The best thing about working at a college newspaper is that you have the whole summer to reenergize and refocus your strategies. In my case I am aiming to improve the look and feel of Temple-News.com.
Like I do with every other topic, I hit Google hard trying to dig up any snippet of information about news website design only to come up short. There is still a ton being written about newspaper design on paper, but not enough being written about the news on the web. With all the clamoring for a change in focus, designers seem to be still testing out design theories on the web or they are keeping any secrets close to the vest.
Wheres the innovation in site designs?
The Mediacenter blog writes about newspaper’s Web site critisizing the “old media” feel. The only problem? The article was written in 2005. Oh yeah and the original site doesn’t even exist anymore. I had to resort to the wayback machine to find it.
nytimes.com in particular looks so much like a newspaper you wonder if the ink will smear if you touch your computer screen.
New York Times designer Khoi Vinh breaks down the recent New York Post redesign. Vinh also included a debate he conducted over IM about the design and its wrongdoings.
Washington Post Redesign as a Wiki
Not so much an exorcise in design, but in functionality, IA theorizes about what would happen is the Washington Post had a user driven section. [via double I]
USA Today: Mission Accomplished
From the same blog as above, a criticism of the USA Today redesign.
10 Newspaper Myths Deconstructed
IA.. on fire!
A gold mine of useful information, Poynter attached devices to readers eyes that tracked what they were looking at for both print and online. For example, did you know that readers read more of an article when it is online?
Media Blog Newspaper Site Awards
An awkward title, but a useful post. Howard Owens gives awards out to websites based on design complete with a description why.
There are more, I know. Much like the web itself, my quest is without end. But something in me tells me that there should be several textbooks and studies at this point in the game.
Once again, I think its up to the bloggers to do the real work…
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