There’s a difference between looking good and being good
December 5th, 2008
And, viagra usa malady no, salve this post isn’t about Paris Hilton.
It’s about the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s newly redesigned web site. The new site looks great. It’s much cleaner and better arranged. But for some reason I can’t find a damn thing on it. I feel like I’m spending twice as much time getting half as much value. I’m not sure why this is the case. It could be that I’m just unfamiliar with the new layout and it will take me a while to get proficient at navigating it. But, shop it’s already been a while and I still feel lost when looking for something to complain about.
So, guys, tell me: is it just me?
How do the rest of you like our newspaper’s new site?
12 Comments Add your own
1. capper | December 5th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I feel like I’m spending twice as much time getting half as much value.
Change time for money, and you also describe their dead tree version as well.
2. Chris from Racine | December 5th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I can’t stand it…I’m glad I’m not the only one. Looks better, but like you, can’t find a thing…
3. Headless Blogger | December 5th, 2008 at 9:01 am
It takes forever to load, too. I’ve stopped going there.
4. buzz | December 5th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Their RSS feed stopped working, so I don’t get any top stories on my Google front page. Very, very annoying.
5. Sonya | December 5th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
What in particular are you looking for? Let’s see if I can help point you in the right direction.
Also to buzz: RSS feeds are almost all fixed across the site. What kind of feed reader do you use?
As of two days ago, most pages were updated so that readers should be able to subscribe with most feedreaders. My Bloglines finally recognizes feeds from the new site, for example.
6. David Casper | December 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I’ve stopped reading anything that isn’t easily accessible via the homepage.
7. elliot | December 5th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Upon further reflection, it’s not that I’m having a hard time finding things.
For example, the opinions section is MUCH easier to get to with the new tab structure.
The issue is that there is something about the layout of the actual pages that makes it very difficult to scan them for content. You almost have to slow down and examine every single element.
I don’t want to be too critical. The new layout is much more attractive.
But there’s just something about it that feels more like a printed newspaper, than a web-based news source.
8. folkbum | December 5th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Sonya, the last several days the AP video feed on jsonline has been freezing every browser I throw at it. As long as we’re sharing.
9. Fuzz Martin | December 5th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I like it. It’s clean.
10. elliot | December 5th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Fuzz is a suck up! Fuzz is a suck up! ;)
11. Fuzz Martin | December 5th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Oh, elliot, if I was a suck up, I’d say that I like it but it’s not as clean as the website of the newspaper that owns my radio station ;) http://gazettextra.com/
12. Sonya | December 10th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Here’s what I heard today from our online editor when I passed along the AP feed/browser issue:
“Thanks, I will contact AP and ask them about it. AP recently switched away from MSN (which was balky) to a new video vendor (which I find also to be very balky). It is one of the reasons we moved away from AP as a host for our local video and now use Brightcove. The problem is on AP’s end, since it is a totally hosted service.”
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