Bivings, Design, Media, Newspaper Study, Usability
Nov 20, 2006
tomm
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Redesigning USA Today

As a designer, I’ve struggled as how to best contribute to our blog. Most web design articles speak to people who aren’t designers and tend to focus on the obvious. I don’t intend to add to that.

So I decided to attempt a redesign of the USA Today homepage as companion piece to our recommendations to the newspaper industry. Senior designer Jei Park and I sat down and figured if we’re going to talk the talk, we might as well start walking as well. A couple of notes:

(1) In putting this together, we included every element of the current USA Today site. We wanted to come up with something that could actually be implemented, not something so conceptual that it could never see the light of day. In other words, we didn’t take the easy way out.

(2) We chose USA Today because it is the most circulated paper in the country, and which has had the same design for a couple of years. The point is to show what we think these things should look like. As a designer, the last thing I’m interested in is criticizing the work of other designers. That isn’t the point here.

(3) We want to hear your thoughts. If you like it, say so. If you hate it, say so. If you have changes you’d like to see, say so. If you think we’ve missed something, say so. We intend to act on the feedback and come up with a revised version in the next few weeks that takes into account what you have to say. The goal of this is to start a conversation about what newspaper websites should look like.

The design process almost always happens behind closed doors. Let’s see what happens when we get lots of good feedback from cross section of smart people. Click here or on the image above to see the full view. You can read Todd’s explanation of the features presented here. Tell us what you think.

  • Bill Helms

    This looks really nice. My only suggestion would be to simply take away some of the content from the page. There is just a bit too much stuff crammed in there..

  • http://www.lumpyscorner.com/MT/archives/2006/11/election_day_and_the_inte_1.php Lumpy’s Corner

    Election Day and the Internet…

    Last year I commented on how influental the Internet in the outcome of the elections. Today, I thought a simple list of relevant link might be of interest. More specifically links about how the Intenet matters in elections. Welcome……

  • http://obiterdictabysteve.blogspot.com/ Steve

    I like the proposed design; it reminds me of Austin American-Statesman‘s site. It has three distinct columns with some smaller divisions inside them at times. While I am not a web designer, I do work at a web development firm, and I can see the HTML table concept here. It is simplistic, yet clean.

    Further, the section headlines listings under the main headlines NYTimes.com-esque multi header (top news, most viewed, most blogged) box are very reminiscent of those on CNN.com. However, this proposed design has some additional bells and whistles that do not strip the design of its straight forwardness and clarity.

    Blog, multimedia, and tag boxes on the right are overlooked essentials of any “Web 2.0″ news page.

    Personally, I would like to see a box where one’s local headlines are displayed — perhaps a fourth category for the main headline box. This could include headlines that are assigned to a person’s state or zip code by news aggregators like Topix. However, I think that featuring headlines from a local Gannett paper, if someone lives in a covered area, is the best scenario.

    I would also like to see a section on the site trying to promote and harness Gannett’s crowdsourcing initiative. This could include a tip box/how to contact us section, a call for specific types of information, spotlights of crowdsourcing features (like Enquirer Voter Hotline from the Cincinnati Enquirer — from a Gannett paper), or a display of citizen contributions.

    Further, I think that some features that are along the lines of what “journalist slash programmer” Adrian Holovaty does (ie the Washington Post‘s political campaign ads database that has commercials categorized by varied criteria). Read his musings at his blog, Holovaty.com. This could put an interesting twist on the tags feature. How about a section on the site where a visitor can narrow down stories based on multiple tags? For instance, someone who would like to read a story about high school sports in Nevada could first select the tag “Nevada” then “Sports” and finally “High School.”

    I hope that this helps…

  • http://blogcampaigning.wordpress.com/ blogcampaigning

    Thank you for providing a designer’s insight into what makes a better website these days. As we begin to analyze what exactly makes a succesful news website or political blog, I feel that the design aspect is one area that has been unfairly ignored.

  • http://techbizchina.delporto.org delportd

    I agree with the first poster, there’s a little too much content. Although I like the web 2.0 things throughout, “USA Today 2.0″ in mind goes beyond what has been done here, like the crowd-sourcing aspect mentioned by another poster. I realize you mentioned that this was a project where, as you said, you tried to make it “something that could actually be implemented”. I think you should make a non-implementable one that incorporates all the comments posted so far. I think a new one should not be evolutionary but should try to be a design for a newspaper in the year 2015 when there are no longer traditional paper newspapers.

  • http://www.bivingsreport.com/2006/chris-andersons-calls-for-radical-transparency-in-media/ Chris Anderson Calls for “Radical Transparency” in Media » The Bivings Report

    [...] (5) “Let readers decide what’s best. We own Reddit, which (among other things) is a terrific way of measuring popularity. Why should we guess at which stories will be most popular and give those preferential treatment?” Absolutely. This is exactly what I was hoping for when they bought Reddit. I would just say that there is a sweet spot between a popularity-based news view and an editor-controlled view that hasn’t really been hit on yet (I know Netscape is trying). How about giving the user the ability to switch between the popular and editor views of the site? This was what we tried in our redesign of USA Today. [...]

  • http://www.usatoday.com/ Joshua Hatch

    I thought you might be interested in knowing that on Saturday, March 3, we’ll be relaunching a new, completely redesigned usatoday.com Web site.

    You can get a preview here:

    http://www.buzzmachine.com/200.....2/28/2559/

    You can also discuss the redesign with some of the designers here:

    http://interactivity.usatoday.com/

    The new design goes live Saturday morning… please stop by to check it out. Let us know what you think.

  • http://www.bivingsreport.com/2007/usa-today-to-launch-new-site-this-weekend/ USA Today to Launch New Website this Weekend » The Bivings Report

    [...] Tom from our office took a shot at rethinking the design of USA Today a few months back so I’m interested in what they came up with. [...]

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