CNN- Design Goals

The design overhaul of the CNN website is obviously an attempt by the news makers to jump in on the bandwagon and embrace the waves of change in media. The new website looks sleek, carries emphasis on infotainment and is more dynamic and interactive than its older version. It also suggests the difference in which traditional newscasters are providing news. New strategies, like active commentary from the Huffington Post are attracting audiences and the CNN website is trying to make use of this.

The design at the outset looks contemporary and organized. First time users would have no trouble finding their way around the site. Navigation scores top points. But I feel the thickness of the top navbar could have been reduced since it serves no purpose. The 3 column grid is put to good use with the subdivision of news. As mentioned in the Guardian article, the website now reflects the focus CNN wishes to place on the TV angle. While the data above is well-organized, it appears boxed out in the sub-sections of health, entertainment etc.

Sleek and Informative

Cnn.com is the homepage I have set on my laptop. When I opened it up this weekend I was at first startled and then amused we had replicated the old web site design only a couple weeks ago. The red header was the first thing that jumped out at me. At first I thought it was too bold, but then as I glanced down the page I realized the redesign as a whole was pretty well done.

The website is much more effective now (although it wasn't exactly bad before) that they have streamlined all of the important information. The three columns showcase a lot of the same information that you had to scroll and click around for before. Now the most important information is where it needs to be, allowing the viewer to get to what they want with hardly a click of the mouse.

I like that their Highlights and Editors Choice section include a mix of different types of news and that these sections are easily accessible to the viewer. In the past I clicked around the different sections of CNN and enjoyed all of them. As a user of people.com and Entertainment Weekly, I was aware that CNN had a partnership with them. Highlighting this partnership in a better way works for CNN and People/EW and is a smart business move.

I used to be one of those people that felt news was news and everything else was separate. However, the way things have changed with both technology and culture, its clear that people want different kinds of information presented to them in multiple formats all at once. Incorporating different facets of new media is necessary for news agencies today and I think CNN has taken a great step in doing so.

CNN redesign is much cleaner

The new CNN design works a lot better for their goal of becoming more focused on their unique content, rather than the breaking news. Their use of images works much better than old site, that like the article said, was text driven. The Highlights section is much better than the highlights that we had to replicate for our assignment. I know when I browse the Internet, photos guide me a lot as well as the headlines, so this method of highlighting their content is effective.

I think their sections at the bottom are better organized than the old design as well. First of all, there are more links. CNN used to only have two links per section, but with its new division, they are able to put more content in the div boxes.

The only thing that I'm not crazy about is the navbar. I feel like it gets lost in the header. The header is bright red and the navbar is too similar. Over all, however, I really like the new design.

CNN redesign: B+ grade

On first look, I see what I don't like, of course. The massive red bar hits the visitor in the face. The column layout with photo next to screen capture next to advertisement feels heavy. There is little breathing room between the three columns.

What is working, though, is the way my eye moves around the site. After being hit by the red bar on top of the page, my eye goes straight to the "Click to play" message in the video column. I'm sure CNN would be glad to hear that, since they are putting a new focus on video ("CNN.com relaunch to focus on video," Guardian).

I can get over the fact that the three columns are so close together because if I were coming to visit the site, I would know which column I want to look at. I love how the boxes are not connected anymore. They have some dimension to them, like they are raised from the light gray. Is that a drop shadow behind them? It's working, whatever it is.

It's definitely easier to find what you're looking for now. Top stories from different sections are in their own div boxes at the bottom of the homepage. I just wish the Hot Topics were near the top of the page, though. It's always interesting to see if the stories you are interested in are the ones the rest of America is looking at, and I don't like having to scroll all the way down to see those.

Overall, I give CNN a B+, because while everything else is working, the red bar at the top is just too dominating when you land on the page. And I would love to see some more breathing room between divisions.

CNN's Facelift

I laughed when I saw out assignment because had just noticed CNN's website the day before Jeff sent the assignment. I was confused in the beginning when I first opened the website because it was a big change from what it looked like before. After a few minutes after absorbing and getting used to the new layout, I found that it appealed to me more than the old design. The red header and the interactive videos instantly drew me in. Today's audience wants instant and visual gratification, which is exactly what the new design offers. The old site consisted of basic, simple and, in my opinion, very bland and predicable layout design with limited and hard to find visual interaction. The new site moved the videos to what we would call the "showcase" section, making it the first thing you see. They kept the same color scheme which is very important in order to maintain a constant brand identity.
The article talks about how CNN.com shifted from text heavy content to more video, infotainment and international news due to the most recent trends in online news. Entertainment takes on the spotlight and features such as personalizing your page and incorporating language feeds in Arabic and Spanish. "So the new site will make a step towards the user to be more appealing: new personalisation functionality enables users to customise a column on the front with sports scores or stock prices, local headlines or weather, and CNN's community-based iReport site will be featured in a curated section on the homepage, as well as in the middle of unfolding stories." The redesign of the site shows how the consumer has shifted its interest from content to visual. The layout is more user friendly, reflecting our modern age and how people want to customize everything to their particular needs and wants.
I think that this change was necessary in order to bring CNN up to date with other competitors such as MSNBC who is also planning on redesigning in order to keep up with the times.

CNN.com Relaunch

CNN.com's new website design is accessible, but not pretty. Entering the new site, the viewer is stunned by a large, bold header featuring four shades of red. Immediately under that, bold black boxes feature current video stories. If you make it past all of this, however, the site features a number of photographs and videos which successfully catch the viewer's attention and the amount of text on the page is easily readable. The website also highlights a wide range of topics. Their goal was to continue to feature breaking news, but also focus more on in-depth stories, entertainment, video commentary and tv material, which I think they've successfully done.

I like the fact that the site is laid out in a grid format though I don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. The layout on the top half of the homepage feels bulky and unbalanced. Similarly, the 3x3 grid on the bottom of the page listing of all of the sections borders on overwhelming, though I can see how it would be useful for navigation purposes. Once you navigate further into the site, the aesthetics improve (ie- return to the original style).

As a side note, I am a big fan of being able to customize the site and feature the information that I care about. I think a lot of people will utilize this option. It was also interesting to read in the article that a lot of redesign was based on user data CNN collected; I would be interested to learn more about how this data was collected and interpreted.

Overall, some good ideas (such as incorporating more visuals), but not great style.