Saturday, April 8, 2006

This week, the New York Times unveiled its redesigned Web site. I must admit, on first glance I thought it might be a late April Fool's Day joke. I found it visually chaotic, and I had to force myself to explore it further and figure out where things are. It didn't draw me in -- it viscerally pushed me away.

I think this IT World article nails it: "Crazy Dense & Confusing: The new version of the Times site is also busy to the point that it is confusing, at first. It's been Yahoo'd.

"Yahoo has long had one of the densest home pages on the Web. It has remained easy-to-use, though, because sections are clearly separated by color blocks, and because the site has evolved very slowly over time, so you know where to look for news headlines and you know where to click to get to various services.

"The Times site initially seems chaotic, with information spread out all over a huge amount of space (about three screens at 1024x768). The layout may have an underlying philosophy, but it appears random on first view. For example, there are five links for the Science scattered around the home page. The Times is flattening their navigation, making it broad instead of deep, and bubbling up as much information to the top level that they can.

"The Times is assuming that users can figure this out -- that people will figure out where a convenient Science link is and remember it. As this happens, the home page should provide a quick route for people to get to the information they are most interested in."

...Maybe not such a good bet. For passionate Times fans, negotiating the home page chaos might become a labor of love. But for people like me who can take or leave the Times, poor usability is a considerable deterrent. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Others disagree. Over at Slate, Jack Shafer is so enamored with the Times' new online layout that he wrote in an open letter to the New York Times: "I'm canceling [my subscription to your print edition] because the redesign of your Web site, which you unveiled yesterday, bests the print edition by such a margin I've decided to pocket the annual $621.40 I currently spend on home delivery."

What's your opinion? Please comment below.

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