New CNN Website Opinions
Out of context: Reply #29
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MY analysis...
This redesign represents a big step backwards from the usability-tested site of 2006 by Razorfish!
For readers who actually read the TEXT ARTICLES on CNN.com the 2009 redesign is an abysmal failure. A miniscule left rail with small text links is just not enough for this to be a good "at a glance" news site.
Additionally, the handling of the text article pages themselves is atrocious. Are they serious about those awkward text wraps, media viewers that take entire "above the fold" (no scroll) area, and 100 word articles that require 3000+ pixels of vertical scrolling???
In short, could we make the text articles any harder to find or read?
It's understandable that with online video viewership up an astounding 40% from last year, than CNN would want to make their web content more video-centric. Still, this is NOT the way to do it. If anything, I could see a better video viewer with less page loads and annoying pre-roll ads but this clearly not what we've been given...
I think HUGE inc. in Brooklyn should know better than to commit the huge number of basic usability design mistakes they have here. But the primary ones have to do with what we designers call "legibility".
Legibility in design usually pertains to differentiation of elements—i.e. variation of size and consistent color coding which establishes a hierarchy of information. It's the same considerations that go into designing a glass cockpit or any GUI.
The idea is not to look sexy but to gear things towards human cognition. Anybody can just pack in a bunch of information or thumbnails. That's what a classifieds section in an old newspaper did. It takes a truly good design to weight certain content more than others, letting the eye flow easily from one element of information to the next.
Looking at this CNN redesign, I get many similar-sized boxes and a mass of thumbs in an amazingly static configuration. After so much time and effort to study usability by the Razorfish design people a few years back, this is a real let down.
I like other work by HUGE but this is a mess. Sorry guys!