
Introducing A New Article Design - donohoe
http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/prototype/index.html
======
thesash
I think we're at the tipping point for a new era of long-form content that's
designed natively for the web, and I, for one, am very, very excited about it.
There's a whole crop of sites and apps (Svbtle, Medium, Quartz, The Magazine)
that were born on the web and are dedicated to long form content, but now with
initiatives like this we're seeing the old guard finally come around to the
fact that the web is not print made digital, it's a whole new medium with a
whole new set of possibilities.

I think there is plenty of appetite for real journalism, thoughtful opinion,
and _gasp_ long form content subscriptions, but the implementations have
lagged behind the technology, while opportunistic content farms like HuffPo
and short form (but tech savvy) sites like Buzzfeed have moved more quickly to
capitalize on the true potential of the web. Hopefully projects like this can
turn the tide and prove that content on great content can be a great business
on the web.

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duopixel
I really like the redesign, but fixed headers are driving me nuts. When I read
my eyes fix on the top portion of the webpage, when a fixed header is there I
feel like I must retrain myself to start reading a little bit below the
header.

I've noticed I don't mind fixed footers, they are not within my natural
reading area.

~~~
sp332
My major problem is if I hit the space bar or Page Down button, the first
lines of text are hidden behind the banner.

~~~
zevyoura
I wrote a brief comment on this issue (and a proposed solution) a few weeks
ago: <http://gist.io/4950242>

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grey-area
Congratulations on the engaging and thoughtful redesign - this is a huge
improvement on the current article pages, which are so cluttered the article
feels like an afterthought - squeezed in between social sharing boxes and the
related column on the left. Reading that first paragraph has always upset me
on articles - where you have to follow a narrow river of text down to the body
of the article to continue reading, and ignore all the distractions on the
way.

Making the content the star of the show fits far better with what I value in
the NYTimes, and what made me a subscriber. Now fix the home page please, it
still has that same old cluttered feel!

PS It would be great to see a blog post in future about the work that went
into this redesign.

------
ctbeiser
It looks beautiful, but, as a daily reader of the Times, there's one thing
that's holding me back from signing up: it's designed (like the iPhone app) to
show you other content from the same section.

Here's the thing: When was the last time you gave a damn about the section?

I understand caring about Fashion vs the Science Times. But while the number
of sections the Times has makes sense in print, on the web, the differences
between the Metropolitan, New York, Business Day, International, National...
it all seems fairly artificial. Is the war in Afghanistan national, or
international news? Does education reform go under politics or education? The
answer is, of course, both, but the Times has to choose. Sure, it makes sense
to group them on paper, because it's the best way to help you find things that
are like what you're reading. But digitally, without the ability to quickly
flip through, there's a lot that just gets hidden from the reader.

As someone who spent five hours yesterday laying out a newspaper, I have a lot
of respect for the designers at the Times. Here's to hoping they find a better
way to move their IA to the web than in hundred-year-old silos.

~~~
ChrisLTD
As a frequent user of both the iPhone and iPad apps, I can tell you that I
appreciate having articles categorized in various sections. Mostly I like
browsing the metaphorical paper while skipping sections that I know rarely
have articles I care about (hello Style section!).

As for articles that could belong under multiple sections, they are often
actually just cross-posted in both. For instance, today there was an article
about Harvard searching through staff emails that ended up in the U.S. section
and in the Tech section.

~~~
subpixel
One of the best things about sections is the ability they give you to 'finish'
a newspaper. That doesn't mean read every article - it means the ability to
pick it up, look through it, and decide when you've seen enough to be done
with it.

I hate the feeling of tumbling down a rabbit hole that most online news gives
me. I miss the feeling of satisfaction I used to get from leafing through the
Times section by section. I'm hopeful this redesign will bring back some of
the best bits of the experience afforded by dead trees.

~~~
ctbeiser
I totally agree with your thoughts on 'finishing' a newspaper. That said, the
large number of sections, and having no way to see whether I've seen the new
articles in them, leaves me unable to do so.

Perhaps it's my wide range of interests, but with 28 sections in the app, of
which over 20 I'll glance through on paper and occasionally read an article
from, I can't possibly check all of them every day for interesting articles.
Sure, some only update weekly, but am I supposed to just remember off the top
of my head which day the science section is, and then only check it then?
(Tuesdays.) And then there are all the blogs, which I'd also like to read...
get the picture?

I don't have a GOMS analysis for you or anything, but with the time it takes
to go to sections, see if there's anything new and interesting, the attention
just doesn't feel worth the effort, and I give up after going through the
front page and 20 most emailed articles.

------
voxmatt
This looks like an excellent step in the right direction, but I do have one
worry here: native apps.

The New York Times has had several experiments over the last year that
indicate a desire to move everyone on to the web and out of native apps. They
had an experimental website aimed at tablets that they marketed to NYTimes
iPad app users and, while nice, it was a definite step down from a native app.
And the iPad app has been increasingly sluggish, despite occasional updates —
seemingly a sign of disrepair.

I design and program for the web, so I definitely understand the allure, but
mobile web apps are, at best, an approximation of the experience provided by
mobile native apps. Just ask 37 Signals, arguably one of the biggest
proponents of web apps. Maybe mobile web apps will catch up, but we're not
there yet, and I would strongly argue that we won't be there very soon.

I have an inkling that this redesign will be accompanied by a renewed push
away from native apps. I just hope that The New York Times doesn't stop
development of their native apps.

~~~
ChrisLTD
As tablet and phone hardware matures, they should get faster processing power
and additional memory that will make these web apps Good Enough (tm). Until
that time, like you, I hope the NY Times and others keep making native apps.

~~~
tannerc
That's what they said about running Flash.

~~~
ChrisLTD
Good Flash performance on mobile required both better hardware and efficiently
programmed software from Adobe. Adobe is seems to have been a pretty big
bottleneck. Flash still works pretty poorly on my desktops and laptops with
gobs more power than my phones and tablets.

However, in the case of web apps, we're almost there on performance and we
have Google, Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft all working to improve mobile
browsers and browser speed.

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xSwag
That typography is beautiful! Looking at the source, they seemed to have
created their own version of Cheltenham called "NYT Cheltenham".

    
    
      font-family: nyt-cheltenham, Georgia, serif;
    

Good stuff!

~~~
notatoad
It's beautiful on a high-dpi screen. on a 24" 1920x1200 screen it's rather
ugly.

------
bdc
Caution --

"Request access to the prototype" yielded an immediate email: "Thank you for
signing up for a New York Times newsletter!"

~~~
tealtan
Hi, designer here. Sorry about that, you haven't actually been subscribed to a
newsletter - you've been put on the waiting list, but we haven't updated the
message in the confirmation email. Fixing this now.

~~~
pavs
Looks interesting, a lot of similarities with android app (I don't own other
mobile devices so can't tell if they are all they same).

Question. How long did it take you guys to come up with this design from start
to finish?

~~~
donohoe
Also take a peek at:

<http://www.nytimes.com/skimmer/#/Top+News>

------
kefs
This is still my favourite example of long-form done right for the web (also
NYT)...

<https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/>

Previous HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4950054>

~~~
glitchdout
You're (probably) not on Chrome (which blocks mixed content by default)
because that https page is broken.

<http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/>

~~~
kefs
You are correct. Using Firefox 19 w/ HTTPS Everywhere extension.

------
pseut
It looks nice, but I'm still waiting for someone to figure out how to do
multiple columns _well_ online -- I'd like to use more than a 6 inch wide
column of my laptop or desktop screen if possible.

------
snowwrestler
The new layout looks like it is based around a concept I always liked about
msnbc.com's article layout--it divides the page into a series of horizontal
"screens", with the article text connecting them.

See how, as you move down the page, different elements like pictures, boxes on
the right, and graphics divide the long article text into a series of stacked
"sections", each of which fits into a horizontal screen orientation.

This makes better use of the (now) more prevalent widescreen 16:9 screen
orientation, which normally would be considered poor for reading long
articles.

------
fernly
I guess it's pretty but the linked demo(?) page is quite confusing. The top
article scrolls uncontrollably fast; at first I thought I had some input,
thought I causing it to go up/down but couldn't figure out the UI. Why the
bleep wouldn't it _stop_ so I could read? Finally realized it must be a canned
demo scrolling on its own, but a disorienting experience.

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jeffclark
As one of a handful of product guys on HN, I'd love to hear about the research
and decision making that went into this redesign.

~~~
hboon
Handful? Do you mean dedicated product guys? Otherwise, I'd make a wild guess
there's much more than a handful. Almost every one running a small business
selling their own product has to be the product guy.

~~~
lchang
There's a ton of product manager, designers, and researchers on Hacker News.
But looking at his profile seems to indicate that Mr. Clarks a pretty humble
guy.

------
danso
So is there anything going on differently on the backend? The article display
shows images embedded in the body layout, as opposed to just the standard lede
image spot (and sidebar embeds). Does the CMS have features allowing online
producers to easily intermix words and multimedia, in the way that Verge and
Polygon do?

~~~
donohoe
From what I've seen of the design and know of the CMS I would say this can be
done without minimal changes on the backend (though you never know - simple
things can have complex repercussions....

The big change is that the embedded Video is traditionally off to the left-
side of the page. In this redesign the question is how to determine where
within the text they're spread out.

Compare the design to the original article to see what I mean.

[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/marketing/prototypeSignUp/media...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/marketing/prototypeSignUp/media/header850.jpg)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/magazine/hollywoods-
year-o...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/magazine/hollywoods-year-of-
heroine-worship.html?pagewanted=all)

The big question in my mind is where the ads will go?

~~~
danso
Yes, and related to that, I wonder if single-page view will now be the
default? And if so, if the backend has a way to manage the allocation of ads
for the extra-long rails in indepth stories.

~~~
albertsun
Right now single page view is the default and I believe that is the plan.

(From an NYT employee who has access to the prototype but did not work on it
at all.)

------
erdogan
Seems like mobile-first is one of the design principles. I wonder if people
read NYT more on mobile now than desktop.

------
azar1
Did it make anybody feel weird when the browser started scrolling? Almost made
me nauseated.

~~~
saurabh
Yeah. That tripped me up too.

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wittekm
I know HN's patron saint Jeremy Ashkenas does a lot of the interactive
features for the Times. Any idea if he was involved?

------
recuter
Do animated gifs still make webkit browsers hiccup for anybody else? (known
old bug, I'm surprised it is still happening)

~~~
tbassetto
There are no GIFs for me, only videos (but with a transparent div on top).

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duaneb
I don't care about the design at all, frankly, but I think the comment format
is excellent.

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hawleyal
Didn't we kill horizontal scroll in the 90s?

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warfangle
Looks like they're channeling The Verge.

