This is just a guess on my part...(and I agree that it sucks)....They can charge more $$$ for onsite advertising based on page hits, so they try to hide everything to make you click on more pages. It's a stupid idea that just ticks off the user as far as I'm concerned. What they should advocate to their advertisers is time spent viewing instead of page hits. IMHO that is a more accurate gauge of how much people are viewing your site. For example, if Clutch charged me for the amount of time I spend viewing the pages on this website, he would be the Prince of Zamunda.
The worst thing about the Chron - and, sadly, it is common among news websites - is the floating/folding Flash animations that drop into the screen and you have to "close" or they cover part of the story or they force the screen to scroll down and then scroll up after a few seconds. There are few things that make me NEVER want to patronize an internet advertiser more than those stupid ****ing ads.
If you block cookies and pop-ups, then most of the crap like those floating adds don't show up. I only accept cookies for sites that require it for shopping carts, etc. I don't see that crap visiting Chron. But yes, that three column site looks terrible. Esp on my widescreen laptop where I've got 2 inches of gray space on either side of the page and then the cramped 3 column site squezed into the 1024x768 formatted site. Pretty silly.
They're shooting for the WIDESCREEN new LCDs and monitors out there with higher resolution. I didn't think it was that new, but... their video section SUCKS. Can't they have any other way to add that awfully-voiced John McClain ?!??!? He's got a voice and face for NEWSPAPER. By the way, I f*#@($*& hate John McClain. Did I tell anyone I hate John McClain?
In the web business, no one creates a design for something that isn't being widely used yet. In fact, designers are VERY cautious when programming for newer technology. They are doing this because they want to try and get as much information as possible "above the scroll" and the way to do that is to go with multi-column layouts. It gets the most stuff onto a single screen - including ads - no matter what the resolution. Lots of media sites do this and many of them do it well. Actually, the Chron front page is a much better multi-column layout than the new sports page.
Well, I'm at 1280 x 1024 and I still have to scroll... and I don't know how much more they would gain by adding so much clutter on the first page of the sports section. I myself like to expand things if I want to read more about it... but I agree on your second sentence... we are very careful not to cater to new technology. We don't jump the gun. We like to capture the most audience, but not leave so many out. I just wanted to post again and say that I really hate John McClain.
I agree. It's some kind of crappy trend on the web. I first saw the crappy three-column layout on cnet. Then it was on cnn. Now the chronicle. Haven't they ever heard of web usability?
With news layouts, it's not easy. The problem with this particular layout is that they are trying to do too many things in a small space - trying to cram too many things into a small space. It makes it more complicated to read. Sites like the Washington Post actually do a better job of organizing information and making it easy to read. The Denver Post sports section is ugly as is USA Today, but they are both much better organized. But, IMO, the best LOOKING and best organized news site out there is The Knoxville News - http://www.knoxnews.com. THAT is how a site should look. It's clean. It's organized. It's really easy to find information.
I have this bookmarked: http://www.chron.com/sports/rockets/ and I use Firefox/Adblock Plus. Everything looks the same to me there... Did go to your link, though - not really sure what they were trying to accomplish with that change.
Okay, I sort of understand what you're saying... I don't like having to scroll down, so I guess I like it. But I also don't go to a lot of news sites and click on different sections, so I can see how some might find it frustrating.
