If you haven't already noticed, JournalStar.com is sportin' a new look today. The new design is much more like what one expects a news portal to be. It doesn't break any new ground from a website design perspective, but that's a good thing. A site like JournalStar.com needs to cater to its audience's expectations about how a news site should work.
I had the pleasure of getting a sneak peak at JournalStar.com over the weekend, thanks to Online Editor Steve Smith. I gave Steve a variety of feedback on the new site. Here are some of the things I said.
General items -- The interface is clean and simple. The columnar/modular approach makes the site feel more like a news site than the old design. The simple color scheme is consistently applied, with plenty of white space. Overall, it's a nice, conservative look. Unfortunately, parts of the site "break" when viewed without advertisements. (I browse primarily with Firefox and the AdBlock extension.)
RSS -- Many of you want to know the story on this, so I may as well break it to you now: JournalStar.com is staying away from RSS for now. I won't quote Steve Smith on the matter (because I didn't ask his permission to quote his e-mail), but I can say that RSS is on the radar. It didn't make the site (for now) because of the fear that it will take away from page views. In other words: ad revenue is affected. I know, I know, you don't care. You just want your RSS. So do I. Let's do something about it: go on over to this thread in the forum and help me write a letter to the editor. When it is finished, I will send it to the Journal Star.
Navigation -- The main menu at the top of each page is mostly well organized, but many of the items in the submenu under "Home" don't make sense. (Who would look under "Home" for Celebrate Nebraska?) There is an annoying lag between the time you mouseover a menu item and when its respective submenu displays, although it's probably there to prevent the menu from changing unexpectedly on accidental mouseovers.
Homepage -- Having the weather and search at the top is nice. The homepage is a little busy, but there a lot of content needs to be squeezed into a small amount of space. It took me a while to figure out what the B* images are supposed to represent. (They represent connections to various LJS blogs.)
Section pages -- Section pages are the main section (Sports, News) collector pages. They are laid out similarly to the homepage, which is nice for consistency's sake. I'm not a fan of the blue header image at the top of the section pages, nor am I crazy about the "central" in "News Central".
Subsection pages -- These are pages like Local under News. They are mostly just lists of articles, with links to related information. They are simple and bland, which is probably the best way to do them.
Article pages -- The article pages are structured so that the line length doesn't get too long. That's good for readability. The text size widget is kind of cool, but it would be more useful if it remembered your setting from page to page. Comments on the old site were ordered newest to oldest; I hope they change that for this version.
Subsites -- JournalStar.com is filled with subsites, like Ground Zero Online and The 402. Unfortunately, most (all?) of those subsites currently have their own drastically different looks. I would really like to see those subsites brought under the site's new design. Their look should be customized, of course, but within the confines of the new design.
Broken -- Portions of the site are broken or missing right now. Watch your step as you navigate the site.
The Ugly -- I hate it when websites open pop-ups or new windows, especially when I'm not told that that's what is going to happen. JournalStar.com is guilty of the crime in several places throughout the site. It's especially irksome because the annoying behavior doesn't serve any useful purpose. Also, several parts of the site don't work at all if the user doesn't have JavaScript turned on. That doesn't apply to most users, but it does apply to one very important group: individuals using assistive technologies like screen readers for the visually impaired. That is not acceptable. I'm not saying that because I'm on some sort of political correctness crusade; I'm saying it because the courts have said it isn't acceptable. The courts are gradually expanding the group of websites that must accommodate persons with disabilities, and in my opinion JournalStar.com is either within or very nearly within that group. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.) Cover your butts, LJS.
Overall -- Overall I think the new site works. It has a nicer look, it is better organized, and best of all, the Journal Star didn't go with the Omaha Weird Herald's stupid subscription format. It has a couple hiccups, but hopefully those will be fixed with time. Congratulations Steve Smith and company, you did well.
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The site already looks a hundred times better. I’ve already added my two bits to the RSS debate. I was trying to figure out where all these ads were that you were talking about, when I figured out that I had already blocked them a long time ago. Oops.
Also: Now that Celebrate Nebraska is online I don’t have to wait until Sunday to make my snarky commentary and “she’s too hot to be marrying him” comments. Huzzah!
<i>Now that Celebrate Nebraska is online I don
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