For many years MSNBC.com had been the first new site I would visit for news. Then the site became NBCnews.com, with MSNBC.com becoming who knows what. But I knew the day would come that the NBC folks would create a monstrosity and foist it on their readers in the name of uniformly supporting desktops and tablets. But they did is even worse that I could have imagined.
Yes, the dreaded giant tiles were brought in to make the site more appealing? More legible? More something? How about more ugly?
I admit, The old NBCnews.com homepage design wasn't the prettiest but it was functional, organized, and practical. Topics were categorized with links to stories under each topic. The page flowed well.
With the redesign we have a big mess of large graphics smashing into each other with no obvious rhyme or reason, as if someone just emptied a big pile of rubbish on the screen and invited the readers to randomly pick and choose the stories to read. And there's no way to get the classical look back.
No thanks NBC, this homeliness isn't for me and I must assume not for many others either. I miss the old MSNBC.com sometimes, but at least there's no shortage of news sites. CNN, BBC, Daily Mail and others, listen up. Redesign and refresh your sites if you must, but stay away from tiles. You want to offer ugly sites? create a parallel site, and let people choose between ugly or functional.
P.S. I know my own site is ugly, but I'm no designer and at least I admit it.
Give a few Sats