Good article at E&P about three recent redesigns at newspaper sites and what the people at those sites learned from the process. E&P talked with the editors of USATODAY.com, latimes.com and washingtonpost.com. The editors’ insights into the redesign process is very interesting. One observation echoes what Cory often points out:
One theme that emerged was that redesigning their site was an ongoing process that relies more and more on taking readers’ opinions into effect and making the process more of a conversation than ever before. Still, one editor admitted, half of the reader feedback was initially negative.
It’s the web, and you will always hear negative feedback more than you’ll hear positive feedback. That’s OK. You get more phone calls from crabby viewers than you do from happy viewers. There are great lessons to be learned from the newspapers – they understand page layout.