Wow, it looks so much better than it used to, it's insane. The header and banner are much more different and there's a higher contrast between the banner stuff and the main content. As it says in the article, the homepage is a lot less text heavy, focusing more on the videos, images and most important headlines. While the "latest news" section still has the same number of headlines (I think) the site still looks a lot less busy because there's not nearly as much text around it. When I first looked at the site, I wondered where all the rest of their content would be. So, I scrolled down and found my favorite part of this new design, the fancy boxes that break the headlines into categories!!! It's so much more appealing to the eye than what they used to do. The overall look and layout just seem so logical and symetrical and straightforward and I'm a huge fan!
However, there's one piece in particular where I think CNN went wrong. They've put a huge amount of emphasis on entertainment, even giving it the center story and the first box option at the bottom of the page. CNN tries to explain this move in the article but I think they fail to adequately explain why they'd do something like this. CNN's lost quite a few points in my eyes because of this move. I guess you could call me a News Puritan, but I get a little annoyed when "entertainment news" takes over the top spot and I have to read about "lipstick killers" and Kanye as top news items.
Overall, I think they've done a great job at giving this site a new, cleaner, tighter look. I completely agree with the article in that regard. But, at the same time, the decision to put even more emphasis on entertainment news rubs me the wrong way, but over the past few years CNN has become less and less about actual news, on both TV and the internet, so pretty soon I'm sure they'll just end up trying to compete with TMZ.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Nick -- agree with the change. I think they will make adjustments as time goes on.
ReplyDeleteAlso agree with the "news puritan" attitude. There is already so many outlets for entertainment news -- and so many websites for it, I agree that CNN doesn't need to go this avenue. I mean, maybe they do because they don't have the traffic they want/need? I am not sure. Regardless, I feel like it's the easy route for the website -- moving in a direction that will get more traffic, as appose to coming up with something new, innovative and inventive essentially.
The best web outlets in the future will have something that is clearly different and new.
I agree about the new sections. Why didn't they have them in the first place? It makes it so much easier to find articles.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the Guardian did not spend a lot of time discussing the shift towards "infotainment." However, the time it did spend said a lot.
ReplyDelete"The entertainment section attracted 90m page views in September, while politics drew 70m."
Not hard to see why they're moving in this direction.
I too loved the section boxes at the bottom of the page. This makes the front page so much more useful and the whole site much easier to navigate.
ReplyDeleteI'm all there on the sections talk. Boxes are one of the smallest design features but they make such a big difference in terms of functionality. It also helps the content on the page look less cluttered - the last design felt like a long laundry list of unorganized headlines. This new look is definitely a better organized one.
ReplyDelete