Newsvine, a popular news aggregation website similar to Digg, upgraded their website’s design today with many new rich features and customizable abilities. To the cheers and salutations of many of it members the site successfully launched their largest update in the site’s history. As a member of Newsvine I should be excited and thrilled about all these great changes, right? Well I don’t feel that way and the following is a list of reasons why I am not impressed.
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Too Many Modules
From the comments I have seen on the site a majority of people are really all Newsvine going “evergreen”. I just can’t get on board. The new modules is what really gets me. The site now offers customizable modules which can be added or removed from the main page. By customizable I mean you can change their location on the page and what sort of functions they have. The problem with this is that the layout becomes cluttered and irritating. As a fan of web 2.0 design I really just can’t handle sites that look like the New York Times website or any of the Gannett sites. Its just so busy and chunky that I don’t even know what to do with myself. The previous design solved this problem with paralleled elements. Then it was nice, now it is madness.
Gain and inch, lose a yard
So a few new features are included in Newsvine’s new design. One that I can’t complain about is the “News through pictures” module which is actually pretty terrific photojournalism. However, there are a few new modules that I already can’t stand. The first one is the “Newsvis”. This is a multicolored bar that shows me what is popular and what isn’t. The colors become very similar at times, and it reminds me of the terror alert system. The difference between red and dark red is a couple of votes or comments, but is orange better than red? Or is green better than light green/yellow. I don’t know, and to tell you the truth I don’t really care. Newsvis is pretty useless.
Additionally, a slightly older but newly revisited module put into effect to clutter my home page today is Newsvine Live. Before that particular feature was banished somewhere in the catacombs of Newsvine to be watched by those who really cared to see every little action that was taking place on Newsvine. Imagine if you had a stream-of-consciousness pop-up on your computer which continuously showed your your own thoughts as they popped into your head, then make that pop-up “2.0″ and you have Newsvine Live. This is a pretty silly feature, and it bothers me that the Newsvine team is wasting their time with this kind of thing (as well as Newsvis).
Too many, yet too few
Alright, this jeer is a bit less series but it needs to be pointed out. The previous Newsvine front page offered a health section. Sure, it wasn’t extremely popular, but one could really get a good look at what what going on in the world of health. Articles about eating healthy, seeds about mad cow disease, and other posts like this really enriched the Newsvine front page. Now, not only is that module gone, but it cannot be added. Other modules which don’t originally show up on your front page like “politics”, “world news”, and “technology” can be added, however health has now been moved behind the front page. If you understand sites like these then you know, if its not on the front page, it will never gat attention. I just don’t understand why this module is not offered? It doesn’t make since to take away a staple module.
Whats it all mean?
Basically, the lesson here is to slow down the momentum a bit. For example, people on these sites are always yelling for more features, and (in time) many of those features are added, but slowly. What bothers me is that Newsvine just hit their users with a brick. Anyone remember the Facebook.com incident that made national news?
Perhaps I am simply overwhelmed. Maybe I am completely alone here. What do you think? Please leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts on this issue. If I am wrong I want to know why. If am I not I want to know that someone out there agrees with me. Thanks.
3 responses so far ↓
jamabake // April 25, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Ok, now that you’ve gotten into how you feel a little more, I can see where you’re coming from. After using it a little longer, my excitement wore off some and I’m not as impressed as I once was. I totally agree with you on the clutter and the “terror alert system” thing, totally worthless and just simply annoying.
But overall, I still like the redesign and I think the Newsvine staff will eventually work out most of the kinks. Maybe I’ll write a review on my blog that details what I like about it …
Will York // April 27, 2007 at 3:05 am
I agree with both to some extent. Yes, it is a little busy for my liking. I am particularly not a huge fan of the live update tool, and I miss not having the top stories from all sections on the main page. I also would like to not have to have a degree in astrophysics to understand the Newsvis.
That being said, the upgrade as a whole is not bad. Sure, it will take some time to get used to, but it’s really powerful and interactive, and even better, it’s highly customizable. I can drag around these modules to make it do what I want.
I’d like to see Newsvine upgrade their servers and show top stories in a drop-down menu when you hover over category names on the main page, too.
jstamant // April 27, 2007 at 5:23 am
Great answer, or greatest answer:
I also understand where you are coming from with the drop down menu. That would be pretty useful. I am all about functionality.