Are web designers out of touch with their audience?
Posted on May 13, 2007. 27 comments.
I don’t like it. If it works, why fix it?? [..] Everyone these days wants to seem to find something “new and better�? and ends up screwing up things. Yuck! ~ Anonymous reader of LJworld.com on their recent redesign.
Lawrence Journal World, a relatively small American newspaper from Kansas, recently launched a new design for their website. The disgruntled reader above was not too happy about the radical change in design, which is quite interesting, because their new site may be the most modern online newspaper there is.
I really enjoy this new design, and I’d think most web designers who follow the current trends of our industry would agree (most designers do, that’s why it’s called a trend).
In many ways, this site is a perfect incarnation of what the ghastly term “Web 2.0” has come to represent: Loads of whitespace, sans-serif fonts, javascript, PNGs, large type, less clutter and so forth (every page even includes 13 individual JavaScript files).
Even under the hood, this site is cutting edge. The newspaper employes a bunch of the best Django programmers, in addition to Jeff Croft, web designer extraordinaire. The redesign looks and feels exactly like what one would expect from such a crowd.
However, many of the comments uttered in their announcement of this new look agree with the reader quoted above. Why the drastic change? There is of course a lot of positive comments as well, but given that these reviews were gathered from a developer blog, I’d expect that many of the people that chimed in are web designers themselves.
Another fairly recent redesign of an online newspaper, is that of the New York Times:
This redesign, however, while modern and employer of many exciting technologies, is not nearly as cutting edge as LJWorld’s latest incarnation. I see this more as a “safe” design, using serifs, lots of content without much scrolling, left-aligned menu and so forth.
The New York Times redesign did not create as much stir when it was launched; it was new and different ALL RIGHT, but at the same time more familiar and, as mentioned above, “safe”, than that of LJWorld.
So while the LJWorld redesign is what many web designers consider to be the default route to go these days, the New York times redesign seems to have struck more chords amongst its regular users.
This is definitely something we should have in mind when considering wether to use that gradient/reflection/ajax feature or not.
27 comments
Volkher Hofmann says:
You know what? I laughed so hard when I read those comments that it made my day already. Quite a reality check, those comments, aren’t they? That is definitely not a Web 2.0 audience. :)
Seems to me like there are three groups commenting:
The people who just don’t like change and probably still love those bloated table monsters with that animated dog.gif. Included in that group are lots of people still surfing at lower resolutions, me thinks.
The group with usability issues that need to be taken into consideration by the team.
c) The ones who like white space and legibility. ;)
I like the design very much, but I’ve never been to the site before. I’m currently working on a redesign of my own site and I think I can safely say that by studying my own stats, I have a different user group. phew
Thanks again for the link!
Olav says:
Good point, Volkher, but the people that love spacer.gif might just be most people (and by that, the ones they should be catering to).
Of course, If I could, I’d design the site just the same way. :)
(By the way, thanks for exposing my flawed ordered lists ;).
Volkher Hofmann says:
Ole,
I totally agree. Once one has been around all these Web 2.0 designers for too long, which I have, one tends to assume that everyone agrees on the aesthetics and the usability of the sites created by them.
I usually take my dad, who got with the whole Internet programm very late in life, as an average user. If he likes something and can use it, anyone else can too. That’s all the usability testing I need, especially since he trips over things NOBODY has ever even considered. ;)
P.S.: The ordered list looked kind of cool. Leave it that way. ;) It does add an element of surprise …!
Volkher Hofmann says:
Err, Olav. Sorry about that. I lived in DK too long (my parents also lived in Oslo and Stockholm for years, so I do get confused at times).
Kim Joar says:
Olav,
I think many people actually like what they are used to. Last summer when we changed the design on AVRFreaks.net we got alot of negative comments from the regular users, but now when they have got used to it most of them actually likes it alot better than the old one.
I don’t think this necessarily has something to do with the design being Web 2.0 or not. I think changing the design drastically causes the users to not find what they are looking for in the excact same place as before, and that they actually have to think. And as Steve Krug has thought us: Don’t make me think.
Many of us who like the design might not be actual everyday readers of the newspaper, and we are not looking for the Sports section in the exact same place as before since we never have looked for the Sports section at all.
Personally I love the new design :)
(This is commented without reading the actual comments on the developer blog, so I have no idea about who actually don’t like the new design and why, this is just from a general point of view)
Olav says:
I totally agree, Kim. ;)
Joe Orton says:
Don’t forget about users who have small bandwidths. This site would load for several minutes. But I like basic tendency for switching to Web 2.0
Charles says:
I like this, but there’s one thing that bothers me about it: It just seems to “big.” I find myself wanting to lean far away from my monitor to keep from overwhelmed by it all.
Of course, this might just be because my eyes are very sensitive to light, and large white spaces like that tend to hurt.
Olav says:
I see what you mean, Charles. There’s not a lot of content above the fold, and the type is pretty big. Something to remember..
Alex says:
As I understood from this article better stay at nowadays products, no future-genetics designs. Community won’t understand you
Olav says:
That’s the point as well as the problem. First adaption is not something everyone is interested in, no matter how much better the new tech is.
Saluki says:
How will we progress with such relations? Olav, what do you think about mixing existing design with modern Web2.0 technologies?
Olav says:
@Saluki: I guess that’s what we should do; make it a smooth transition. The New York Times’ site is in many ways a good combination of the two paradigms.
Nathan Borror says:
I was kind of expecting the mild backlash this redesign was going to provoke. It’s virtually impossible to please everyone which is why, hopefully, this will be the last major redesign for LJWorld.com. In my personal opinion the goal of highly trafficked sites like LJ is to incrementally evolve them rather than radically overhaul them. Thanks for your post :)
Olav says:
@Nathan: Yeah, the day you guys launched the new design must have been quite exciting.
Again, it looks amazing, and it’s inspiring to see how a large newspaper dare make these in many ways “leaps of faith”. Keep it up, I’m sure the new site will uphold your winning streak of awards. :)
Jeff Croft says:
Hey guys – thanks for the comments!
One of our key goals at The Journal-World is to be cutting edge and push the envelope. We understand that change is hard for everyone, and we fully believe that most of the reaction to the redesign is simply a matter of not yet being used to it. We definitely are always sensitive to our users’ needs, but as a designer, there are simply times when you believe you know what the users want better than they do themselves. Sometimes you’re wrong – but it’s the job of a designer to make those kinds of decisions for users, sometimes, rather than just giving them what they say they want.
For example: in 2000, no one thought they wanted a small handheld MP3 player. Steve Jobs and Jon Ive insisted that they did, in fact, want that, and they built it. Look what happened.
For the record, I think The Times’ site is great, and definitely one of the better-designed news websites out there. There is a very distinct brand difference, though. The Times’s brand is classic, old-school, and “grey lady.” We, at the Journal-World, are rather known for being a cutting-edge online operation. We’ve won a lot of awards online and are pretty well-respected in the journalism inditry that way. So, that’s our brand. I think our design suits our brand well – and The Times’ design suits their brand well, also.
Thanks again for your interest in our site! :)
Olav says:
@Jeff: Thanks for your insights, and for pushing new ideas onto users well sat in their ways.
As designers, we should all have the same confidence you’ve displayed with LJWorld’s latest iteration. Confidence in our own personal judgement, that is, not putting too much value into what the broader base instantly thinks of radical change.
I can’t help but feel that you guys should have a larger audience, and by that I mean a site for something like a national newspaper. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite sure LJWorld is a far bigger project than I’ll ever work on. :)
As a juxtaposition of your recent ventures, here are the websites of Norway’s two largest newspapers, each sporting a few million daily hits:
As you can see, not many developers over there scour any sort of feed reader like many of us. Not to mention the horrible trend of putting ads wherever whitespace presents itself..
Cockatiel says:
As it was already mentioned the only way I see is mixing. Maybe in far future we won’t even mention Web2.0
Suv says:
Mixing is the only exit as for me
Projektowanie Stron says:
I must say that web desings are very intresting… i must experiments some with my site :)
Dennis Eusebio says:
Check out the CNN redesign. I love how it aligns with their new branding and still provides one of the best news experiences out there.
http://www.cnn.com
counter strike says:
Very nice design. I think its hard to make simple, clearly design for site witch have many information, many columns…
I will be remake my own site.. wish my GL :P
Miranda says:
i personally don´t like (and use) tables or gifs for whitespace. i like it simple with clean css (i think its extremly powerfull if you know how), but big sites are often hard to handle and sometimes you just need a little tweek. Interesting topic Olav. I wish all nice xmas.
judith says:
I view web pages with a low resolution 15 inch monitor to see what most of the world sees. The LJ world site under these conditions has very little content above the fold. The top stripe with weather and naviagtion takes up too much space, and for the content area the right third is advertisements. On the issues I looked at, I could pretty much only see the text for the lead story. So on my monitor, the initial view is low content, advert heavy.
The NYT under the same conditions has much more “teaser” content visible. Though their banner is too big too.
From a design point of view I find LJWorld much more pleasing, but from a practical point the NYT design is much more effective in making me read on.
Olav says:
@Judith: Thanks, that’s a really good example of how important it is to remember edge cases, especially when it comes to resolution. And when talking about a main stream product like a newspaper site, this might not even be that far out on the “edge”. :)
dıs cephe says:
As it was already mentioned the only way I see is mixing.
jos says:
Well, me personally before i publish a website i show to as many people as i can and get their feedback, that way i have an idea what the average internet user thinks of it, then i can apply the necessary changes and publish it.