4 ms·

New York Times Landing Pages: All the Irrelevance That Fits the Pixels

12 points by coglethorpe 18y ago

boundlessdreamz 18y ago
I find my eyes drawn to the headline and as long as headline and some text is clearly visible I'm not annoyed as I can start reading immediately. So I don't think there is a need to devote majority of your above fold area to immediate content. In fact the blog is annoying because I couldn't read even a single line of text without scrolling down. The picture was completely irrelevant. Atleast in nytimes, everything except the banner ad, above the fold is useful. often I find myself clicking on the tech category soon after reading a tech article.
- briansmith 18y ago
  Good point. The picture was more confusing than helpful. But, it was a cool shot so I forgive the guy. The main problems with the blog in my view: (1) There's a big banner at the top complaining that I'm using "IE6 (or below" and recommending Firefox, but I'm using IE8; (2) I literally cannot read its logo. I can barely make out "optimize" after double-checking the address bar to see what it is supposed to say.
- sam_in_nyc 18y ago
  I agree. The variables involved with computing how much attention something receives is more than simply %space, %words, and other measurable things like that. It's like saying that letters are mostly whitespace.
briansmith 18y ago
"Above the fold" is something that we worried about 10 years ago when we were concerned that users didn't know how to scroll. There's lots of evidence to indicate that people really don't mind scrolling that much. You can only make the article text so wide before it becomes hard to read. It is already twice as wide (at least) as the printed version. If you have one article per page then you are going to have a lot of leftover space when somebody has their web browser at an insane width of >1400px at 144dpi. They might as well fill that space with advertising. He is kind of stacking the deck to support his point. He has his font size pretty small--probably too small for most NYTimes readers to comfortably read. If you crank up the font size to something readable then the proportion of the page "above the fold" dedicated to the article is much larger.
Zev 18y ago
Um, what? If nytimes.com was to remove the email/share box, people would say the NYTimes was messing things up and didn't 'get' it anymore and were messing up. If they were to remove links to other content to navigate through the site, be lost at how to navigate the site people and would say they're messing up. If they remove ads, they lose a decent chunk of money, amounting to between 90 and 100 Million dollars. Then the business people would say they're messing up.
dandelany 18y ago
The last line of this article irks me: "Spending less time selling ads on the front page and more time into creating better digital experiences offers their best hope for survival." It's easy to speak buzz and say they need "a better digital experience," but what does this actually translate to, in terms of revenue streams? Every newspaper in the country has been employing their best experts to figure out how to improve their web presence to keep from going under. It's not that easy. In fact, I would say that the Times, especially, has done an excellent job of "improving their digital experience" over the past few years. Remember how you used to have to register to read all the articles? And how they didn't have blogs on the site? Or a historical API? Or all those beautiful flash infographics? Or the Global Edition? NYTimes has broken major ground in web journalism lately, and the only reason they're not getting awards for it is because they still aren't profitable.

12 points by coglethorpe 18y ago

I find my eyes drawn to the headline and as long as headline and some text is clearly visible I'm not annoyed as I can start reading immediately. So I don't think there is a need to devote majority of your above fold area to immediate content. In fact the blog is annoying because I couldn't read even a single line of text without scrolling down. The picture was completely irrelevant. Atleast in nytimes, everything except the banner ad, above the fold is useful. often I find myself clicking on the tech category soon after reading a tech article.

briansmith 18y ago
Good point. The picture was more confusing than helpful. But, it was a cool shot so I forgive the guy. The main problems with the blog in my view: (1) There's a big banner at the top complaining that I'm using "IE6 (or below" and recommending Firefox, but I'm using IE8; (2) I literally cannot read its logo. I can barely make out "optimize" after double-checking the address bar to see what it is supposed to say.
sam_in_nyc 18y ago
I agree. The variables involved with computing how much attention something receives is more than simply %space, %words, and other measurable things like that. It's like saying that letters are mostly whitespace.

briansmith 18y ago

"Above the fold" is something that we worried about 10 years ago when we were concerned that users didn't know how to scroll. There's lots of evidence to indicate that people really don't mind scrolling that much. You can only make the article text so wide before it becomes hard to read. It is already twice as wide (at least) as the printed version. If you have one article per page then you are going to have a lot of leftover space when somebody has their web browser at an insane width of >1400px at 144dpi. They might as well fill that space with advertising. He is kind of stacking the deck to support his point. He has his font size pretty small--probably too small for most NYTimes readers to comfortably read. If you crank up the font size to something readable then the proportion of the page "above the fold" dedicated to the article is much larger.

Zev 18y ago

Um, what? If nytimes.com was to remove the email/share box, people would say the NYTimes was messing things up and didn't 'get' it anymore and were messing up. If they were to remove links to other content to navigate through the site, be lost at how to navigate the site people and would say they're messing up. If they remove ads, they lose a decent chunk of money, amounting to between 90 and 100 Million dollars. Then the business people would say they're messing up.

dandelany 18y ago

The last line of this article irks me: "Spending less time selling ads on the front page and more time into creating better digital experiences offers their best hope for survival." It's easy to speak buzz and say they need "a better digital experience," but what does this actually translate to, in terms of revenue streams? Every newspaper in the country has been employing their best experts to figure out how to improve their web presence to keep from going under. It's not that easy. In fact, I would say that the Times, especially, has done an excellent job of "improving their digital experience" over the past few years. Remember how you used to have to register to read all the articles? And how they didn't have blogs on the site? Or a historical API? Or all those beautiful flash infographics? Or the Global Edition? NYTimes has broken major ground in web journalism lately, and the only reason they're not getting awards for it is because they still aren't profitable.