MAKEOVER FOR WASHINGTONTIMES.COM
If you read any of the Nats articles from The Wash. Times today, you probably noticed that they have yet another redesign.
My first reaction is, “wow, there is a lot of red up there.” The red is okay, but the black text on it is not very easy on the eyes. The secondary color of green does not really compliment the red either.
The content area has an attractive enough eyepiece, but at over 1000 pixels, it has trouble fitting in my browser. The design would probably be just as useful (or maybe more so, since I would not have to scroll right) if it was not so wide. Also, there is no tease into any of the sections other than news in the first scroll. That is a no-no in my book and probably most news site design theory. The article pages look okay, though the top ad really does push the content down. The section fronts have a nice presentation at the top of the page, but the archived headlines are not arranged well, spanning two columns with a big poster ad on top of the right one. Earlier, I am pretty sure I recall seeing the archives unorganized by date, but I think that was corrected. Lastly, the serif text has got to go, it does not look good on screen.
All in all, a solid effort to move washingtontimes.com into the 21st century, but it still needs better organization.