- How many other content websites have published for nearly this long and yet have their oldest articles remain on their original URLs? Most news sites can't even do a redesign without breaking all of their old article URLs.
>"That awkward moment when website you made 20 years ago is better to read articles."
Am I the only one who thinks that the whitespace heavy and well designed NYT modern site is better? Good line height, good type choice, very good readability.
As opposed to times new roman at 1.0 line height, is that really the pinnacle of readability? Eight grade book report format?
I use a low brightness setting on my laptop because I am uncomfortable looking at bright screens for extended periods of time. I prefer the body text to be #000 on something close to #FFF (this website uses #828282, which is fine for me.) The Times uses #333 for their body text which is probably enough contrast for bright screens, but it is noticeably poorer on the dimmer screen that I use. I don't see a reason to make the text more difficult for the people with poor vision, especially elderly, who on the whole have poorer vision, to read. I can use extensions and overwrite their CSS to change this, but I shouldn't have to.
The fixed headers are very annoying on small laptops, where vertical screen space is already limited. It makes no sense to stuff the main navigation menu into a hamburger bar on the FRONT PAGE of a newspaper web site so that a tiny amount of white space may be added to the sides.
A navigation bar shouldn't scroll down the screen with me and steal screen space when I'm reading an article. I would rather hit the back button, change tabs, or scroll to the top and click on a different section when I'm done reading an article. And the layout is just ugly when Javascript is turned off because there is no spacing between the full size images and the body text.
I only wish. The marketers were in full force. We'd do "slice and dice" design, where a designer would mock up the full page as single graphic in Photoshop, then we'd slice that image into multiple, and reassemble in tables (no reliable CSS!) with font tags.
Today we argue about how much JS is too much, or if there is such a thing, but back then if you wanted the markup to change you sent a request to the backend and rerendered the entire page with the small change you desired.
Loading a page was an exercise in patience, as a first pass on a _decent_ page would get you the text and highly pixelated images, then subsequent passes (and you could watch the screen redraw from the top down multiple times) would reduce the pixelation to LESS BUT STILL pixelated versions.
Some sites were just Word documents that had been "Save as HTML" -> These could be MB of markup, and basically impossible to edit.
Plus, almost immediately, the browser wars began and rather than arguing over how to push the standards, they had none, and just tried to establish their own, incompatible vision.
Basically, once the general populace was the target for content, you were no longer allowed to just worry about the content.
No, people gave twice as much of a care how the website looked, and the tools were basically tables. The bottom line for getting hired as a high-level web designer was "can this person look at 1000+ lines of table markup and be patient enough to figure out how to prevent our email address from going off the page in an 800px browser window".
Since older browsers will skip rendering tags (or rather just pretend the tag wasn't present at all) that they don't recognize, custom HTML editors and CMSs can inject metadata as custom html tags in order to help track page sections.
The NYT had one of the first publicly known Hadoop clusters (for a major media company, not a tech company) which they used to process the historical articles.
There's so much opportunity for Orwellian abuse in this new archival model.
Sure there's archive.org - but in the old model, you'd say something in print, copy it a million or so times, then distribute it on paper around the world.
If an evildoer wanted to change a claim from say, 20 years ago, they'd have to create a forgery that looks like it's 20 years old, then secretly swap out all the archival copies in libraries and get large-scale mass obedience from librarians or manually make the swap at each library individually.
These days, you need to add an exclusion to the archive.org bot in robots.txt and then flip a few bits. It's a different ballgame.
In the traditional model, someone could find say, an original copy of the 20 year old newspaper and present that as evidence. Forging that document would be sufficiently hard for a single individual. But in the new model, claiming something is an "original copy" of a web page can be easily disputed because such a forgery can be trivially crafted.
Think about the implications in places with large civil unrest, very little free press, and mostly state-owned media. What's the solution for those societies?
> in the old model, you'd say something in print, copy it a million or so times, then distribute it on paper around the world.
> If an evildoer wanted to change a claim from say, 20 years ago, they'd have to create a forgery that looks like it's 20 years old, then secretly swap out all the archival copies in libraries and get large-scale mass obedience from librarians or manually make the swap at each library individually.
You're correct, of course, that it's become easier in the modern model. But people who feel strongly about the more adversarial issues of the modern day already archive enemy publications themselves, lest they mysteriously change in the future. The climate change issue is full of this sort of thing.
Even the fact that forged "original copies" are easy to create can be overcome; you just need to contemporaneously deposit a copy somewhere that creates records of when you make deposits and withdrawals. Again, the amount of adversarial forethought required has changed enough to make a significant difference.
I wish archive.org wouldn't delete old material based on new robots.txt policies, though. :/
Aftonbladet, the largest news site in Sweden, went live on the web in 1994[1]. Here's a picture of their first server[2]. Aftonbladet was founded in 1830. Their article archive isn't nearly as impressive though.
> "We have already more than once expressed our opinion, that the first duty of men of all parties, Democrats and Republicans, -- is to lay aside all their political differences and rally to the support of the Constitution and the Union, -- to insist that the Union shall be preserved, not as a matter of favor but of duty: -- and that when this result has been secured, it will be in order to consider what new guarantees or concessions are due to the South and essential to the public peace."
I love how different the writing is in old articles like this. The complexity of the sentences compared to today's news writing is crazy.
"If he were do it over again today, would he do anything differently? Any regrets?
Mr. Berners-Lee smiled and admitted he might make one change — a small one. He would get rid of the double slash “//” after the “http:” in Web addresses.
The double slash, though a programming convention at the time, turned out to not be really necessary, Mr. Berners-Lee explained. Look at all the paper and trees, he said, that could have been saved if people had not had to write or type out those slashes on paper over the years — not to mention the human labor and time spent typing those two keystrokes countless millions of times in browser address boxes. (Today’s browsers, of course, automatically fill in the “http://” preamble when a user types a Web address.)"
Remember? I almost never hear people refer to it as anything other than a 'forward slash' which makes me ask them: 'so what's a regular slash look like?'
But both were late compared to the first newspaper on the net. The MIT Tech first published on the web in 1993, and on telnet before that. And they have digital archives going back to 1882.
http://tech.mit.edu/browse.html
I'm pulling this mostly from my decaying memory but nando.net (Raleigh? News and Observer) was neck-and-neck with the SJ Mercury with a web presence. Many of the early newspaper web sites were simply HTML variations on existing online presences (CI$, Prodigy, AOL, etc).
You're correct. News and Observer (nando.net I think) was a daily visit for me back in the mid 90's. It was the first one I found which provided a full newspaper without being hidden in a walled garden and without needing monthly fees. AP & Reuters were available online but locked behind a very expensive paywall.
Nando was the first time I read of breaking news online. The story on the Oklahoma City bombing jolted me awake one morning. Reading Nando over coffee on my tiny 12 inch screen of a Macintosh LC.
I've often wondered if they could have leveraged their very early lead into something else.
Not only did they pioneer web news content, before that nando.net was even an ISP - in fact, it was my first ISP.
It seems odd looking back now, seeing how "newspapers" have all become lumbering dinosaurs, but at the time this particular newspaper was on the bleeding edge of innovation.
There were actually a number of publications with a web presence before NYTimes. Bloomberg, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired, among the more noteworthy ones.
After 20 years, they still are adapting to the 'new' platform. Look through their site with fresh eyes: If you were designing a news website (rather than moving a newspaper to this new platform), how many design, UI and functionality choices would you make differently?
A quick start:
* The separation of different forms of content: They don't really mix text with video, images and graphics, even though most web-native bloggers will do it. They seem to lack fluency with mixing media; it's a project for them. They'll staple a video and decorate text with images and graphics, but they don't really commuicate with it; they don't say, 'here's how Clinton responded to Sanders:" <video>, or, 'here was the scene when the earthquake struck' <video>, or even in a movie review, here's what the scene looks like: <video> or <image>. Instead, they try to describe the visual with text. Even explanatory graphics are a separate, special production, on a separate page.
* The font in their title: Back when printing fancy fonts was a technological feat, this font communicated that they were serious and sophisticated. Now, if you step back and ignore the history, it looks like a kid playing with fonts. (Look at it this way: would you ever use that font on a website you were designing?). It says, insists even: We're anchored to the paper age and will never let go. We're the old, dying generation. If you want something new, go elsewhere.
* The discoverability of content: Obviously mimicing a newspaper, but a bad choice for the web. How many links are on that home page (scroll down)? And even more content doesn't even appear there. All that hard work and content, unlikely ever to be found, buried and lost forever. It's tragic. But that's what they did in the hard copy newspaper so I guess it's ok.
* Also, where are stories updated since I visited a couple hours ago? Oh look, if I look at every link a red 'updated' indicator is next to some links (just like the web 20 years ago!), which I see if I examine every one of them (and how do I identify brand new links in this massive page of links?) - but where in this multi-page story are the new parts? I guess I'll just re-read the whole thing.
I say this all out of love. They are an very important institution. The news business is hard enough; stop handicapping yourselves! From the outside they look like they still, in 2015, haven't fully embraced the new technology. What would you say about another business' web team (that was not adapting a newspaper to the web) that produced a site that looked like this? Egads. [1]
EDIT: Some minor edits and additions
[1] I'm not blaming the web developers; I assume they are working within the general constraint of: Make it look like the newspaper.
Just because something is in vogue doesn't mean it is the right answer in the long term. Their mission is NOT about generating more pageviews in the short term to rack up ad revenue but stick to being a reliable source of information. Outlets like Buzzfeed have their own place but that doesn't mean New York Times need to "adapt" to become one of those. That's the worst decision they can make. People who go to New York Times are not there because they're bored and want to read the next "what sex and the city character are you?". They are there because they want to stay on top of only what matters today, which means not everyone will appreciate it if the front page is an infinite scroll page of links. Also your opinion about their font is your opinion. I am fond of it. Lastly, there are tons of articles with embedded media, here's one: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/nyregion/bronx-school-embr...
> Just because something is in vogue doesn't mean it is the right answer in the long term. Their mission is NOT about generating more pageviews in the short term to rack up ad revenue
Nothing I mentioned was abouut trends or short term page view revenue. It's about making their site more functional, improving their content by taking advantage of multimedia (hardly a trend by now) and making their excellent content more available to their readers.
In that article, the photos are what I meant by 'decorative' media (I'll agree it's not a perfect choice of word). the not integral to the story - you could skip the photos and not miss anything. The video is separate from the text of the story; they are not integrated; from reading the story, There is no indication that the author of the text knows that the video exists.
What I see many amateur bloggers do is tell one story and use the right tool for the right moment. Where text tells the the story best, use that; switch to video/audio/whatever when that does best. The story is what matters, not the media used. As one possible example:
At New Visions Charter High School in the Bronx, here's how one innovative class starts its day:
<video of segment class>
Click <here> to watch the full class (45 min.)
What you just saw is a new school program that seeks to use hip-hop music to reach teenagers who may not respond to more traditional counseling. Called hip-hop therapy, it encourages them to give voice to their day-to-day struggles in neighborhoods where poverty and crime are constants, and provides a foundation for school leaders to engage directly with them in a way that seems more enjoyable than intrusive.
Video is popular nowadays not because that's what users want but because that's what generates more ad revenue for media. There are certain cases where video storytelling is better than textual/visual storytelling but very rarely so. In case you have forgotten, there's this thing called "TV" that has been in the video space long before Internet came along. That didn't mean NYT had to turn themselves into CNN. I would never visit a NYT article if they start autoplaying videos on their website, for the same reason I never visit college humor anymore (they used to be a nice fun site but at certain point they started only serving videos, and nobody has time for videos)
Separating mediums, text and video, is I think an archaic perspective on communication. Convergence happened long ago (for bloggers, as I've mentioned a few times).
We should be fluent enough to use whatever medium best gets across the next idea in the article.
Their mission is NOT about generating more pageviews in the short term to rack up ad revenue but stick to being a reliable source of information
Strictly speaking, their mission of the NYT is to make enough money to survive. In the long term, that will prove difficult if the audience does not grow.
It's all very well trying to be a reliable source of information, but a reliable source of information combined with frothy light articles is better than a bankrupt company.
>* The font in their title...
Serif fonts aren't dated, and this is part of their branding and aesthetic. Of course a company founded in 1851 will not have the same aesthetics as a company founded in 2016. As a designer, I think their text and page layouts are some of the best I've seen.
>* The discoverability of content...
Unless you have access to their analytics, you aren't in a position to criticize their page layout. The problem with these armchair critiques is they are never argued with data.
> The NYTimes is at the forefront of dynamic content and page layouts
Perhaps, but it's not implemented in production; that is, it's not implemented in the vast majority of their content. I know Snowfall was a big deal to some, but I'll bet most readers of the Times have no idea what it is. I've never heard it discussed outside news/tech insiders.
Also, dynamic content and page layouts are not multimedia.
>* The font in their title... Serif fonts aren't dated, and this is part of their branding and aesthetic.
That font is dated, beyond a doubt.
> a company founded in 1851 will not have the same aesthetics as a company founded in 2016
That's what I meant. They are tied to 1851 and say it loud and clear. Others do update their branding.
>Also, dynamic content and page layouts are not multimedia.
Maybe you didn't see it, but a lot of those articles have multimedia.
>They are tied to 1851 and say it loud and clear. Others do update their branding.
They have modernized it, but it still acknowledges their past, which is in line with their branding. I don't think anyone looks at their typeface and is turned off by it.
There's a point to be made about the separation of print and web, but you also should consider that text is much more easily saved than images/video/interactivity. The NY Times is a journalistic paper, and part of journalism is to create content that will be readable for generations later. If someone comes along 20 years from now and tries to read about an earthquake, are they going to be happier seeing a giant "video 404" or being able to read it?
> The font in their title...
While I doubt I'd launch a product with that font in my current design, there's not necessarily anything wrong with harkening back to a design scheme that over a century old. The NY Times logo and font associate journalism that's austere and unchanging, and for that I'd say they're serving their audience quite well.
>The discoverability of content...
I'm fairly certain you're not meant to complete the front page. It's not a bucket list of things you need to check off, it's to give you access to the news that's currently relevant. If you go to one of the subpages the content discoverability is much better.
I like the home page. It has the right content, and the layout seems to emerge from a more careful consideration of its content and the reader's eye than do homogenous designs.
Content that loads as you scroll is, I absolutely believe, a trend that will be either overhauled or reviled within five years. And reaching the end of the page actually makes me respect the publication more: they have the respect to tell you nothing more is worth your time, rather than a desperation to milk every possible page view out of you with content of lower and lower quality. I don't want "content until you're sick of it", I want just what's a good use of my time.
The font communicates sophistication to me. It's carefully designed and doesn't impede usability. It's branding, at a higher effort level than the more common approach (a color palette). Typography is increasingly a staple of high-quality web design and they do it well. (I wouldn't use it, but only because they've made it theirs.)
> how many design, UI and functionality choices would you make differently?
I'd start by not hijacking clicks with JavaScript. In Firefox, double clicking the body of the article (which I do often to search for terms in the article) changes the font size (??), clicking in some parts of the body activates a link to another article. It's been like this for years.
Tip: The website works better with JavaScript disabled. Occasionally you need to turn it on for some special graphics, but 99% of the time I'm happier without it.
come on NYTimes, update the iOS app for iPad Pro --- it currently is gigantic (I presume because the screen design is just a scaled-up version of the iPad Air)
It is a valid concern and an excellent bookmark to their original challenge with multiple browsers. Today people read the web on phones from 4" diagonal to tablets 12" to laptops 12" to desktops 37". And designing something which is consumed comfortably across that range is not a trivial task.
"..the Web as being similar to our traditional print role -- to act as a thoughtful, unbiased filter and to provide our customers with information they need and can trust."
Unbiased? Some quality reporting to be sure, especially when politics aren't involved, but they jumped the bias shark a long time ago.
I like to call the incognito window my nytimes reader. I paid for the nytimes for a bit but it costs more per week than a monthly netflix subscription and it feels stupid to pay for not knowing how to use the incognito window. It's like a "I don't know how to use software" tax.
> it feels stupid to pay for not knowing how to use the incognito window
That's not what you're paying for. You're paying journalists to research and fact check important news stories, and for developers to build interesting and novel ways to display content, and about a million other things that I'm not going to list here. It's one thing to get around the paywall because you don't read NYT often or don't have the money and wouldn't pay anyway, but if you've got the means to pay then you probably should.
And before someone says something to the extent of "the NYT is a rag, they print misinformation all the time!" I'll preemptively say that every writer has their own internal biases and you should ready multiple news sources if you want to distill some semblance of the "truth." I don't think there's any denying that NYT is at the very least in the upper tier of news organizations today.
However it costs something like $37 per month. I've been a long time subscriber but that's very steep considering that barely cheaper than the print version.
It may be cheaper than the print version! The daily subscription to the paper is close to $900 a year if you calculate the cost after the promotional period ends; however, weekday-only and Sunday-only home delivery subscriptions are ~less~ than the cost of Unlimited Digital access alone, and include Unlimited Digital access as part of the deal. Funky economics.
As a software developer I certainly know how to use the incognito window. But I treat the intellectual property of other people as I would want them to treat mine, so I subscribe to The New York Times.
I subscribe to the NY Times print edition, weekend, since it includes digital and is cheaper than digital only. I live halfway across the country from them. lol
The reason I did it isn't so much due to their intellectual property, but to support and pay for quality journalism.
In the 2 years I've subscribed, I find myself not going to their website as much as loving their email updates. They do a very good job of sending morning and evening updates encapsulating the important news of the day.
For me, paying $3.75 a week (or in my case $1.88 since I have an .edu address) is worth it. It's about the same as a drink at Starbucks, and I do go to their website and also use their iPhone app every day.
My complaint is how they bundle the subscriptions: I'd like to have both the phone and tablet apps, but there's no discount given in accessing both. There's not so much extra effort in converting an article laid out for a phone to an article laid out for a tablet that it's worth an additional $5 a month.
That's cool if you like to get content for free - but why on earth would you brag about it? It's not very difficult, it just makes you look like a tool.
Back then, they even had a low-bandwidth version of the site: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117023050/http://www.nytimes...
The website included various tutorials on how to use it, including a guide that covers the different browsers. None of the browsers listed are actively developed today: http://web.archive.org/web/19961112182937/http://www.nytimes...
edit: A couple of other observations:
- How many other content websites have published for nearly this long and yet have their oldest articles remain on their original URLs? Most news sites can't even do a redesign without breaking all of their old article URLs.
- I like this Spiderbites feature -- a sitemap of a year's worth of articles (likely for webcrawlers at the time): http://spiderbites.nytimes.com/free_1996/