Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Design professional Andy Rutledge may have bitten off more than he could chew by trying to address the “broken design” of news websites.

In a blog post that outlines all the problems with The New York Times’ design, Rutledge makes bold claims like, “It is hard to believe that the Times, or any other similar publication, actually cares about the news when they treat it with this sort of indignity.”

So what he proposes is his own rendition of what a NYT.com section front should look like — and journalists on Twitter, especially from the publication under scrutiny, weren’t feeling it.

And, really, they’re right. It’s hard to take seriously a design that completely ignores the constraints of a typical newspaper, or as Ryan Sholin mentioned, “Boy, it sure is easy to redesign a news site without any regard for advertising, performance, or politics. But so much fun!” Because, really, couldn’t we all whip together something glorious and beautiful if we weren’t constrained by practical needs within the newsroom?...