akdetrick »

gigawatt wrote: post #105
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.

While I disagree with most or all of his political opinions, I wouldn't necessarily call them inappropriate. I find it strange that he consistently chooses to combine business and politics, but it's his company so it's really not my problem. Maybe it works really well for him.

You beat me to my reply about Andy. I almost regret taking his blog off my reading list, because he's a fantastic designer that has a special skill for teaching design fundamentals by example. Unfortunately, I couldn't tollerate slogging through all the political grit to get to any design points he had to make in his posts.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#114

Post by barts »

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…

The thing that sticks out the most to me in Andy's critique is how he skims over the fact that news sites currently have a lot of ads to keep them afloat, and removing them requires dismantling entire ads sales departments, marketing departments, industry standards for ad sizes that must be available on your site for advertisers to even want to talk to you, and the bottom line: huge chunks of money (especially for big homepage campaigns).

This is something that every designer (and developer) at every media organization has to struggle with. And it speaks to what you said about someone looking in from the outside. It's very easy to create something like Andy's lovely design (and I'm sure every designer at every media organization has created or has wanted to create something similar), but it's another thing to design around all these ad sizes and push back on ad sales to have more room for creativity.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#115

Post by code_duck »

This is in the vein of just about every 'xx person redesigns yy site'. The elaborate comments from others have done a better job than I could of laying out the details. I don't know why people insist on publishing articles such as these. Oddly, as in in this case, often they end up with a pleasant, but rather common looking, design which is blissfully unaware of all the different constraints and special issues that guided creation of the original.

The conclusion of this article is a rather bland design, in my opinion, which looks like 50 other sites out there and has no space for ads. Hardly worth the wall of text created to herald it.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#116

Post by code_duck »

rs wrote: post #23

Not to be a pain, the design is good, but there's no place to actually put an ad, considering the advertisements are one of their sources of revenue

Indeed, tastefully weaving ads into a design is on of the prime challenges of web designers in the real world.

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#117

Post by graupel »

donohoe wrote: post #109
palish wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 automatical…

I agree completely. I'm not sure its best for everyone but that is also my preference too. Send a cake. I'm in Seattle now but you could send a cake to the designers on the 7th floor. NYTimes.com Design Group c/o Angela Rutherford The New York Times 620 8th Ave (7th floor) New York, NY 10018 Tell them to invite the Developers from the 8th floor too, and the Interactive News Group on the 2nd. Add a brief note on any d…

Wouldn't it be even better if we could send the cake to one floor, and have the designers, developers, and content team all work together? :)

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#118

Post by int3rnaut »

parallel wrote: post #52
josscrowcroft wrote: post #21

Am I the only one who thinks his 'redesign' just looks like any other blog?

"Newer isn’t better. Better is better." Sometimes it takes courage to put forward a design that doesn't have the glamour of the new. Things that work well can often be boring. EDIT: quote is from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2803681

As a total noob in comparison to most readers of HN, I have to totally agree with this sentiment--not that it's a noob idea but I feel like there are very skilled and brilliant people here that want to show the world their amazing talents and sometimes lose sight of things. It reminds me of what I always see on that show with Chef Gordon Ramsey where he's always telling these hot shot Chefs to stop being so cocky with their creations and that simple is often better; no one wants a 58 flavour chocolate creme brulee steak muffin.

Better is Better, but again I think we have to remember, that it's all subjective.

P.S.

Don't let the down votes discourage you. :)

Re: Andy Rutledge Redesigns NYTimes.com

#120

Post by donohoe »

graupel wrote: post #117
donohoe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. I'm not sure its best for everyone but that is also my preference too. Send a cake. I'm in Seattle now but you could send a cake to the designers on the 7th floor. NYTimes.com Design Group c/o Angela Rutherford The New York Times 620 8th Ave (7th floor) New York, NY 10018 Tell them to invite the Developers from the 8th floor too, and the Interactive News Group on the 2nd. Add a brief note on any d…

Wouldn't it be even better if we could send the cake to one floor, and have the designers, developers, and content team all work together? :)

I couldn't agree more. If we had that I might have stayed - or gotten a hell of a lot more done.
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