Thoughts on the new Engadget design
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
INTRODUCTION
Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about design. I’m a user, and design work on websites made for frequent article consumption should be tailored to user experience. I may come off as arrogant, ignorant, or petty. That’s not my intention. I’m being honest about my thoughts.
Engadget has launched a full re-design, something we’ve seen recently with sites like The Next Web and Read Write. Like those, Engadget’s new look focuses on cross-platform responsiveness, with a bias for tablets. I don’t write about every redesign I see, but Engadget was the first blog I read with dedication, so it has a special place in my geek heart.
Engadget’s previous design was, as even Editor-in-Chief Tim Stevens puts it, “heavy.” A better description would be clunky, crufty, and stale. I’m only going to mention a few details that are very important to me, instead of describing to you a website that you can just go see for yourself.
TYPOGRAPHY
The new Engadget uses the free Google Web Font Oswald for headlines. It feels too narrow, but Engadget is prone to information-rich headlines, so I can understand why they chose it. Full-width article images get a headline overlay on top of the image. Opacity of the overlay increases to 1 when you hover your cursor over the headline text. I wish it went to 1 on hover over the image itself, making it easier to get that readable opaque background behind the article title.
The body font is Georgia (same as this blog you’re reading now). It seems almost too pedestrian for a blog of Engadget’s means, as does the Google Web Font. After all, Engadget has a budget and a design staff. I find it hard to believe that the best they could do font-wise was a free Google font and Georgia.
Then again, The Verge uses Helvetica or Arial, and Read Write uses mere “sans serif.” These blogs often cater to dedicated fan bases, so page loading speed is important: many readers click between multiple articles in one sitting.
I wish font was larger in articles themselves. Yes, it’s easy to increase the size of the page with a quick CMD + (or CTRL + on Windows), but I definitely consider most of the web just a little small as far as font size. People should be able to sit back and read comfortably.
Maybe it’s just me (although I’m told my reading vision is fine), but if I have to lean forward to read a website, I’m having a bad reading experience. This is why I’m a frequent Daring Fireball reader but I can’t remember the last time I visited the website itself.
MENUS AND UI
I like the topics bar at the top of the site and the placement of the search field immediately beneath it. Expand the “Topics” item on the far right of the top bar to reveal more specific categories. The spacing is touch target friendly, and I appreciate the lack of some fancy separator character.
I like the banner at the top of the site. I like the loading bar that shows the time-to-change from one featured story to the next. I like the persistent table of contents on longer articles, like the redesign announcement.
Share buttons are well-placed on both the front page and article pages. Pinterest is an interesting addition to sharing options and one that I don’t see very often on sites of Engadget’s type. I occasionally dive into Pinterest myself to pepper my friends with gadget posts. Maybe Engadget can read my mind…
Probably not, though, otherwise the “Via” and “Source” links would be internalized instead of placed in article footers. I don’t go to Engadget because I think they break every tech news story ever, I go because their opinions on the news interest me. Thus, in-line source linking wouldn’t risk losing me to the source. I’m not sure if I’m the exception or the rule, but something about placing source links in the footer has always bugged me.
I don’t like the sidebar with the headline-over-dimmed-image motif. It works in the main body of the site, but in the sidebar it’s cluttered and incredibly difficult to scan. I want to see “Recent Reviews” and other site content placed above links to the podcasts and other supplementary media. The “Quoted” section includes recent tweets from Engadget authors, but I think this space would be better used for pull-quotes from high-traffic or recent articles.
CONCLUSION
Engadget’s new design is an improvement over the old one, and they plan still more changes as they settle into the new look. Generally, I think their design direction and that of the big-name tech blogs as a whole is great. Tablet-optimized design built for fingertips instead of cursors leads to less clutter and more negative space. In case you haven’t noticed, that aesthetic tracks well with my own preferences, so it’s encouraging to me and hope it continues. I know these websites are businesses, but at the end of the day the reading experience is absolutely everything, and if things continue down this path, I expect to see even more improvements in the future.