Close Menu Navigation
Open Categories Menu Arkansas Democrat-Gazette launches redesign
- 1 February, 2007 -
- Convergence, Journalism, Me, Online Media, Technology -
- Tags : Convergence, Design, Journalism, Me, Newspapers, Online Media, Technology
- 1 Comment
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette launched a much needed redesign today. The site had some small enhancements over the past year, but desperately needed some major help. I’m sure their web staff is glad to get the redesign monkey off their back and out the door (I’ve experienced that kind of relief many times before), but there are a major standards compliance issues, some programming bugs, design mishaps and an overall flawed approach to what a local newspaper website should be
First, Standards Compliance: It’s 2007 folks, not 2001. Tables are out. Using divs as tables is out. We are now in the days of the semantic web where your html and styles describe and contribute to your content creating accessibility across browsers, platforms and devices. (I won’t even mention the using line breaks and special characters to build lists instead of unordered lists and list items). Unfortunately with circa 2001 coding, your site design will start to break in the next round of new web browsers that will start to enforce standards. If you are interested in this learning more on Standard Compliant HTML start out with Eric Meyer’s CSS Web Site Design and once you have a handle on Eric’s concept move on to Dave Clarke’s Transcending CSS: the Fine Art of Web Design.
Second, The Bug: The second time I visited the website it said “Welcome Charles Munkberg” and gave me the typical “Not Charles Munkberg? Click here” option. Well, I’m not Charles Munkberg and nor has he ever used my computer. He must be the default/test user in their sql recordset or some random cookie problem. Thankfully, this is normally an easy bug to fix in less than five minutes, lets see how long it persists.
Third, Design Mishaps: First let me say there are some good things about their design and it is 300 times better than their old design. I really like the flash photos and headlines in the top left. Most major metro newspapers are using that format now and it really works for them. I also like the design of the video section on the right especially the inclusion of the THV video (good job working that partnership out). For some reason, the scrolling headlines between the flash photos and the videos really get to me under the latest news heading on their page. I think there are too many headlines in that section and they are scrolling way too fast. The search bar is next as you scroll down the page and it is just out of place in that location. The rest of the page proceeds with a three column layout that is nice, but could use some more photos or graphics. The inside section pages work out ok design wise, I like the fact they included at least one photo on each of those pages. The main thing that I don’t see is the ads. There are no external ads above the scroll on the home page, the section pages or the story pages. I guess they will add those later.
Fourth, a flawed online approach: The Democrat-Gazette’s online strategy has two big flaws.
- A failure to focus on being the home page for Arkansas/Metro Little Rock. The inclusion of so much AP national news and video on their home page makes it look like the Demazette is competing with CNN and MSNBC. For national news, people will visit those websites. For local information (much, more than just news) people visit local websites.
- Many newspaper companies have decided they are no longer “newspaper” companies, but information companies that publish their news in print, online and where ever they find readers and advertisers (Former Arkansas Gazette owners, Gannett are the largest company embracing this philosophy, but many other newspapers are running down the same path). However, the Democrat-Gazette is following the dual newsroom approach. One set of designers, reporters, photographers for print and one set for the web (and so far the web has one videographer, one online editor and few part-time web assistants). Their reasoning behind this is that they don’t want the online product to harm the reputation of the print product– which admittedly the Demazette has a good reputation resulting in the highest circulation penetration for a newspaper its size. However, the dual newsroom philosophy vastly under powers your web and actually harms the reputation of the associated newspaper for it’s failures in coverage and design. Additionally, it fails to plan for the future of the newspaper with an overall decline in newspaper circulation and the virtual abandonment of newspapers by readers under 35.
- To protect their circulation of their newspaper, the Democrat-Gazette requires paid subscriptions for their website. Only publications with highly cherished information are successful this route (like the Wall-Street Journal, college sports websites or pornography). Many newspapers require registration so that they have more demographic information about their readers to sale ads with, but few require a paid subscription. Again, the Demazette’s argument to paid subscribers is they can include and visitors to their website under a paid subscription model in their official circulation numbers. Unfortunately, allowing only paid subscribers to access your web site ruins advertising sales and any special up sales you can make via online classified sales (even if online classifieds are accessible to everyone). This is especially ridiculous in the Democrat-Gazette’s case because virtually the whole newspaper they want you to pay to access on their website is available for free on their Northwest Arkansas edition’s web site.
Finally, a couple of disclaimers. I am sure their web staff worked really hard on this redesign and despite my criticisms it is a huge step forward and actually brings the site in the 21st century. I know for a fact that they have a tiny staff devoted to the web with a couple of other departments helping out (IT and design) and for what they are given they have done a great job launching the redesign. Also, as you can probably read in my general criticisms of their approach to a newspaper website that I was once privy to some inside information as I had some discussions with their newsroom leaders when they were redefining their website a year ago. I did my Master’s thesis on newspaper’s websites uses of technology, so I am pretty well versed in that area.
I think the standards compliance and newspaper/website philosophies are the biggest issues here. Small design flaws and bugs can be easily fixed, but an underlying philosophy of the way the website does business is much harder to change.