The new website of The Namibian

The new website of http://namibian.com.na

Blatancy vs. Prudence

I guess The Free Press of Namibia (Pty.) Ltd, owner of the daily newspaper 'The Namibian' and its website is not in a position to flush money down the toilet. Concurrent with the 30. birthday of the paper they re-invented their web presence. Since such an endeavor affords several hundred man-hours of work, they were probably committed to set a milestone for themselves and the nation. The average web presence of Namibian newspapers look quite frankly like 'below Hempel's sofa (or in Frikkies garage)', therefore the chances were favorable.

With website design comes a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo. So the company hired some specialists. That is where the difficulties start – not only in Namibia, but in Namibia especially. Namibia is full of specialist: been there, done this – hakuna matata. Trust me. They say control is better than trust. In this case I'd say here a clear vision is key. In business speak: briefing, target specification. What would be necessary throughout the wide radius around 42 John Meinert? The national audience is not famous for their reading skills, their internet proficiency or attention span. They also don't sit usually in front of a 27” iMac or have fast broadband connectivity with cheap data traffic rates.

In my opinion the target should have been readability, small screen readability, low complexity, easy orientation, fast loading times, low data use. As in most things 'Occam's Razor' applies, simplicity is beautiful.

I can sympathise with the Young Turks, their heads full of ideas, HTML 5 and CSS 3, eager to grab a chance of a lifetime with a birthday budget lurking in the background battling it out with the newspaper's accountant, graphic designer and webmaster. I guess their enthusiasm won over the uncertainty of them. In the service industry one can not serve the own cravings or a diffuse intention of the customer, but has to serve the end-user. Period! Maybe web designers don't cherish the long read. They should at least as professionals study what the competition, the best of their trade do. There are plenty of websites about award winning web design (e.g.: webbyawards.com). Nobody has to invent the wheel nowadays.

As an avid reader (I read dozens of websites daily, since years) I have to confess the new website left me embarrassed. I test the new site since a week on different screens (smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop) and I hold my reading experience is messed up. Lets go into detail:

1. The general three column design is popular, but I'd prefer a two column design for less clutter. The forth column for ads is nonsense, ads can be integrated elsewhere. A sensible designer also would have made a non symmetrical column width for aesthetic reasons and at the advantage of the middle column (now it is 7:12:7, better would be 7:14:5). The middle column is too narrow, line width of the running text is too large and letter weight and size to low for low-res screens.

2. The 'Top Story' box is a catastrophe a real amateur mistake. The changing box hight causes the column below to move up and down, so the eye loses the reading line. Why must the box size change? The picture can be sized to fit the box, or there could be a pause button to stop the flipping, or the box could flip upwards – stupid idea! The same goes for the red 'read more' box.

3. Otherwise the 'Twitter' box has not enough hight, if you want to scroll it on a small touch screen you easily move the whole page. At small screen you only see the middle column, so what is the purpose of the left and right columns? You totally lose orientation and have to look for content in the header or footer bars. That is inconsistent and confusing.

4. Design: the category boxes (News – National) look like coal bricks scattered over the place – too heavy for the minimal information. Typographically the sans serif typeface might look more modern, but the implementation for (small) screens is weak. The resolution of the cartoons is much to low. Ndeshi & Jakes is not readable.

5. Data usage: I couldn't measure the data usage and loading times (because I use WiFi) but I guess the frequent reloading will annoy the tango users.

In summary my impression of the new site is: it is a strain on the eyes – less is more! CEIT and Intouch have been overzealous and certainly too ambitious to show off their skills and ran over the wisdom of the 'obsolescent' print layout guys at The Namibian. I understand the desire to be modern and world class but you must not throw out the baby with the bath water.

Not a job well done, just a training session. The guys must go back to user interface (UX) school.