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New ABC O&O Websites

BehindNYNews

By BehindNYNews
in General TV

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sanewsguy Station Group CEO

sanewsguy 509

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All of the above and the fact they put too much news on their homepage. If I want to read national and world headlines, health news, entertainment news, stuff from their lifestyle show, etc. please just link to that section of the site rather than putting it all on the homepage.

 

Also, I hate the large blue box at the bottom that says "We're everywhere you need us to be. Count on it.". It has too much going on an detracts from the rest of the site.

 

Remember what websites looked like in 1999 or 2000? Basic and to the point without any other crap going on. We need to go back to that design principle but with that not likely, looks like Gannett's newest sites are the next best thing. Talk about perfection. Cordillera comes in second, then the Nexstar sites . 4th place is WorldNow, 5th ABC O&O new design. Which means Fox has the best design out of all the major O&O groups right now. Yes, Inergize and WorldNow are much better than this new ABC O&O design. Anything else (for local news sites) that is not one of those designs is crap. No questions asked.

 

Yay for WTVF keeping the mid-2000's WorldNow template alive and kicking. Probably one of the best local news sites.

 

If you wanted to talk about the worst, the new Tribune sites that KDVR and KFOR are using is probably on the top. CBS Local is also pretty bad. Actually here's a hint. Don't use WordPress for local news station sites. That just shows they're too lazy to use a real CMS...

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mre29 Station Group CEO

mre29 1341

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Remember what websites looked like in 1999 or 2000? Basic and to the point without any other crap going on. We need to go back to that design principle...

You're kidding, right?

 

 

but with that not likely' date=' looks like Gannett's newest sites are the next best thing. Talk about perfection. Cordillera comes in second, then the Nexstar sites . 4th place is WorldNow, [b']5th ABC O&O new design[/b]. Which means Fox has the best design out of all the major O&O groups right now. Yes, Inergize and WorldNow are much better than this new ABC O&O design. Anything else (for local news sites) that is not one of those designs is crap. No questions asked.

So, even the current sites for the former Fisher stations (such as KOMO) are crap?

 

Yay for WTVF keeping the mid-2000's WorldNow template alive and kicking. Probably one of the best local news sites.

Ummmmmmmmm... that one was redesigned last year. Sorry. But here's a mid-2000s Hearst station website to cheer you up.

 

If you wanted to talk about the worst, the new Tribune sites that KDVR and KFOR are using is probably on the top. CBS Local is also pretty bad. Actually here's a hint. Don't use WordPress for local news station sites. That just shows they're too lazy to use a real CMS...

Ah, the ol' "WordPress isn't a real CMS" line. There are a lot of professional web designers & developers who would disagree with you on that. A LOT.
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BehindNYNews News Director

BehindNYNews 143

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The WABC page is not loading for some reason on my computer, it says "the webpage has a redirect loop...and has resulted in too many redirects". However, all other abc o&o sites are working no problem. Does anyone know why?

 

7online is working fine for me.
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NYNewsCoverage News Director

NYNewsCoverage 257

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7online is working fine for me.

 

Never mind, all of the sudden it just started working. What's weird is that the address is still 7online.com and when I clicked on it before it wouldn't work, even if I reloaded it. I don't know, I guess it's just my computer acting strange.
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NYNewsCoverage News Director

NYNewsCoverage 257

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So I'm surfing around WABC's website and I like it more and more every time I see it. My only complaint is that they took down the futurecast when you click on the weather. I used to rely on that futurecast to plan out my day. I used to like it so much, because it's the same RPM that the meteteorologists use, and it will animate for 3 days.

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Jess

Jess 1110

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EXACTLY. The websites did follow the basic principles but do know one thing, it was designed at a time when 56k modem was in, not to mention the design was so F#cking CHEEEAP! to begin with. jeez.

Uhm, no. No they didn't. They used tables for design. Using tables for web layout, and not tabular data, is against the basic principles of web design. I know it was late 90s, but even then the W3C and a vocal group of designers urged people to use divs and CSS. CSS was a pain in the ass to deal with then (hell, it still is a pain in the ass), but it's a better, easier to manage solution than tabular layout.

 

Also, I keep telling people that just because a webpage from 2000 or so "looks better" than a current design, it doesn't mean it will necessarily work in this day and age. People browse websites through their smartphones, tablets, desktops, even televisions. You have to adapt to fit any screen. The CBS O&O design from 2005 was fantastic - because the primary method of web surfing was on the PC. There is NO way you can get away with that layout now - it's horrible on a tablet.

 

I do quite a bit of web browsing on my iPad. Compatibility with that is very important to me. That means I should be able to access the live stream on that device (i.e., the stream is not Flash-based), that I don't have to pinch-zoom in order to hit a link, that the design looks solid on there.

 

Also, addressing the whole "too much stuff" thing... responsive design isn't just scaling down to mobile. It's also scaling up. My MacBook Pro is 1440x900. My Windows 7 desktop is 1080p, or 1920x1080. Many websites are built on a 960px grid, so while they look sort of decent on my MBP, the amount of dead space is almost comical on the Win7 rig. I like that they expand to a third column of content.

 

Actually here's a hint. Don't use WordPress for local news station sites. That just shows they're too lazy to use a real CMS...

 

Ah, the ol' "WordPress isn't a real CMS" line. There are a lot of professional web designers & developers who would disagree with you on that. A LOT.

And speaking as a professional web designer and developer, I indeed strongly disagree on the "WordPress isn't a real CMS" line.

 

The last few updates of the software in particular (we're up to 3.9) have included changes to make it more like a CMS. Plus, WordPress is basically infinitely customizable with widgets, plug-ins, and plain old code. The back end is also easier to work with and understand for those who don't understand the web as much as the designer does.

 

It's sad that the standard-bearers of WordPress in local news website design are the bloggy Tribune sites and the horrible CBS Local sites. It offsets good designs like the ex-Local TV websites, which ARE built on WordPress and look great. You can build amazing stuff with WordPress, and it's not terribly hard to do so once you get up to speed with the software.

 

--

 

Now my review of the new sites: they are the best local news sites out there right now. They hit the sweet spot. They look the closest to traditional sites, but I don't think anyone else can match them in terms of flexibility. And they were designed by people who Get It. Everyone has slightly different text on the explainer page, but a few have this:

 

And while it was designed for mobile, it displays beautifully across most any device.

 

The emphasis is mine. They've followed something that web designers have been starting to advocate really heavily - designing mobile-first. That is, designing for the smartphones first and THEN scaling up to the larger sizes. They did their homework here. I'm still seeing way too many sites not even going responsive; it's good to see the ABC O&Os adopt a modern web strategy.

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sanewsguy Station Group CEO

sanewsguy 509

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And while it was designed for mobile, it displays beautifully across most any device.

 

The emphasis is mine. They've followed something that web designers have been starting to advocate really heavily - designing mobile-first. That is, designing for the smartphones first and THEN scaling up to the larger sizes. They did their homework here. I'm still seeing way too many sites not even going responsive; it's good to see the ABC O&Os adopt a modern web strategy.

 

I am a big fan of responsive design and strongly agree with the mobile first design principle. But, to play devil's advocate here, you don't think that sites should still have a separate mobile version, like CBS Local, Fox, Sinclair, Nexstar for instance?

 

No I'm not talking about the app. I'm talking about when you go to the site and a mobile version loads instead bypassing the desktop version but there's an option to view the desktop site if you wish.

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Jess

Jess 1110

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I am a big fan of responsive design and strongly agree with the mobile first design principle. But, to play devil's advocate here, you don't think that sites should still have a separate mobile version, like CBS Local, Fox, Sinclair, Nexstar for instance?

 

No I'm not talking about the app. I'm talking about when you go to the site and a mobile version loads instead bypassing the desktop version but there's an option to view the desktop site if you wish.

Actually... you got me there.

 

In some cases I DO think a mobile site *is* a good idea... and I think that includes news websites. In fairness, though, the ABC sites ARE the mobile sites - they just get bigger on bigger screens. But yes, you have a good point.

 

One thing that bothers me about the ABC sites... the logo and navigation assets aren't retina-ready. Granted, making retina graphics is the bane of my existence, but that's also because blurry site images bug the hell out of me.

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mountainave News Director

mountainave 530

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Notice the text on the WABC window tab..."ABC7 News - WABC..."

 

Ha.

 

They've also done a lot in the way of search engine optimization. No more funky URLs with ID numbers and subdomains. The entire site remains 7online.com rather than being directed to abclocal.go.com, and article links are using plain text instead of displaying just the article ID number.

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Jess

Jess 1110

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They've also done a lot in the way of search engine optimization. No more funky URLs with ID numbers and subdomains. The entire site remains 7online.com rather than being directed to abclocal.go.com, and article links are using plain text instead of displaying just the article ID number.

 

THIS.

 

WordPress calls them "pretty permalinks" but they help tremendously in SEO. Same with actually having the domain be what you typed in. They are still using abclocal.go.com, but only for their CDN stuff (CSS files, JavaScript, jQuery, Modernizr). Nothing the user would see. (I imagine the sites are still hosted at abclocal.go.com, but they're using some htaccess rules to rewrite the URL.) And the CSS is minified which is also nice.

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