Page Critiques and Comment

“Design is fine, but not at the expense of content.”

That was a comment from a reader after last week’s introduction of the newly-redesigned Los Angeles Times. About 80 percent of the 300 or so reader comments were negative, which is partly to be expected.

With my own redesign projects, I have found that about half the readers don’t want a thing changed in their newspaper, no matter what it is. Ever.  So finding readers who don’t like your design changes is not unusual, though I think 80 percent is a little high.

One of the most telling  comments came from a reader who said that each design change were sold as design “improvements,” such as more white space, larger photos and headlines and simply fewer pages. But they all basically meant less content.

Readers notice these things, and many are not happy. I have been railing against cutting back on content as a way to save money for years. It is like a race car driver deciding to make the engine smaller as a way to reduce weight. Uh, won’t that make you go slower? With newspapers: uh, won’t that make your paper less attractive to your core readers?

A number of readers said they were going to cancel their subscriptions, the ultimate measure of success or failure.

Design IS important, but we must never forget it is CONTENT that sells paper. Make sure your design changes improve your content, not just make your paper look better. Do your research. How do you do that? Next post!

Actually, the time is long past for newspapers to begin conceptualizing their web site as their main product and their print product as support for the web site. Many papers have already switched to this model, and though it is really too early to tell whether it is a good strategy, it makes sense to me.

I have been saying for years that eventually the print product will become like a TV Guide for the web site. In other words, the paper will provide summaries, lots of names and faces (can you say hyper-local?), and dailies anyway will be published less frequently. The paper will “tease” to the web, where the meat of the information can be found.

First, this will be cheaper. Imagine if your paper could cut its newsprint bill in half. That’s another one or two web workers right there. Second it plays into the younger cohorts’ preference for quick-n-dirty reads on the web or cell phone, and you better be pandering to their tastes and preferences if you hope to have a business in 10 years.

This will take a re-wiring of many “older” journalists’ brains, who will fight until they have to pry that pica pole from their cold, dead, ink-stained hand.

But it is really pretty much the same thing we newspaper folks have always done. Deliver what people want and need in a compelling presentation in words and visuals. Just do it in pixels instead of ink. Yes, you will need to learn some new skills, but what could be more exciting?

Enjoy becoming a pixel-stained wretch. (More to come next post.)