Ready for liftoff? 5, 4, 3....
Yes, it is going to be red.
I'm talking about the new site that launches on Monday. We know that many of you don't much care for red. Honestly, I like the green, too. But I'm told by the experts that red is a hotter color, and this site needs heat, a conclusion that I certainly agree with. I try to let the experts make the decision on matters I disagree with them on, unless I think it's important, and, frankly, the color's not that important.
Second, the new site isn't complete. After all this time, it's frustrating to us that I say that, but we decided we just need to get the danged thing up. You know how hard it is to change the design on your blog page? Think of thousands of pages. We had hoped to enable comments on the stories -- similar to the blogs -- but aren't ready. Because of the issues raised by trolls and spammers and pornographers, we're waiting. I don't want to imagine the sorts of comments we'd get on a story about, say, a child abuser or pedophile or, heck, a Democrat. So, we need to get a secure registration system in place first.
Third, this isn't the Town Square. Somewhere along the line the idea of a new Web design and the Town Square merged. Nope, not intended to be connected. The Town Square is going to be a place that will link outward to all sorts of sites, not necessarily News & Record sites. It will have sites for Summerfield and Stokesdale, Gibsonville and McLeansville, Pleasant Garden and Kernersville. It will feature provocative posts from local bloggers. Podcasts galore. And it's phase dos.
Fourth, the new site's different. Yeah, we know. Things aren't in the same place. Things may not be where you want them to be. Yeah, we know. The staff is divided, too. Some think it's too busy. As my daughter used to say -- no, she still says -- oh well. For me, it's different, but it's intuitive. It's certainly easier to manuever and navigate. Try it for awhile.
Finally, the links from the old design will rot. Sorry about that, but that's the cost of switching over. The good news is that, we're done with rotted links. From now on, what you link to will be there. And still there. You can thank Ed Cone. That's the second thing he asked of me when I became editor. (The first: Could I give him a raise?)
Send feedback here. That's not a site I receive so if you want the world to know what you think, feel free to leave a comment on this blog. I welcome it.
For the record, we're replacing a publishing system that is nearly 10 years old. You know, back in 1995, like when Clinton was president, blogs were a twinkle in Winer's eye, Al Gore was admiring his invention of the Internet and, heck, I was still young.
Check it out on Monday. Unless, of course, we pull the trigger and the gun doesn't fire. In that case, I'll let you know.
Comments (8)
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John, (see more in the comments on my blog), did you really intend to launch without all-browser support? Did you really mean to create an IE-only web site? If so, what WERE you thinking? (this has nothing to do with red or where things are...)
Posted on July 9, 2005 9:58 AM
Daddy! Daddy!, he hit me!
Posted on July 9, 2005 12:55 PM
Steve Paschall, News & Record Interactive's User Experience Development Manager here.
We've fully tested the site with Internet Explorer 5.5+, Netscape Navigator 7+, Mozilla Firefox 1+, and Apple Safari 1.x. We're cleaning up a couple of element size calculation inconsistencies with Safari that we accidentally introduced with a design tweak this week, but apart from that, the site looks great and works well on all of our test platforms.
If you are having trouble viewing the site on one of these platforms, please let us know. Chances are you have some sort of ad blocking, privacy protection, or security software installed that is playing dirty with our site. If you could temporarily disable any such package and check the site again, that could help us track down your particular issue. We're trying to isolate and address such problems as quickly as possible, but there are simply too many unique combinations of browser, operating system, and ancillary software out there for us ever to be able to say the site is universally compatible.
Things completely fall apart in Opera and there are a few aesthetic glitches in IE 5 for the Mac, and we're working on "fallback" alternative stylesheets to support older and/or non-standards-compliant browsers.
Will we ever be able support every single possible platform anyone might ever try to view the site with? Doubtful. We are trying to present alternatives for folks with less common setups, but we'd be stuck with pre-Millennium standards if we had to ensure compatibility with everything out there, and we want to move things forward a bit. If you have specific issues you'd like us to address, however, please let us know.
Posted on July 10, 2005 10:44 AM
John,
The front page appearing when I opened the paper this morning looked great. I really liked the idea of not having to scroll through a laundry list to find the section I wished to view.
Safari had it's problems for a day or so but they seem to have cleared up now. That is what I am using to view. Explorer seemed to have more problems and I was not able to read the letters section on explorer, the remainder of the blogs opened ok. I am not a puter whiz but I can tell you when something works and something doesn't. So I have put in my 2 cents worth. Keep up the good work, hopefully some of the other state papers will follow your lead.
I hooked in the gentleman with The Australian who handles these things and he loved the blogs and the letters section. He is working now to see if it will fly with management. Phillip Adams columns would certainly draw a great response as well as Frank Devine's since both are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Frank hates the idea and Phil loves it so far.
Posted on July 11, 2005 9:59 AM
I must say that I like the new site's look, feel and, yes, even its color. My question is not only about the site but also about how the paper is organized. It seems that the newspaper, and the website, minimize the importance of business news by placing it behind Opinion, Sports and Life. Sure, those are important parts of life in the Triad but so is the business climate. To me, burying local business news behind other sections portrays an area that's not serious about getting out of the shadow of Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte.
I'm not saying to place the Money section behind news, but MAYBE bump it a slot or two.
Posted on July 12, 2005 10:32 AM
I know you guys are working hard and launching a new site is not easy. I am glad that you are trying to innovate.
BUT, I find the new site to be just horrible.
There is too much to list that does not make sense -- the whole site is counter-intuitive. (Tiny scroll bars to get to links AFTER I click on tabs? TWO DIFFERENT "News" channels?)
Obits in "Marketplace"?
I simply can't stand it. Yesterday's "Opinion" channel simply had a mug of some random person (unidentified) and a headline beside it that made no sense. There is a major disconnect somewhere.
My guess is that you are all very well intentioned. But, the designer and tech people have run amock with this. They have become unplugged (or been allowed to run rampant) over the editorial people who actually decide where things should go and how to updated and run the site.
It's just a mess.
Posted on July 12, 2005 2:17 PM
Welcome to the 21st Century.
The XHTML/CSS design you've chose is a wise one. Obviously the entire site is not converted yet, nor would it be expected considering its size, but it's a step out of table nesting nightmares.
I can't, however, praise everything. What would normally be a cost-savings move would seem to be just the opposite for this design. The code is extremely bloated, as is the CSS. I'm sure your servers are feeling the strain of 71 HTTP Requests _per_ user! If I didn't have broadband, I doubt I'd stick around. Granted, yes, the images and CSS files will be cached. But X browser still has to parse the HTML which includes so many scripts.
Considering the amount of content, I can imagine how difficult it is to maintain clarity and a sense of whitespace. However, if you are going to use gradients to simulate depth on the z-axis, give some padding-left to the main content (on the feedback page, at least) block instead of having the text overlap the gradient. Ruins the entire effect.
I also never noticed how many ads are on your page. I'd assume this is to compensate for the considerable increase in bandwidth.
Since this design went live just this week, I'm not going to harp on about validating the code and css. However, I hope over the next few months a lot of refinements are introduced, including but not restricted to:
* NOT delivering content via javascript. I turned off javascript and the 'tabbed' menu navigation boxes were blank. Luckily for CSS-impaired browsers, the articles still show (lynx, for example).
* Shorthand CSS, grouping multiple selectors for equal properties.
* On the other hand, turning off javascript killed the ads as well. Might I recommend Google AdSense, or purely text-based? At least until these speed issues are resolved.
* Valid code.
I think I've taken up enough time. I would like to reiterate my congratulations on keeping up with where the web is going, instead of coding for IE. Still, I think I'll rely on your RSS feeds as opposed to coming to the site. I'll also test this in Linux and convey the results.
Good luck.
Zach Foutch.
(PS: If bloggers knew half as much about the internals that enable them to post as they do about WYSIWYG editing, the changes you've made would be getting much more feedback. Complaints about the design being "IE only" tell worlds about self-acclaimed "savvy users.")
Posted on July 14, 2005 12:06 PM
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Posted on February 12, 2007 4:52 AM