4 ms·

What I find ironic is that when Pump was posted, the alternate to WSGI - everybody jumped on the author and trashed everything about it. Meanwhile some designe

by nikcub 15y ago

What I find ironic is that when Pump was posted, the alternate to WSGI - everybody jumped on the author and trashed everything about it. Meanwhile some designer suggests that the New York Times trash their entire business and turn it into an ugly looking blog (with padding!) and it gets 500 upvotes. At least the Pump/WSGI proposal was genuine interest and enthusiasm and not condescending. This is a total repeat of the American Airlines redesign thread [1], which everybody should be familiar with. Some things are the way they are for good reason, and the reasons are usually very good when you are referring to a successful product or a billion-dollar company. [1] http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

esrauch 15y ago
Having worked for a couple billion-dollar companies, I am pretty sure you are giving them too much credit.
- palish 15y ago
  Why do you say that? It seems fairly certain that if NYTimes one day looked like a blog, then their revenue would dry up. It would scare away a lot of people, such as my dad, who don't like change and who don't care about whether a website has rounded corners.
  - eric-hu 15y ago
    On the other hand, Facebook has forced some fairly annoying changes with their chat interface, news feed and friend/group management. Maybe people won't be scared away that easily (put off is another story).
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      >Facebook has forced some fairly annoying changes with their chat interface They didn't force that change, you can just turn it off.
      - esrauch 15y ago
        How can you turn it off?
        pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        I don't really remember but when it appeared there was an option button/link and I followed it and one option is to switch off the sidebar. Never use messaging really. Looking just now I have the old style tab, if I click it the sidebar pops open, there's a "cog" for settings in the bottom right corner. IIRC you have to set yourself as "unavailable" to all and then use the cog to select "hide sidebar". Try that.
        esrauch 15y ago
        Hm, I think we had a slight disconnect in our topic! In the last week or two, Facebook changed their messaging UI so that you cannot get a list of all your buddies that are online to chat (it guesses who you would care to see) among other mostly cosmetic changes. AFAIK there is no way to use the chat UI that was available a month ago now (or see if a particular person is online unless you specifically type in their name).
        pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        Indeed. I don't think there is a way to get back the scrolling list of who is online at present - but like I say I never IM people on FB.
  - esrauch 15y ago
    I am completely unqualified to say anything about both the NYTimes and website design for news. I simply am stating that many decisions made at billion dollar companies do not have as much thought put into them as you might expect.
andrewljohnson 15y ago
It's ironic, but predictable. A site full of hackers is good at picking apart a naive technical idea... not so much a naive design idea. The bigger irony is if you had these discussions on news.ydesigninator.com, the designers would have no opinion at all on the code, because they would realize that they know nothing. But with visual arts, it's easy for us programmers to bike-shed and act like we know something.
- bglbrg 15y ago
  naive is the perfect term. Rutledge's ideas about what news should be are quite naive, in fact. Of course good journalists should adhere to strict ethical standards, but all that stuff about how popularity should have no basis, and that "editorial" is a bogeyman? Sounds like he has little context for what news has been in our democracy, and/or just an idealistic worldview. There has never been a crisp line, and it's dangerous to imagine there could be. I think the best designers get this "real world" aspect of news. Hopefully same goes for you programmers.
Groxx 15y ago
Not condescending? Maybe just because there's less text. >What WSGI should have been. That sentiment goes through nearly the entire page. And it's the same problem. But yes, it attracts more critique here because (I'd imagine) the majority of vocal ones here are less designery and more programmery.
scott_s 15y ago
It was upvoted many times, but the resulting discussion was, I think, mostly critical of the redesign.

by nikcub 15y ago

esrauch 15y ago

Having worked for a couple billion-dollar companies, I am pretty sure you are giving them too much credit.

palish 15y ago
Why do you say that? It seems fairly certain that if NYTimes one day looked like a blog, then their revenue would dry up. It would scare away a lot of people, such as my dad, who don't like change and who don't care about whether a website has rounded corners.
- eric-hu 15y ago
  On the other hand, Facebook has forced some fairly annoying changes with their chat interface, news feed and friend/group management. Maybe people won't be scared away that easily (put off is another story).
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    >Facebook has forced some fairly annoying changes with their chat interface They didn't force that change, you can just turn it off.
    - esrauch 15y ago
      How can you turn it off?
      - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        I don't really remember but when it appeared there was an option button/link and I followed it and one option is to switch off the sidebar. Never use messaging really. Looking just now I have the old style tab, if I click it the sidebar pops open, there's a "cog" for settings in the bottom right corner. IIRC you have to set yourself as "unavailable" to all and then use the cog to select "hide sidebar". Try that.
        esrauch 15y ago
        Hm, I think we had a slight disconnect in our topic! In the last week or two, Facebook changed their messaging UI so that you cannot get a list of all your buddies that are online to chat (it guesses who you would care to see) among other mostly cosmetic changes. AFAIK there is no way to use the chat UI that was available a month ago now (or see if a particular person is online unless you specifically type in their name).
        pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        Indeed. I don't think there is a way to get back the scrolling list of who is online at present - but like I say I never IM people on FB.
- esrauch 15y ago
  I am completely unqualified to say anything about both the NYTimes and website design for news. I simply am stating that many decisions made at billion dollar companies do not have as much thought put into them as you might expect.

andrewljohnson 15y ago

It's ironic, but predictable. A site full of hackers is good at picking apart a naive technical idea... not so much a naive design idea. The bigger irony is if you had these discussions on news.ydesigninator.com, the designers would have no opinion at all on the code, because they would realize that they know nothing. But with visual arts, it's easy for us programmers to bike-shed and act like we know something.

bglbrg 15y ago
naive is the perfect term. Rutledge's ideas about what news should be are quite naive, in fact. Of course good journalists should adhere to strict ethical standards, but all that stuff about how popularity should have no basis, and that "editorial" is a bogeyman? Sounds like he has little context for what news has been in our democracy, and/or just an idealistic worldview. There has never been a crisp line, and it's dangerous to imagine there could be. I think the best designers get this "real world" aspect of news. Hopefully same goes for you programmers.

Groxx 15y ago

Not condescending? Maybe just because there's less text. >What WSGI should have been. That sentiment goes through nearly the entire page. And it's the same problem. But yes, it attracts more critique here because (I'd imagine) the majority of vocal ones here are less designery and more programmery.

scott_s 15y ago

It was upvoted many times, but the resulting discussion was, I think, mostly critical of the redesign.