Tuesday, July 26, 2005
the new "tfp" site
Since I'm one who has commented in the past about the Times Free Press and it's utter lack of functionality on the web, I should probably make my two cents known about their new design under the weird moniker of "tfp Online".
On the plus side: There's news on the front page! Yes, in a shocking upset, a visitor to the Times Free Press Web site will find news.
On the minus side: It's not, um, actually news. Only blurbs. With no links to stories. It's actually the "3-Minute Read" just posted on a Web site with a picture or two. And it doesn't get updated during the day.
On the plus side: The navigation bar on the left side is finally one consistent width.
On the minus side: It's still useless. They have somehow found a way to bury the link to the blogs page even more than they did on the advertising-driven front page of yore. Oh, and feel free to click on that blogs link to find that the blog page still uses the old template, ugly flashing ads and uneven width still in their shining glory.
On the plus side: It isn't called "ChattanoogaNow" anymore.
On the minus side: It is called "tfp Online.com" now. And apparently the lower case is important, as you read in Tom Griscom's breakdown on Sunday. tfp(space)Online. How very not forced.
On the plus side: There aren't any more of those little square ads that flash and have scrolling text while you try to read other text.
On the minus side: There are now HUGE banner ads on three sides of the content that don't have any kind of border. And they are all in fonts that are heavier than any font used on the rest of the page, so everything else just fades out.
Okay, I could go on, but in summary: Good for rethinking the design, but wow - what a missed opportunity. The page gets me to ostensible news-esque content faster, sort of. But it continues to be ugly and hard to use. And thus, most people who want to read Chattanooga news online will go to the Chattanoogan and read crappy news releases. People in our area deserve better than a choice between an nearly-unusable Web site for a good and well-written newspaper and a usable Web site for a horrid news outlet.
On the plus side: There's news on the front page! Yes, in a shocking upset, a visitor to the Times Free Press Web site will find news.
On the minus side: It's not, um, actually news. Only blurbs. With no links to stories. It's actually the "3-Minute Read" just posted on a Web site with a picture or two. And it doesn't get updated during the day.
On the plus side: The navigation bar on the left side is finally one consistent width.
On the minus side: It's still useless. They have somehow found a way to bury the link to the blogs page even more than they did on the advertising-driven front page of yore. Oh, and feel free to click on that blogs link to find that the blog page still uses the old template, ugly flashing ads and uneven width still in their shining glory.
On the plus side: It isn't called "ChattanoogaNow" anymore.
On the minus side: It is called "tfp Online.com" now. And apparently the lower case is important, as you read in Tom Griscom's breakdown on Sunday. tfp(space)Online. How very not forced.
On the plus side: There aren't any more of those little square ads that flash and have scrolling text while you try to read other text.
On the minus side: There are now HUGE banner ads on three sides of the content that don't have any kind of border. And they are all in fonts that are heavier than any font used on the rest of the page, so everything else just fades out.
Okay, I could go on, but in summary: Good for rethinking the design, but wow - what a missed opportunity. The page gets me to ostensible news-esque content faster, sort of. But it continues to be ugly and hard to use. And thus, most people who want to read Chattanooga news online will go to the Chattanoogan and read crappy news releases. People in our area deserve better than a choice between an nearly-unusable Web site for a good and well-written newspaper and a usable Web site for a horrid news outlet.
Comments:
Definitely a step forward, but the subscription-only wall still makes useful news inaccessible to a big chunk of the population.
I know there are money issues with the subscription-only stuff, but I just feel like there has to be some balance.
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I know there are money issues with the subscription-only stuff, but I just feel like there has to be some balance.
