→ Media
Web Design Woes
| Wed Jul. 15, 2009 8:51 AM PDT
I came to the conclusion some time ago that news site redesigns are always bad. Compared to the previous site, redesigned sites are almost invariably slower, more annoying, harder to use, or a combination of all three.
But Time magazine really takes the prize. Their old site was plain but basically fine. The new one is so ugly, squashed, and badly laid out that I can hardly stand to read it anymore. So I guess I'll do what I always do in these cases: add it to my RSS feed and never go back again. Yeesh.
UPDATE: No joy. The new site engages in one of my pet peeves: cutting off all posts after the first paragraph so you have to click each and every post separately if you want to see what the Swamplanders are talking about today. RSS to the rescue! But no. They only offer a partial feed. Jesus.
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
Pot, Kettle?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:02 AM PDT.
Frackin' heck, Kevin -- this from someone on one of the worst coded sites on the entire web?
mojo website
Submitted by peatey (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 10:48 AM PDT.
MoJo did seem to try to improve it last time around, so this site now loads faster compared to back then. However, it is still one of the slow sites out there, filled with eye-candy and such that utilizes web-programming but does not confer much value to readers (even/especially the loyal readers).
And not everything is related to advertising code. For example, this comment system is horrid from the perspective of encouraging reader feedback and commentary. If the in-house rollout is not going to be as good as the system for calculatedriskblog.com, then just defaulting to the one being used by obsidianwings.blogs.com is much better than the one being used right now.
Time.com met my threshold for pain in the previous version. I only get there when others bear the pain for me and link to the particular article or such. Whether it's cost in terms of actual $pay-wall or brain cost in terms of painful UI or time cost in terms of load-time and/or horrible page-breaks, all these are disincentive to read and devalues the content.
MoJo Website, we're working on it
Submitted by Clara Jeffery on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 11:11 AM PDT.
Dear Peatey et al:
Believe me, we're frustrated too. We're talking to a bunch of performance experts and looking at everything from paring down code to hosting to you name it. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to figure out a) where the bottlenecks and b) fix them quickly.
It's not as simple as eye candy is the problem. Site such as ours must and can support images, and rich media ads, and data visualization.
But I'm really curious as to what you mean about the horrors of our commenting system. Could you be more specific? And also, I'm also not following the in-house rollout system language...
We really want to do improve user feedback/interaction. And many of Kevin's readers have been quite helpful in trying to figure out the performance issues, giving us real-time data on load times in different browsers and the like. Can you suggest some ways in which we could do better?
Guys, at bottom please remember that we do listen to you. If you think you're frustrated, imagine how we feel. I wish we had Newscorp-like resources to throw at it, we don't, but we are working very, very hard with what we've got. We want Kevin to load lickitysplit for you, and realize if the load times weren't frustrating, you might check out some of the rest of the content too. Please hang in there.
Clara Jeffery
Editor
OK. But pls bring back the good ole byline!
Submitted by Gray (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 2:32 PM PDT.
"A legacy of raising hell, a commitment to journalism."
That was unique, classy, delivering a clear message to the reader.
"Smart, fearless journalism", not so much. That's lame.
Btw, where is Fiore?
Submitted by Gray (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 2:56 PM PDT.
Used to be one of the most interesting content at MoJo. Now, I can't find his Flash cartoons.
And wouldn't it be better, maybe, to simply give up on repairing and tuning the failed design? Look for a website you like, contact the designers, and let them built something for you from scratch. Could be cheaper in the long run.
a few detailed frustrations from a non-web-developer
Submitted by peatey (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 5:57 PM PDT.
Clara, it appeared back then (the first time Kevin noted the slow load time of the site after the redesign) and it appears now that the MoJo website editors are trying to improve. Unfortunately, as usually is the case with consumers who are not professional producers of the same, I'm much better at offering criticisms than code solutions.
All the rich media ads and so forth make the site large to load and with further bandwidth use after the first load. In the balancing act between your objectives of richer media experience and advertising, vs. the reader preference for fast content (meaning the content I care about, Kevin Drum and articles/links he recommends), some of us readers feel that you are erroring on the side of too much rich media, compared to 'competitors.' Other than your finding some tech-savvy solutions, I see it as too much rich-media on the blog page.
As for the commenting system, first, it is better than it used to be. However, it is still very annoying how you restrict the horizontal margins to mere 1/3 of my monitor real estate, and then keep reducing it for each level of comment-threading (a valuable visual indication), which results in many comments only taking up way too many lines vertically. This necessitates more scrolling. What good is my investing in bigger monitors if you restrict the format so it's same as if I still kept my 640x480 CRT? (See http://www.hoocoodanode.org/ for a commenting system that adjusts to my needs; this is the commenting system that calculatedriskblog.com uses).
This feature is important since a healthy comment section would have many dozens, sometimes hundreds of comments per post, and the current MoJo setup starts being very unwieldy at lower numbers. (those grayed-out avatars and donor/subscriber icons might be cool for the few, but they are taxes upon the non-donor/subscriber and even donor/subscribers who seek anonymity.
Look at the number of comments Kevin received while at WashingtonMonthly (e.g. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/monthly/2006_07.php a month that I just pulled up at random) The UI is simpler, maybe not as pretty, but comments were far more: 5-10x recent numbers at MoJo. I submit it has far more to do with the commenting system and the page layout/UI/load-time rather than Kevin actually losing readership who want to engage in feedback.
At the end of every post, do we need to see "tip jar, newsletter, rss, e-mail, print, share social sites"? tip jar and rss apply per blog, not per post. you already have a monster banner that interrupts my progression from Kevin's thoughtful posts to quality comments and ask me to sign up for the free MoJo by e-mail 3 times a week free, I don't need to be nagged at the end of each post also. On e-mail, print, and sharing, I may be the exception, but given all the other sites that have varying standards of e-mailing links, formatting the print-friendly page with huge ads that kill my printer toner prematurely, and annoying UI of the javascript sharing scripts, I *always* just copy paste the text to e-mail, to print, and the url into social media sites (I mean, virtually every blog post is the author copy-pasting a text to cite with link and commenting on. it's pretty reasonable to assume most readers of the blog will learn to do the same). For people like me, you're not helping with that tool-bar at the end of each post. Instead, those tool-bars actively interrupt my 'zone' of reading Kevin and his commenters. And these aren't even revenue-generating ads, just pure space-wasting, load-time multiplying bloat.
Also, perhaps Tripcodes may be useful? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripcodes)
I'm hoping this is helpful. Not trying to complain just for the heck of it, trying to help make this better.
Your comment system is
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 10:09 PM PDT.
Your comment system is complete shit, and it's actually downright shameful in how it discourages participation, and almost requires registration.
I would have thought MoJo of all magazines would have understood the importance of anonymous speech, but no, you're a speech fascist like the rest of them and it shows in how FEW comments Drum gets these days compared to old.
The design of the comments suck too, and also sucks is the inability to find out which threads are being commented on.
If you folks didn't know that you were the smartest web magazine in the room, you just might enjoy some success. Since you're so smart, there's no need for you to listen to readers telling you this stuff over and over.
We're not renewing the print
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:07 AM PDT.
We're not renewing the print edition of Newsweek due to it re-design
I wouldn't take it to quite the same extreme
Submitted by thersites on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:09 AM PDT.
but Anonymous at 10:02 has a valid point.
This site is painful, and it's a testament to you that you have readers who will slog though the shit to get to your blog.
Many web designers are just
Submitted by alex (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:22 AM PDT.
Many web designers are just too in love with their own cleverness. Most Javascript is unnecessary crap that would be better done with plain HTML. Let's not even talk about unnecessary Flash. Oh, and it would be nice if they figured out that HTML is not a graphical layout language, nor is it supposed to be. HTML design is not the same as laying out a printed page, and it's not supposed to be. Some folks want larger fonts for example (especially those that need progressives or bifocals). The beauty of HTML is that they can get that, if only the web design geniuses don't act like frustrated graphic designers or page compositors!
Exactly!
Submitted by Gray (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 2:44 PM PDT.
What I hate most are links that look like HTML, but only work when scripting is turned on. And those sites that use lots of scripts and apis from different domains, who don't have any obvious connection to the domain accessed. What those web "designers" (imho they're really lamers) forget is that there is a growing lot of readers who use features like NoScript with their browser. And for good reason, since even harmless looking websites may include malware. I rather abstain from reading a story at an obscure blog or site if this would mean I simply have to trust the unknown publisher. No way. So, unnecessary scripting drives readers away. Tough luck.
Speaking of Awful Web Sites . . .
Submitted by AndrewBW on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:39 AM PDT.
MoJo is right up there. Looks ugly, takes forever to load.
Wow. You really do have to
Submitted by steve s (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:42 AM PDT.
Wow. You really do have to click on every single post you want to read. That is horrible, horrible design.
Here's a full feed for
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:44 AM PDT.
Here's a full feed for Swampland.
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=OMCaumVx3hGn9XRTtZCjyQ&_render...
Enjoy. (And learn how to use Pipes. It's worth the effort.)
That's terrific. Can you do
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 10:43 AM PDT.
That's terrific. Can you do us a favor and give us a de-Xeni version of Kevin's site?
Not sure what you mean
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 11:29 AM PDT.
Not sure what you mean there.
I should have posted the main page for that feed I created.
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=OMCaumVx3hGn9XRTtZCjyQ
You can view the source (and see how it's done) by clicking edit source.
I tried to comment immdiately after the Swampland redesign
Submitted by Brian O on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 10:09 AM PDT.
KT was reading the comments and a number of small issues were immediately fixed right after the redesign posted. I tried to comment, but they only allow registered posters to comment...
...and there was no visible login button!
My comment was in regard to the cutting of posts after a paragraph or two. Little there is worth clicking through on. It seems Joe Klein has realized this and features longer front-page posts. I miss KT's insight, but Scherer and Newton-Small represent everything that is wrong with contemporary journalism (although, ironically, Sherer's posts about other magazine writing are usually really interesting).
Oh, and please fix the MJ site. It now takes 30-60 seconds to load and freezes my browser during this time so that I cannot open anything else while waiting. You're worth it, but I often don't read David Corn, whom I enjoyed during your vacation but whose posts are buried on the MoJo blog that loads equally slowly. Oh well, two cents...
RSS
Submitted by theFont (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 10:19 AM PDT.
Kevin,
Your pet peeve about RSS feeds being cut off after the first paragraph is misguided. RSS is intended to be a title and a summary, not the full content. A primary purpose of RSS is to drive traffic to your site, not to give away full content for free, sans advertising.
it's about the ads
Submitted by ericf on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 11:16 AM PDT.
Be fair Kevin, Time is an ad-supported site, so giving away the content without displaying ads defeats the purpose. I even click on the ads here, even though I subscribe to the print edition.
Actually, I donated to support MJ and print came with it, and I could live without print, but I hope you see my point about the ads. When I get MJ e-mail, and it encourages clicking a link to go to the web, that's fine.
http://www.ravensblog.net
Pot calling kettle black?
Submitted by bob in fla on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 11:19 AM PDT.
You just told us all about the shortcomings of your own recent site 'upgrade', Kevin. The MoJo site is still the slowest, most poorly designed on my blogroll. Like others have said, if you weren't here, I wouldn't be either. If MoJp can't fix what's wrong, they need to go back to the previous version.
Worst was FDL's redesign 2-3 years ago
Submitted by low-tech cyclist on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 11:41 AM PDT.
Much as I enjoyed reading Jane and Christy, I just couldn't bear Firedoglake after the redesign. (I think it's still the same; only time I go there is when I'm following a link.) Other than the most recent 2-3 posts, only a few lines of each post showed before you had to click through - and maybe only 10 posts showed at all on the front page.
lrn2CSS
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 12:02 PM PDT.
I use Firefox + Stylish extension. You can do the same in Opera. CSS is easy. There are dozens of tutorials online, just Google for them.
Try Readable App
Submitted by alan (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 2:19 PM PDT.
Try Readable App,
http://readable-app.appspot.com/
I use this thing all the time. If you're looking at a web page you want to read, but it's too busy and distracting for some reason, or just ugly, this bookmarklet will extract just the main text and display it in a format you set up yourself.
I thought it was something I wouldn't use, but, honestly, I use it constantly.
Get off my lawn!
Submitted by J. Frank Parnell on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 7:07 PM PDT.
As an aging boomer I try hard to not be unreasonably critical of generations X, Y, Z & what ever. But I still get angry when I pick up a (print) magazine. What is with the decreasing font size? And who decided it was artistic to use a colored (i.e. non-black) font printed over a graphic background? Just because computer graphics allows you to print over a picture doesn't mean it is a good idea. To all you young graphic editors I urge you to think; some day you will be facing cataract surgery (alas there will probably nothing to be done for the hearing you blew out listening to your ipods) and the last thing you will want to face is a tiny colored font on top of a pictorial background.
Blame AJAX
Submitted by Anonymous - Quiddity (not verified) on Wed Jul. 15, 2009 9:30 PM PDT.
It used to be that a web server delivered a static page from its files. Now we have the situation where a partial fill goes to the browser and the browser has to call back the server for additional content (this is most apparent with the Washington Post comments feature).
Also, this new technology makes earlier versions of browsers break. Yahoo news stories blow up Firefox 1.0.
There are some rare instances when it might be better to have the browser, in effect, query the database of a web server for content, but most of the time a static page could be built instead. With the increased power of computers, I fail to understand why the burden isn't totally put on the web server.
I also suspect the Object Oriented coding is to blame, at least in part. With OO, the developer is never sure what's happening at lower levels; how it was implemented, etc.
Reloading the Whole Page
Submitted by steverino on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 8:18 AM PDT.
My objection to the comments here is that in order to read them, you have to reload the whole post. I typically read Kevin's blog as one page from bottom to top, but if I want to read the comments for a single post that post has to be loaded anew, which as mentioned takes quite a while. I open it in a new tab so as to not lose the one-page view, but it is a real drag and makes me reluctant to read the comments at all.
Someone mentioned FireDogLake: I read TBogg daily, and have no objection to reading *his* posts-with-comments one at a time, because it loads right up.
And of course a haloscan-type pop-up does the trick, too: viewing the comments without losing the main page.
For the record, I am using Opera on a Mac, although the same applies to Opera on my PC at home.
steverino
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They focused more on news,
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I believe the busier the
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