Mark Porter

An interesting new development on the NYT site; probably best to read Khoi Vinh’s explanation before diving in.

Its a fine example of how technological developments on the web can cause design problems which are well-nigh unsolveable. Khoi is well aware of the issues, and discusses them in his post, pointing out that “an aversion to flouting the rules of visual decorum often doesn’t serve us well. Nor for that matter does a fear of failure.”

This goes to the heart of something I’ve been struggling with for a while. I know that the relentless expansion of content, features and and functionality on sites like the NYT and the Guardian scupper any attempt to create a clean simple usable presentation. But they also enrich the user experience, which is all good.

I’ve spent my whole career trying to create usable readable editorial design. I also admire the people in the technology world (Apple, Google) that take simplicity in the UI very seriously. But the very richness and complexity that gives value to a site like ours also makes it impossible to give it the kind of clean simple design which would make it most usuable.

There’s clearly a scale here, where one end is a design that’s beautifully clean and simple, but hides most of the content and is impossible to navigate; at the other is a design which exposes every feature and piece of content but is confusing and unusable. Both are wrong and the right solution lies somewhere in between. But just where on the line is the balance right? I have no idea, I just know we’re not there yet.