This is one of those designs where I’m not quite sure what I should be looking at. The “Breaking News” section is clearly important and stands out really well. Looks nice, but that takes less than a second to read and then I’m looking for more meat. I suppose the image in the left-most column grabs the eye, but… I don’t know. I feel like there’s a lot of noise.
I guess the short answer is: What’s there looks nice, but I feel like there’s too much there.
Anonymous Coward
on 16 Oct 08
Who broke my iGoogle?!
Travis
on 16 Oct 08
On first glance, I like it. But the ‘Breaking News’ section is very cnn.com. It looks completely out of place on this site. I’m sure it’s supposed to stand out, but it can still fit the visual design.
ML
on 16 Oct 08
Sidebar: Remember when “Breaking News” actually meant something? A broadcast would be interrupted and you would pay attention because something noteworthy actually happened. Nowadays, even the slightest bit of throwaway news gets tagged “Breaking News.”
it’s alright… but it is far too busy. it looks like the designer decided to animate anything they could and that the focus of the redesign was to sell ad space.
just yesterday, they had an AMD ad that took over my computer. it was an AMD ad between the quick links and latest headlines rows that (cleverly using some nifty css i’m sure) expanded one row at a time COMPLETELY RUINING the reading experience as it shifted everything down. then to make matters worse… the ad then contracted line by line when it was done showcasing itself.
perhaps my network at work was clogged and slow making the ad trudge along, but it was really ridiculous. i found it more intruding then those full screen splash page ads.
i get it, wsj. you know how to use technology to move objects and have little popups. but this is the front page to the wsj, not the comics to the anywhere tribune.
Brad Maier
on 16 Oct 08
They have an incredible print design, why not translate it to the web? I’d love to see them go more in the direction of the folks at Coudal or the Guardian.co.uk than a look thats a cross between thestreet.com, cnn, and collegehumor…
It looks a bit like what happens when people let their CMS dictate the structure of the site… looks a bit “Drupally” to me (though I believe its home-brewed).
It’s a step forward from their prior site, but I don’t think it fits. While I realize that the purpose of a news site is to convey news, I feel like it is cluttered…WAY too many tabs.
Yes, it resembles a magazine…but, the web is not a magazine.
Stevo
on 16 Oct 08
Color me unimpressed:
1. There are no real focal points on this layout – no implied lines or “flow” to pull your eyes around the page. It’s one big blur of text.
2. There is no clear hierarchy of content either, no protagonist to draw you in. Everything appears equally important – a product of poor structure and layout
3. Wayyy to much shit (oh shit, can I say shit here?) in those navbars. And do they really need FOUR levels of navigation? I think I would have a seizure before I could decide which link to click on.
4. If you are gonna cram a bunch of crap into three columns, you should at least put a different color background on one of them to visually unify by context somehow. They almost got it in the “What’s News” section – a sad case of too little too late though..
Whenever I see a design like this on a site, I don’t even bother trying to decipher the content – like most surfers I got too many things to look at, and if you can’t grab my attention within 3-5 seconds, I’m out!
Thumbs way down on this one. WSJ can afford much better.
Looks like NYTimes with a grey CNN header. I’m not expecting WSJ to provide innovate web design though…it looks good and functions pretty safely so for WSJ it’s fantastic.
Yes, cluttered and more magazine-y. At least it’s not as garish as The Atlantic redesign.
David Andersen
on 16 Oct 08
I wish it looked more like their print edition, but with well executed – and judiciously applied – webby things.
Anthony Baker
on 16 Oct 08
Love it.
Had a huge dislike of the previous version, so much so that I never visited the site because of it. NY Times has always been the standout, and it’s nice to see the WSJ step up to the plate.
One note: A friend of mine, who might be considered a WSJ power user, dislikes it. He says that it’s fundamentally slower to load data - particularly when doing stock look-ups - and prefers the previous. Utility trumps the sexy, in his case.
CJF
on 16 Oct 08
I’m not a fan. It’s trying to do far too much in far too small a space. It took a fair bit of effort for me to mentally organize the page.
Thankfully the content pages are much better done, and much of their content is available in rss/atom format, so I can read their news the way I want to.
Reminds me of the new Yahoo News, which reminds me of the CNN or IHT layout.
Seems like this 3-column layout with 2-level nav on top, headline news on left, other news links in middle, and ads/random links on the right is becoming sort of a standard for major news sites.
Tino
on 16 Oct 08
I first saw it and wondered “what does Dollar Savings Direct” have to do with the WSJ? I think that sums it up.
Looks like my theory is right, how most are going to 1990’s design (ie. Technorati).
Ryan
on 16 Oct 08
I kind of miss the blue to be honest. That’s what I think when I think of Wall Street. Now it just looks like a great website, just not WSJ.
What am I meant to look at?
Far too much text bunched up together, too many levels of navigation, no shading to differentiate content, no hierarchal layout.
What’s the first thing that my eye drifts to? The large MPU ad on the right, and only because it has some nice empty space around it!
4/10, must try harder.
Paul McMahon
on 17 Oct 08
Too many menus. There seems to be four of them at the top. “Breaking news” looks like an advertisement, so my eyes just skip it.
I liked the previous version better. I think they should have massaged their previous design if they felt like they needed a change. While a little bland, it had huge identity (for me at least). I knew what to expect when I went to the site, I felt like I could trust the branding. This seems like a change for change’s sake.
Really impressed. It feels instantly familiar, and easy to get around, yet still unique. In particular, I like the tabs on article pages. They put comments and multimedia front and center without burying them in sidebars or post-mortem. I also like the contrast that the dark backdrop of video areas gives to the traditional text content.
MT Heart
on 17 Oct 08
An improvement I would say.
I sure hope Investors Business Daily get a hint. Their site is sooo 1999 and you have to use Windows ActiveX to view the graphs…
StEliz
on 17 Oct 08
ML: Those of who follow financial news know that that rally WAS huge news, coming as it it did after the steepest declines in 70 years.
Remember when snide effete designers and programmers didn’t consider themselves qualified media critics??
Overall a positive change. Although I agree with earlier comments that things are a bit crowded, they did a commendable job or organizing considering the sheer amount of data & number of articles they have available to show.
For those of you who didn’t know the old design, you’ll be able to easily compare the two for the next month or so at CommandShift3.
Josh
on 17 Oct 08
I miss the old design. I loved the vertical presentation of the day’s top stories, followed by the 3-4 front page stories and editor’s top picks. It gave me a very simple way of understanding the day’s biggest news with a clean hierarchy of importance. There are still elements of that presentation in the new design, but I find that the lower half of the page really muddies things up for me, the stories seem more scattershot, I’m not as sure about what was Front Page and what’s just filler.
Chris
on 17 Oct 08
Typical responses by a design-centric audience who has forgotten that they are likely not the intended audience.
We could copy these bland pedestrian comments about not enough room, no focus point, no entry point, blah blah blah and apply it to any redesign of a web site, publication, or logo.
Happens every time on a hundred different blogs and list-servs.
I hate it, because this layout has been done time after time for major news publications and each time the layout is crucified for poor UI. WSJ did not even attempt to solve the problem, they just rehashed someone’s hard work.
Warren Buffett
on 17 Oct 08
I hate it… Perhaps I should just flat out buy the WSJ… then I should buy 37 Signals… then I can put those boys to work on redoing the WSJ site and it will look really slick, sorta like a 37 better WSJ.
I’ve subscribed to this site for years. It is nice looking but a bit cluttered and a little slow with some of the AJAX. The WSJ has an enormous amount of information to display so I would imagine it was very difficult to reduce the clutter.
Tory
on 16 Oct 08Pure sex.
Rob H
on 16 Oct 08I think they did a nice job with the magazine style layout and huge improvement over the previous version.
I like the change of color scheme too, they went from a completely white background to a dark color contrasting one against the white container.
Overall, its much improved.
R
Carson
on 16 Oct 08Looks a LOT like CNN.com to me!
Daniel
on 16 Oct 08It looks great – still feels slightly cluttered, but that’s hard to avoid completely with such a huge amount of content.
Ben Hamill
on 16 Oct 08This is one of those designs where I’m not quite sure what I should be looking at. The “Breaking News” section is clearly important and stands out really well. Looks nice, but that takes less than a second to read and then I’m looking for more meat. I suppose the image in the left-most column grabs the eye, but… I don’t know. I feel like there’s a lot of noise.
I guess the short answer is: What’s there looks nice, but I feel like there’s too much there.
Anonymous Coward
on 16 Oct 08Who broke my iGoogle?!
Travis
on 16 Oct 08On first glance, I like it. But the ‘Breaking News’ section is very cnn.com. It looks completely out of place on this site. I’m sure it’s supposed to stand out, but it can still fit the visual design.
ML
on 16 Oct 08Sidebar: Remember when “Breaking News” actually meant something? A broadcast would be interrupted and you would pay attention because something noteworthy actually happened. Nowadays, even the slightest bit of throwaway news gets tagged “Breaking News.”
pistevo
on 16 Oct 08it’s alright… but it is far too busy. it looks like the designer decided to animate anything they could and that the focus of the redesign was to sell ad space.
just yesterday, they had an AMD ad that took over my computer. it was an AMD ad between the quick links and latest headlines rows that (cleverly using some nifty css i’m sure) expanded one row at a time COMPLETELY RUINING the reading experience as it shifted everything down. then to make matters worse… the ad then contracted line by line when it was done showcasing itself.
perhaps my network at work was clogged and slow making the ad trudge along, but it was really ridiculous. i found it more intruding then those full screen splash page ads.
i get it, wsj. you know how to use technology to move objects and have little popups. but this is the front page to the wsj, not the comics to the anywhere tribune.
Brad Maier
on 16 Oct 08They have an incredible print design, why not translate it to the web? I’d love to see them go more in the direction of the folks at Coudal or the Guardian.co.uk than a look thats a cross between thestreet.com, cnn, and collegehumor…
It looks a bit like what happens when people let their CMS dictate the structure of the site… looks a bit “Drupally” to me (though I believe its home-brewed).
Jonathan Ng
on 16 Oct 08It’s a step forward from their prior site, but I don’t think it fits. While I realize that the purpose of a news site is to convey news, I feel like it is cluttered…WAY too many tabs.
Yes, it resembles a magazine…but, the web is not a magazine.
Stevo
on 16 Oct 08Color me unimpressed:
1. There are no real focal points on this layout – no implied lines or “flow” to pull your eyes around the page. It’s one big blur of text.
2. There is no clear hierarchy of content either, no protagonist to draw you in. Everything appears equally important – a product of poor structure and layout
3. Wayyy to much shit (oh shit, can I say shit here?) in those navbars. And do they really need FOUR levels of navigation? I think I would have a seizure before I could decide which link to click on.
4. If you are gonna cram a bunch of crap into three columns, you should at least put a different color background on one of them to visually unify by context somehow. They almost got it in the “What’s News” section – a sad case of too little too late though..
Whenever I see a design like this on a site, I don’t even bother trying to decipher the content – like most surfers I got too many things to look at, and if you can’t grab my attention within 3-5 seconds, I’m out!
Thumbs way down on this one. WSJ can afford much better.
Erik
on 16 Oct 08Looks like NYTimes with a grey CNN header. I’m not expecting WSJ to provide innovate web design though…it looks good and functions pretty safely so for WSJ it’s fantastic.
Sharon
on 16 Oct 08Yes, cluttered and more magazine-y. At least it’s not as garish as The Atlantic redesign.
David Andersen
on 16 Oct 08I wish it looked more like their print edition, but with well executed – and judiciously applied – webby things.
Anthony Baker
on 16 Oct 08Love it.
Had a huge dislike of the previous version, so much so that I never visited the site because of it. NY Times has always been the standout, and it’s nice to see the WSJ step up to the plate.
One note: A friend of mine, who might be considered a WSJ power user, dislikes it. He says that it’s fundamentally slower to load data - particularly when doing stock look-ups - and prefers the previous. Utility trumps the sexy, in his case.
CJF
on 16 Oct 08I’m not a fan. It’s trying to do far too much in far too small a space. It took a fair bit of effort for me to mentally organize the page.
Thankfully the content pages are much better done, and much of their content is available in rss/atom format, so I can read their news the way I want to.
Tieg
on 16 Oct 08Reminds me of the new Yahoo News, which reminds me of the CNN or IHT layout.
Seems like this 3-column layout with 2-level nav on top, headline news on left, other news links in middle, and ads/random links on the right is becoming sort of a standard for major news sites.
Tino
on 16 Oct 08I first saw it and wondered “what does Dollar Savings Direct” have to do with the WSJ? I think that sums it up. Looks like my theory is right, how most are going to 1990’s design (ie. Technorati).
Ryan
on 16 Oct 08I kind of miss the blue to be honest. That’s what I think when I think of Wall Street. Now it just looks like a great website, just not WSJ.
Tanner
on 16 Oct 08I don’t like it. I agree with a lot of the other comments I’ve seen: it looks too much like cnn.
Niall McCormack
on 16 Oct 08It’s ruddy awful.
What am I meant to look at? Far too much text bunched up together, too many levels of navigation, no shading to differentiate content, no hierarchal layout.
What’s the first thing that my eye drifts to? The large MPU ad on the right, and only because it has some nice empty space around it!
4/10, must try harder.
Paul McMahon
on 17 Oct 08Too many menus. There seems to be four of them at the top. “Breaking news” looks like an advertisement, so my eyes just skip it.
humidhaney
on 17 Oct 08CNN with too much going on.
Mark Berinato
on 17 Oct 08meek. WSJ commands such presence in the media landscape, yet their digital property could easily be mistaken for any city newspaper’s website.
Considering Rupert’s involvement, this seems like a missed opportunity to break new ground.
Maxime Brusse
on 17 Oct 08They should be working on the print CSS.
p-daddy
on 17 Oct 08looks like every other news site now.
too generic
Luis
on 17 Oct 08I wish it was a little more like newyorker.com
Shane
on 17 Oct 08I liked the previous version better. I think they should have massaged their previous design if they felt like they needed a change. While a little bland, it had huge identity (for me at least). I knew what to expect when I went to the site, I felt like I could trust the branding. This seems like a change for change’s sake.
Seamus
on 17 Oct 08Really impressed. It feels instantly familiar, and easy to get around, yet still unique. In particular, I like the tabs on article pages. They put comments and multimedia front and center without burying them in sidebars or post-mortem. I also like the contrast that the dark backdrop of video areas gives to the traditional text content.
MT Heart
on 17 Oct 08An improvement I would say.
I sure hope Investors Business Daily get a hint. Their site is sooo 1999 and you have to use Windows ActiveX to view the graphs…
StEliz
on 17 Oct 08ML: Those of who follow financial news know that that rally WAS huge news, coming as it it did after the steepest declines in 70 years.
Remember when snide effete designers and programmers didn’t consider themselves qualified media critics??
jonathan
on 17 Oct 08wow…strikingly similar to newser
John
on 17 Oct 08To me, it’s a blend of Australian news sites:
1) www.theage.com.au; and, 2) www.abc.net.au/news
It’s okay, but not shattering.
Marcos Wright Kuhns
on 17 Oct 08Overall a positive change. Although I agree with earlier comments that things are a bit crowded, they did a commendable job or organizing considering the sheer amount of data & number of articles they have available to show.
For those of you who didn’t know the old design, you’ll be able to easily compare the two for the next month or so at CommandShift3.
Josh
on 17 Oct 08I miss the old design. I loved the vertical presentation of the day’s top stories, followed by the 3-4 front page stories and editor’s top picks. It gave me a very simple way of understanding the day’s biggest news with a clean hierarchy of importance. There are still elements of that presentation in the new design, but I find that the lower half of the page really muddies things up for me, the stories seem more scattershot, I’m not as sure about what was Front Page and what’s just filler.
Chris
on 17 Oct 08Typical responses by a design-centric audience who has forgotten that they are likely not the intended audience.
We could copy these bland pedestrian comments about not enough room, no focus point, no entry point, blah blah blah and apply it to any redesign of a web site, publication, or logo.
Happens every time on a hundred different blogs and list-servs.
Daniel Craig Jallits
on 17 Oct 08I hate it, because this layout has been done time after time for major news publications and each time the layout is crucified for poor UI. WSJ did not even attempt to solve the problem, they just rehashed someone’s hard work.
Warren Buffett
on 17 Oct 08I hate it… Perhaps I should just flat out buy the WSJ… then I should buy 37 Signals… then I can put those boys to work on redoing the WSJ site and it will look really slick, sorta like a 37 better WSJ.
sroberts
on 17 Oct 08I’ve subscribed to this site for years. It is nice looking but a bit cluttered and a little slow with some of the AJAX. The WSJ has an enormous amount of information to display so I would imagine it was very difficult to reduce the clutter.
Just my $.02.
Jon Moss
on 18 Oct 08I quite like it, but very similar to thetimesonline.co.uk and guardian.co.uk
The former is my fave news site at the moment – very easy to read and great use of fonts, although my fave use of fonts has to be nofont.com
Brad
on 22 Oct 08Say what you like, it sure draws your attention to “Dollar Savings Direct”
@Sharon: Re: Atlantic redesign. Woo. Gridland.
This discussion is closed.