There was sunshine, and there was relaxation; and there was a six-and-a-half-pound filet mignon, and enough veal parmigiana and pasta to choke an Italian villa; and there was a fine and fun round of golf, and there was a barbecue, and there was wine and cheese and crackers and vegetable chips and corn; and there was kick-boxing, and there was store-bought breakfast, and there was sun and swimming at a beautiful home tucked into the trees; and there was traffic, and there was a lap through Target Greatland; and there was sushi and Tasti D Lite, designed to ease the transition back into Manhattan, winding down a delightful weekend out of town.
Page 122 of 130
A dissection: What constitutes a good content-based Web site? An excerpt from my chapter on Economist.com in “The Site Speaks for Itself.”
Concept: Good Site Content
A fundamental issue behind the redesign effort was a deceptively straightforward question: what constitutes a good content-based web site?
My job as design director for Economist.com was to define quality content delivery, and to both embrace and expand that definition for our site.
Our redesign would ultimately share numerous organizational cues with other successful content-driven web sites. We were not interested in cribbing others’ designs, but we did want to reflect upon the successes of other sites and integrate good ideas that had been established elsewhere. What, then, are the marks of a strong content-based site, and specifically, what aspects of content design had to be stressed and maximized by Economist.com?
Identity: The overall design has to reflect the voice and style of the offline component. The site’s logo is prominent and in the same place on every page. Our site in particular represents the brand in a unique design without imitating the print edition.
Navigation: The site should be easy to use regardless of the page, as users can enter the site at random points. The same basic navigational elements should be in set locations at all times.
Page length: While long pages can reduce navigation, and articles on content sites are often cut into multiple pages to increase ad impressions, most pieces are best read in one sitting, and are best displayed on a single screen when possible.
Clean content: Whenever possible, keep navigation and advertisements from getting in the way of reading an article. Ads should be labeled as such to help readers identify page components. Content sources should be labeled so users can easily identify items originating from the print edition.
Strong header: In a site with multiple content areas, the top of the page should signal where the reader has landed, giving context to the article and/or links on the page. This sense of place helps with orientation and navigation.
Consistency: As noted in the items above, the site should use the same elements repeatedlyâsimilar locations for many items, and the same functions on each page, minimizing the user’s need to learn the site more than once.
Frequency: Establish a publishing schedule and convey it to the readership with date stamps and prominent placement of new content.
Balance: When a site has paid content, provide enough free material to give users a complete unpaid experience, and enough value past a pay barrier (separating unregistered visitors from subscriber-only content) to entice users to join.
In addition to this list, the development team had to consider editorial needs, such as a browser-based content management system, and publishing flexibility, like exporting text to both web pages and wireless PDA files. Balancing all these requirements would prove to be a far more challenging and exciting project than I had anticipated.
Ben Silverman’s latest Dotcom Scoop neatly skewers the Jupiter Media Metrix wind-down (similar to my note from Friday, but more thorough and much more relentless).
June 27, 2000: Media Metrix, Jupiter merge in $414 million deal. “Media Metrix today said it will acquire Jupiter Communications for $414 million in stock. The merged company will be called Jupiter Media Metrix and will have a combined market value of $1 billion, the companies said.”
June 21, 2002: Jupiter Sells Research, Events Business to INT. “Jupiter Media Metrix Inc. said on Friday it would sell its research and events business, essentially the last of its operations, to Internet media company INT Media Group Inc. for $250,000. Earlier this month, the company sold its Media Metrix Internet audience measurement service to ComScore Networks Inc. for $1.5 million. Last month it sold its European measurement service to rival NetRatings Inc. for $2 million.”
Someday, when I have more time (read if maybe perhaps eventually), I’m going to take the Cooper Interaction Designer Test and see what I can devise.
Projects like these are good for the mind; witness 37signals’ projects, like 37BetterBank and 37BetterFedex, which force the team to think along lines other than the ones they’re assigned. I do this on a micro scale with NetWert, which is still evolving (I’m currently digesting user feedback over whether it’s necessary to have Getting It Right separate from the Ideapad). Ideas evolve from practice that can then be applied in elsewhere.
And I can’t stand Microsoft’s table builders, either. (Cooper link via WebWord)
Interesting revelation about sales of “The Site Speaks for Itself” today.
Found an essay today containing more than you ever wanted to know about Amazon’s Sales Rank system. The author notes that books don’t crack the top 10,000 without a strong initial burst of sales, which means “The Site Speaks for Itself” has done decently well, since it rocketed from 1,157,434 to 16,000 in a matter of days.
Is it gauche of me to discuss this publicly? It probably is. Sort of like saying “Dude, come here and check out the lint I just pulled from my belly-button.” Of course, people do that, too.
I’m just glad the book is finding an audience, and that people are interested in seeing what we had to say. (The copies Amy moved to the “hot new releases” table at the Union Square B&N are back in the Computer section, but that’s OK.) And hey, three five-star reviews so far! I can’t imagine a much better reception.
Today: free popcorn chicken at KFC.
Today: Restaurant Day all over New York City, with cheap food sold on the sidewalk.
Monday: free pizza at Two Boots in New York.
All next week: Shops participating in Restaurant Week serve three-course meals for $20.02.
Welcome to the new Ideapad!
This page is still in beta but it’s time the new look got pushed out the door. Besides the new look, there’s a full back-end database and a new way of organizing things. Click the Read More link below for the full piece.
Welcome to the new Ideapad!
This page is still in beta but it’s time the new look got pushed out the door. Besides the new look, here are the changes:
~ There are true sub-categories for usability and journal entries. The usability pieces will be compiled in a new area entitled Getting It Right, and the journal items in a reborn area, now entitled Quite Keen. This page will continue to display all new content, including the more-or-less daily weblog items that have been living in the sidebar in previous months.
~ For the longer items you’ll have to click the Read More link to get the full piece.
~ Archive items are displayed one to a page now, not just monthly. I will still maintain monthly archive pages, as I think they’re a nice way to peruse the past.
~ This page is one big database feed, PHP and MySQL. Many thanks to David Miller for all the programming that went into making it work (and all the small details we’ve yet to fix).
My home page is new, too, and the rest of the pages on netwert.com will follow suit in the next few weeks.
By the way, and this hurts to say, but if you’re visiting this site in Netscape you are not seeing the full picture (he says with a sigh, nodding in his girlfriend’s direction). The blue bars and spacing that define the content column don’t render for some reason. This drives the many-users-one-experience perfectionist in me crazy, but the page is otherwise clean. I hope to rectify that issue but I make no guarantees.
Look for non-variable URLs, comment pop-ups, and other goodies in the weeks to come. In the interim, please send me a note and tell me what you think!
That’s the name of my new column at Digital Web Magazine. I’ll be contributing each month, primarily focusing on usability issues and the limitations that Web designers and developers must not forget.
My first piece debuted this week, an analysis of the sensible usability limits of cascading style sheets. Take a look.
I will be sitting on a panel on information architecture Tuesday night (June 18) at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. It’s a special interest group meeting held by the World Wide Web Artists’ Consortium. If you’re in New York and curious about the role of IA at Economist.com—or you just want to say hi—do stop by.
The SIG is free but you have to RSVP to attend.