ToI and HT goes for redesign [Review]

Interestingly, both the leading newspaper sites decided to launch their redesigned site at the same day/week (mere coincidence..or?).

Well, the common theme across the two redesigns is that Indian media sites are embracing international look and moving away from traditional content heavy design to a lot more structured design.

Here is our first hand review of the two redesigned sites

TimesofIndia

• Homepage is still cluttered, but surely better than earlier – content is better organized.
• News page (i.e. article page)’s font needs a rethink – bigger isn’t beautiful.
• Placement of ads on news page can be played with.
• Less ads on the homepage is a good change – though I am not sure for how long can they continue this way.
• In general, bad use of font typography – colors aren’t coherent and a lot can be improved.

Hindustantimes.com

• Nicely done homepage – looks sleek and has an international appeal.
• Beautiful (that’s the right word) use of font typography and colors.
• News ticker sucks – takes away the attention from main content.
• Excessive obsession with ‘moving objects’ – right from ads to tickers to their own properties, wants to show every possible content on the site.
• Ads on news page (i.e. article page) needs a rethink – in general, modules are placed randomly and doesn’t give a coherent look to the site.
• Buggy – doesn’t work well with Chrome and there are some ‘not found’ errors on the homepage.
• Surfacing related content is not at all intuitive

What’s your take on the redesigns?