Telegraph redesigns, a tab at a time

August 3rd, 2008 • Design, Internet, Journalism

Once upon a time, I made magazines. When we wanted to change that magazine, we would gather three, four or five of our shiniest brains, stick them in a room for a period with a half-decent brief, and out would pop a fresh magazine - better organised, more contemporary, and all-new.

This morning, I opened Firefox to be greeted by an all-new Telegraph.co.uk. ‘Cept it isn’t. Oh, the home page is new alright: a much better organised affair, with none of the ‘You, boy at the back - can you describe the logic behind this page?’ that haunted the DT of old. Very nice, if short on novelty.

But then you start clicking, and realise that this is what my chums in the digital media world would describe as a ‘phased delivery’. Read more »

BBC News refresh: air’s in

March 31st, 2008 • Design, Internet
Tags: Design, Web

Open Firefox this morning, and an old friend shows a new face. The Beeb revamp sparked a fair flurry of debate among colleagues: one camp decided that it was too conservative, while the other concluded that Aunty had shown the maturity you’d expect.

I sit in the latter camp. The design has shifted to the centre of your browser, and also widened to a 1024 width from its long-established 800. But to my eyes, those apparently major moves are invisible. The real beauty is in the care shown around the text: while the old BBC News home was a masterpiece of efficiency, the newcomer is the work of someone who respects words.

Every line has exactly the right amount of space to put the emphasis on the story instead of the design. You simply absorb the news, without fussy artifacts throwing up noise. The only flaw I could find was below the fold: the centre column’s ‘Around the World’ group of links badly needs someone to put more definition to those crossheads. Other than that, she’s a beaut.

BBC News: old dog to learn new tricks

March 26th, 2008 • Design, Journalism, Media
Tags: bbc

Something momentous will happen next week - the BBC will revamp its News site. Alright, so it’s hardly in the same league as the collapse of capitalism, but look at it this way - BBC News is my home page, the thing that greets me every time I launch my browser.

It’s so much a part of my life that I’ve been given to Victor Meldrew-ish outbursts when they make the slightest change (remember when they introduced those God-awful drop-downs for ‘Video and Audio News’? I grumbled to anyone dumb enough to listen to me for a week).

I know every pixel of the home page’s real estate - the ‘wacky’ Also In The News feature centre right, the sports headline just beneath it, the speed-scan block of blue headlines top right. I can see the damn thing with my eyes closed.

But why worry? The BBC can afford some of the best pixel-pushers on the planet, and can organise user testing sessions that would make lesser companies gulp. P’raps it’s because I cannot wrap my mind around the new BBC.co.uk home page, which has the sniff of tricksiness about it.

Or maybe I should just accept that I’m becoming offensively conservative, and shut the hell up.

Typewriter art

August 5th, 2007 • Design, Life

Created by Andrew Macrae using an Olympia 1965 SG3 and a Hermes 3000 from 1968. Oh, and a lot of coloured typewriter ribbons.

Acid Head War

The Little Wii That Could

August 1st, 2007 • 1 comment Business, Design, Gaming

According to Japanese games magazine publisher Enterbrain, the Wii is pounding the PS3 four to one in Japan.

Nintendo sold 396,752 units of the Wii in the five weeks ended July 29, compared with 91,987 units of the PS3.

Nintendo Wii outsells Sony’s PS3 in Japan in July - Yahoo! News

This should come as no shock, and there’s a lesson in the Wii’s success that other product manufacturers and marketers should heed. The Wii is not a product - it is delightful. Yes, you buy it as you would any product, and you take it out of its box as you would any other product. But from there on in, the Wii becomes something else.

In its own small way, the Wii has changed how we deal with each other as a family. We all have our own Mii characters (yep, that includes 44-year-old me). The Wii sees more action in a week than our XBox360 sees in a month. Yes, it’s usually the kids that switch it on, but there’s invariably an adult in on the action with two minutes.

The graphics are poor compared with the 360 (and the PS3, from what I’m told), but that fact was only mentioned once by me, and has never been mentioned again.

From the Bisto ads to the Facebook boom, I reckon we’re seeing a steady shift from solo digital to social analogue. The 360 is bulky, powerful and cutting edge - but for all its multiplayer capabilties, I’d wager that most games are played alone. The Wii is intensely social: if it had a noise naturally associated with it, it would be laughter.

A copy of Resident Evil 5 for the Wii recently made its way into the house. It was wrong: a zombie thrasher had no place alongside Mario and bowling. You kill zombies alone, getting something off your chest that - if we’re honest - probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.

It’s official(ish): web users scroll

July 26th, 2007 • Business, Design

Head over to Boxes and Arrows, where Melissa Tarquini takes on the issue that haunts every web designer - the fold. I’m not sure I take her argument in its entirety (she goes as far as to say that the bottom of the page is the next frontier for advertisers), but it’s good to hear someone state the bleedin’ obvious.

Stop worrying about the fold. Don’t throw your best practices out the window, but stop cramming stuff above a certain pixel point. You’re not helping anyone. Open up your designs and give your users some visual breathing room. If your content is compelling enough your users will read it to the end.Advertisers currently want their ads above the fold, and it will be a while before that tide turns. But it’s very clear that the rest of the page can be just as valuable – perhaps more valuable – to contextual advertising. Personally, I’d want my ad to be right at the bottom of the TMZ page, forget the top.

Blasting the Myth of the Fold - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design