12 Comments Add your own

• 1. CJS  |  October 18th, 2007 at 8:14 am

  michael — nice work on the non-redesign redesign. definitely cleaner and easier on the eyes. compare it to the KETV link you provided, and it’s like being hit in the face with a pillow versus a sack full of doorknobs. (trust me, that hurts)

• 2. Andrew Gruen  |  October 18th, 2007 at 8:57 am

  Two key improvements from my point of view: the added white space on the home page makes the page feel less cluttered and the improved story pages.

  Stories not only have more content below and to the right, but the font is now MUCH easier to read!

• 3. David Ford  |  October 18th, 2007 at 10:14 am

  Michael– Hats off. I saw http://www.kmbc.com last night as I was tracking wx coming my way. I like the design.
  cheers, -djbf

• 4. Chris  |  October 18th, 2007 at 10:34 am

  For years, the IBS (and thus, the Hearst-Argyle) websites have been the subject of much criticism for their cluttered design, poor navigation and lack of visual appeal — much of that criticism coming on this website. The more significant redesign IBS sites went through within the last year did almost nothing to fix the problems. And, sorry Michael, this won’t either. You inherited sites that were a mess to begin with.

  This is like putting lipstick on a pig.

• 5. Camulator  |  October 18th, 2007 at 11:55 am

  I agree with Chris. I still get lost on these sites.

• 6. Aaron  |  October 18th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

  Wait… you redesigned and kept the rotating headline box??

  A click target that changes where it goes if you click a half second too late is AWFUL navigation and terrible UI design.

  Would anyone ever build a web browser where the back button swapped with the forward button every 5 seconds? Of course not! Imagine a word processor where Bold and Italic shared the same screen real estate, and you had to make sure it wasn’t going to change right before you clicked. Whoever built that word processor would be laughed out of town, and rightly so.

  So why in the world do companies build web pages that do the same thing?

  If you don’t have enough room to fit all your headlines above the fold, the solution is to re-design to fit your headlines, or (gasp) make people scroll down the page!

  Giving them click targets that are unpredictable only makes your visitors angry, and encourages them to go elsewhere.

• 7. Jim  |  October 18th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

  “While this was by no means a redesign” … apparently, a lot of you can’t read.

• 8. Mike Escutia  |  October 18th, 2007 at 1:38 pm

  Chris: “For years, the IBS (and thus, the Hearst-Argyle) websites have been the subject of much criticism for their cluttered design, poor navigation and lack of visual appeal — much of that criticism coming on this website. The more significant redesign IBS sites went through within the last year did almost nothing to fix the problems.”

  I have to disagree. The IBS site redesigns over the past few years have been VAST improvements over the previous generation of IBS sites. Compare ketv.com to any of the IBS-powered Cox sites (click on my name for a list of those) and you’ll see what I mean.

  I actually don’t mind the “rotating headline box”, as it’s a way to show multiple headlines with sizable graphics without taking up much space.

  Good job on the relaunch, Michael. I particularly like the tweaks you made to the color palette; it wasn’t until I took a good, long look at ketv.com that I realized just how much blue it uses. [It's the same design as WMUR's site, so I'm used to it. :)]

  I’m surprised that no one’s commented on the shorter URL. Has thedetroitchannel finally given up?

• 9. thedetroitchannel  |  October 18th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

  no, tdc ain’t given up and here’s why…

  all they’ve done now is become like every other tv and radio station using call letters; anyone, ANYONE outside their broadcast signal would known’t kmbc from knbc or ketv or , well, you get the picture. you guys from inside the industry use industry thinking when making decisions online. that has proven wrong in past renamings, wlky, ketv, koco happen to come to mind.

  never once have i argued that a shorter domain name would be preferable, but you play the cards you were dealt. and since kansascitydotcom and every other one citydoycom are so fragmented in ownership, HearstArgyle has the chance to differentiate themselves from the thousands of other w or k urls.

  think about it, thekansascitychannel is below the top 25 market. if EVERY person within their signal were to log on to kmbcdotcom every day, with cpm’s being what they are, are they going to actually make enough to offset the decline in tv audience? NOT.

  and given you have a declining tv audience, why would you AGAIN try to make the internet into tv? there is a good case for that old cannibalization argument.

  isn’t LR the home of “THE INTERNET IS NOT TV”?

  but i did comment that i liked the cleaner look.

• 10. thedetroitchannel  |  October 18th, 2007 at 3:38 pm

  please forgive the messed up typing, i’m on a call while.

• 11. Z  |  October 19th, 2007 at 4:11 am

  “that has proven wrong in past renamings, wlky, ketv, koco happen to come to mind.”

  According to who? I know the managing editors of two of those sites, and they wouldn’t say it was a bad move to rename.

• 12. tdc  |  October 19th, 2007 at 7:21 am

  z, you know i respect your opinion. guess what i was saying was they simply traded in an opportunity to be something other than a random search result for their heritage call letters.

  you do get the idea of a worldwide web, right?

  and their pageviews (which s a terrible metric anyways because you guys know how to laden the page with goodies that add on) have done significantly better since the rename?

  my figures say otherwise.

  now, did cnn give them a bump? certainly. when they get placement and then you have some kind of split the pot deal.

  thelouisvillechannel never was about only thelouisvillechannel. it was about every major city coast-to-coast getting ahead of every other by removing the random search result identity.

  all the best! i’m off the hawaii today!

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