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NYTimes.com Redesigns

2:06 AM, April 3, 2006

There's a new, larger NYTimes.com today. Leonard M. Apcar, NYTimes.com editor in chief, writes:

We have expanded the page to take advantage of the larger monitors now used by the vast majority of our readers. We've improved the navigation throughout the site so that no matter what page you land on, you can easily dig deeper into other sections or use our multimedia.

We also wanted to give our readers a greater voice and sprinkle a little more serendipity around the site by providing prominent links to a list of most e-mailed and blogged articles, most searched for information and popular movies. A new tab at the top of the page takes you directly to all our most popular features.

Another new tab takes you to a list of articles as they appeared in the newspaper, section-by-section.

Khoi Vinh, who became the NYTimes.com design director early this year, writes on his weblog (while noting that much of the work was in the pipeline before he came on board):

I think it's a sterling piece of work, a great example of how to evolve a user experience rather than reinvent it: the best reaction it could receive from readers (those not among that vanishingly small subset of the general populace who can be called 'design savvy') would be something along the lines of "The new design looks just like the old design. � That would suit me fine, because it would signal a continuity that I think is completely appropriate for such a closely watched site like The New York Times', and besides, I know for a fact that it's more elegant and more useful than it was before.

It'll be interesting to watch as they settle into this. Some of the "below the fold" type gets pretty small in Firefox and Safari (you can, of course, increase it in your browser, but then the above-the-fold type starts to get horsey), and the whole thing just looks badly broken in IE Mac (if anyone still uses that). But I like the navigation and the less-cluttered look. And the topics pages are a great idea, much like The Economist's indispensible Backgrounders, but potentially even better, what with their multimedia, persistent URLs, RSS feeds and e-mail alerts.

>A Letter to Our Readers [The New York Times]
>The Awesome Redesign I Didn't Do [Subtraction]

Comments

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Look great!! congratulations easy to nevigate, and look like newspaper. Look elegant and easy to read, not much colors! great job!
JFD

Posted by: J. Tony Fernandez-Davila at April 3, 2006 6:09 AM

Once you click on an article, the navigation bar and nameplate at the top of the page looks a lot like New York magazine's newyorkmetro.com site. A LOT.

Posted by: Ryan.m. at April 3, 2006 7:14 AM

the simple type usage for the overall site is light, airy and elegant. the serif really softens the site (vs latimes' non-stop bombardment of san serifs). it isn't so in your face with color too like the spot red or underlined blues in washingtonpost.com (3d glasses not included). scroll 1/3 down to the mid-section... the site comes to life showcasing it's multimedia content. and that "inside nytimes.com" box is really cool and simple, drawing attention to featured stories. however i hesitated to click on the arrows to scroll around in the "inside" box. ok... i was too lazy to click. and the final 1/3 bottom of the page was a bit overwhelming with a wall of type but it wasn't too bad to navigate through to things to you want to read. all in all, great redesign with less scrolling for more content.

Posted by: ctfong at April 3, 2006 11:30 AM

There are also several elements here that mirror wsj.com--such as the "my times" and "today's paper" tabs across the top. (At wsj.com, it's "my online journal" and "today's newspaper.")

Also, wsj.com has had most popular and most emailed features for a while. And let's not overlook the "investor tools" at the top right of nytimes.com.

Posted by: ryeip at April 3, 2006 4:00 PM

I think it's a really elegant redesign (realign?) that manages to pull together a very clean structure to present a lot of content very effectively. Whew! That said, of course there are going to be striking similarities to other newspaper sites: it's an even tighter genre of online design than many others. These commonalities are just like the "back to top" phrases or the typical upper-right corner placement for a search box on all other web sites. In this case, I think consistency is a great thing, especially with so much content. The "Inside NYTimes.com" piece is particularly original and useful. Khoi's team did a fantastic job.

Posted by: Trevor Filter at April 4, 2006 2:49 PM

i always love when a site redesigns and basic things now don't work right. i like to read 'dear diary,' which i used to click in the sidebar on 'ny/region' and then on 'columns' and then a quick scroll.

now it takes me to a different page, and there's some banner ad for the history channel covering up my navigation options.

sterling!

Posted by: Bryan Volk at April 4, 2006 7:01 PM

The new NYTimes.com is better but it's not enough. Khoi Vinh, design director at NYTimes.com, calls it �awesome.� Even more awesome is the urgent need for effective design and advertising models. Newspapers aren't changing their sites enough or fast enough.

�This site, like so many other newspaper.coms, still makes you feel like you're staring at a detailed database schema diagram on a whiteboard, says Jay Small, leader of Small Initiatives, a consumer experience consultancy.

See complete story and alternatives at

http://www.brasstacksdesign.com/nyt_nytimes_online_redesign.htm

Posted by: Alan Jacobson at April 5, 2006 12:51 PM

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