4 ms·

Slightly OT: The websites that are used by these [name of place]Live sites are absolutely shit. They've bought up all the locals and put them under this banner

by mhh__ 5y ago

Slightly OT: The websites that are used by these [name of place]Live sites are absolutely shit. They've bought up all the locals and put them under this banner. Slow, buggy, low information-density. This is how the BBC looked as early as I can vaguely remember it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/default.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/default.stm better in almost every way.

mellosouls 5y ago
Yes, Reach media is notorious for the crapness of it's UX experience. It's presumably designed that way intentionally, I mean, they must know. I have no idea of the thinking behind it but I hope the devs, testers and designers behind it hide that part of their experience on their CVs. I mean, the shame they must feel.
- kuboble 5y ago
  Well... I have second hand knowledge that developers and managers of www.programmzeitung.ch are satisfied with their good and modern website.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  They know. But I suspect there is so little money in local news now (partly because of the internet and partly because of the collapse of newspaper-driven local commerce, small ads, all that), that they do not care; they are in a toxic relationship with the only advertising that pays, and to step outside that and construct a local news model that would be sustainable and not abusive to its readers is the stuff of romance novels and Hallmark movies. With the Reach sites I am surprised by some of the design elements that could be improved even without touching the aggressively bad advertising design, though. The typical "where I live" selector could be so much better.
Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
Honestly, if you think Reach's Live sites are bad, you should see the Gannett/Newsquest ones (www.oxfordmail.co.uk is our nearest). They're a whole league worse.
- drcongo 5y ago
  Newsquest are the pits.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
As much as we love the BBC, it's worth considering that the BBC's website is so comprehensive that it is part of the misfortunes of local independent news. This is why the moreover.com "news from other websites" bit is on the BBC News site now (though it blows me away how poorly some independent websites populate that one opportunity to be seen, with weird autoscraped content snippets that are often comically weird)

by mhh__ 5y ago

mellosouls 5y ago

Yes, Reach media is notorious for the crapness of it's UX experience. It's presumably designed that way intentionally, I mean, they must know. I have no idea of the thinking behind it but I hope the devs, testers and designers behind it hide that part of their experience on their CVs. I mean, the shame they must feel.

kuboble 5y ago
Well... I have second hand knowledge that developers and managers of www.programmzeitung.ch are satisfied with their good and modern website.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
They know. But I suspect there is so little money in local news now (partly because of the internet and partly because of the collapse of newspaper-driven local commerce, small ads, all that), that they do not care; they are in a toxic relationship with the only advertising that pays, and to step outside that and construct a local news model that would be sustainable and not abusive to its readers is the stuff of romance novels and Hallmark movies. With the Reach sites I am surprised by some of the design elements that could be improved even without touching the aggressively bad advertising design, though. The typical "where I live" selector could be so much better.

Doctor_Fegg 5y ago

Honestly, if you think Reach's Live sites are bad, you should see the Gannett/Newsquest ones (www.oxfordmail.co.uk is our nearest). They're a whole league worse.

drcongo 5y ago
Newsquest are the pits.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

As much as we love the BBC, it's worth considering that the BBC's website is so comprehensive that it is part of the misfortunes of local independent news. This is why the moreover.com "news from other websites" bit is on the BBC News site now (though it blows me away how poorly some independent websites populate that one opportunity to be seen, with weird autoscraped content snippets that are often comically weird)