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Experimental New York Times Interface
- andr 18y agoPretty cool. Perhaps they should make it a bit more like http://shortformblog.com/ http://shortformblog.com/ . Now that'd be pretty rad.
- Dauntless 18y agoA bit too much information in one page... Too many columns, but that's just a personal opinion.
- Gonsalu 18y agoI agree, for an "Article Skimmer" using a grid layout was not the best choice as it kinda hampers skimming through the news...
- amr 18y agoIt reminds me of http://oursignal.com http://oursignal.com. Maybe that's why I am having hard time with it. Except for the lead story, all articles have the same size square and color. Lack of visual anchor makes hard to read.
- babo 18y agoComparing to http://oursignal.com http://oursignal.com the NYT version is when engineers tries to copy a designer's work.
- danohuiginn 18y agoLike you, I find grid layouts hard to skim. Yet other people (e.g. in the comments above) seem to like them, and most newspaper sites use some kind of grid layout. Anybody know of serious usability testing of these grid layouts? I'd be interested to know if I'm just unusual in finding it easier to read down than across.
- prakash 18y agoThis s a really nice interface. That said, doesn't matter if they have best interface in the world, readers are going to be really annoyed if they keep asking people to log into read articles. That and their paper edition.
- yeahit 18y agoLooks like cuil.com I would prefer they made a simple list like here on hn instead. Is there some general news site with a simple list of news on the web?
- tom 18y agoSo how are the articles ordered? Does this order change over the course of the day? Sure it's a great way to expose me to tons of info with very easy eye movement, but it's also tons of real estate. How do I re-find an article or is that not really a problem? If they're not going to foster user added content, then no; if they are, then it's a big problem. I sure hope they also have a sortable list view (by post, by title, by author, by location, by popularity over a time period). They have a big challenge and I agree than the present form could be improved, I'm just not sure this is the only best way to go. Nice to see them pushing the envelope a bit though as it shows the get it and want to improve- two plusses in my book.
- jlft 18y agoLove it. I like the idea of sitting back and scan the information without the need of scrolling.
- alecco 18y agoGood step forwards towards interaction. Some more things that could make it a killer: * Graceful degradation for noscript; maybe do a simple CSS fallback option. * The page-slide animation is eye-candy but IMHO with time it might get annoying, make it optional. * It shouldn't be hard to add an X on top-right corner of boxes to remove or shade things you read already. * Some killer fonts, it's the New York Times!
- sant0sk1 18y agore: 'killer fonts' I can't imagine it'd be too hard to include server-side fonts akin to stylesheets in the HTML header of sites. Ok, the major obstacles are: 1) Browsers need to support the functionality 2) Operating system-specific font rendering Wouldn't this really open up the possibilities for web designers?
- briansmith 18y agoIE 4.0+ (yes, four-point-oh), Firefox 3.1+, Opera 10+, and the latest Safari builds all support @font-face.
- sant0sk1 18y agoVery nice. I must've been living under a rock! =]
- ewiethoff 18y ago> Graceful degradation for noscript > The page-slide animation is eye-candy but IMHO with time it might get annoying, make it optional. The page is utterly useless without JS. I keep JS turned off. It's a good thing I read here about the animation eye candy before trying to turn it on to explore the NYT page. Side-to-side movement on a screen gives me brain seizures. If NYT sticks with this new plan, that will be yet one more site that's off limits to me. If I want movement and eye candy with my news, I can turn on the TV.
- gabrielroth 18y ago
- eli_s 18y agowow that looks really terrible
- notaddicted 18y agoI don't like it either. It is not very dense at all. I prefer the list of titles for skimming, like the HN frontpage.
- lisp_padawan 18y agoI for one like it, I think it does a good job of providing an 'at-a-glance' overview of stories, it fits a good number of stories on one screen (20) and it is suitably uncluttered for my aesthetic tastes. The only thing I would change is have the animation effects a little faster, say 25%, just to increase the 'snappiness' factor a little. A good job well done IMHO.
- MikeCapone 18y agoDitto. Any idea where to access that mode from the traditional NYT frontpage?
- atarashi 18y agoI don't think you can (yet?), but its was linked to from NYTimes blog for new features and announcements. http://firstlook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/sunday-browsing/ http://firstlook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/sunday-browsin...
- kennyroo 18y agoOne of the nice things about traditional newspaper layout is that story placement and size help readers instantly understand the relative importance of each news article. (Of course "importance" is an entirely subjective notion, but you see what I mean.) Other than the 2-box story at the top-left, having both X and Y axes and same-size boxes makes it difficult to determine what's worth reading and what's not. It would be interesting combine the grid with a Hacker News/Digg-like point system that reordered the stories by popularity. The fact that you lose access to the Skimmer interface after clicking on a story seems weird, but that's fixable. Still, I like that they're trying new ideas. And I love having a small photo with each headline.
- lisp_padawan 18y agoI see your argument re: the 'importance' of stories - the 'above the fold' placement in print papers is the same idea - but I think, at least in terms of my own reading, that I can judge for myself what the important stories are. Thinking about it this is one of the top selling points to me of this design. I don't CARE what the editors think is an important story, show me the article summaries and I'LL decide what I want to read about. This system is great because I can quickly scan the stories for those topics I'm interested in (Science, Tech, Business, Politics) and never have to look at sport or fashion or Britney's new tongue piercing etc But either way, as you say, nice that they're trying out new ideas
- kwitek 18y agoIt's not bad, but I believe it would be much clearer if every article had 'category' icon instead of a photo. At the moment it takes to long to filter information overhead.
- jwr 18y agoWhy do the newspapers think they have to reduce themselves to news feeds? I like the physical newspaper for the editorial value it provides: it places emphasis on certain stories (by making them larger and more accessible) and demotes others. This is real value, that I am willing to pay for. The new interface makes almost every story identical. Now, on the internet we have plenty of news feeds, and very few entities who can actually provide that editorial value. So I just can't understand why The New York Times would want to get rid of its biggest competitive advantage?
- yan 18y agoI don't think they're replacing anything with the Skimmer, it's an experiment. The news that has been coming out of the newspaper industry recently is mostly comprised of how their model isn't being as profitable as it used to be and their struggle to stay afloat. I actually applaud the NYT for the experiments they've been playing with. The interactive info-graphics, their openness, and little apps like this Skimmer really do set them apart. I doubt they just invented this and ran with it. I think they're just coming out with new tools and techniques and just seeing what sticks. I don't see anything wrong with that.
- RobertL 18y agoThe problem at the New York Times isn't the "Interface" it's their socialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-american political agenda.
- yan 18y agoI'm loving the keyboard shortcuts. Hold 's' to see section numbers. Hold 'a' to see story numbers. So to see section 4 (US) just type: 14s Once you're there, to see story 71 once you're there, just type: 71a
- rrhyne 18y agoIt's cool, but is it a real solution to a real problem facing news readers?
- omnivore 18y agoI like it to some degree, but I think they're missing the point. Their traditional audience would have a very hard time reading the newspaper like power web users do. I think that you have to have a way to distinguish the "headline" news from the "hey, read this over here" second tier stories. I do think, it's a good experiment and worth exploring more.
- anewaccountname 18y agoManages to break alt left-arrow "back" shortcut.
- joanou 18y agoCool. Reminds me of Drudge.
- ieatpaste 18y agoI would appreciate thumbnails of photos with headlines under them, similar to traditional newspaper format.
- stevenjames 18y agoha, this is similar to the interface on my site's homepage: freemontpost.com
- maxniederhofer 18y agoI think a simple list of links with comments and the ability for readers to up- and down-vote would be better. Yeah, like HN, really.
- tutwabee 18y agoWhere will the advertisements go?
- steelhive 18y agoTo Craigslist and Google. (I'm so sorry. Fish... barrel...)