The Atlantic recently redesigned—here’s the product tour. But not everyone likes the redesign, including many of the The Atlantic’s contributors who posted vocal critiques of the new site.
Andrew Sullivan writes:
But in this redesign, we should be grateful for the usual neglect. Our page is by far the least messed up…
I know the designers meant well and worked very hard. Like everyone else, I deeply appreciate their hard work. Maybe some agree with Goldberg that this HuffPo/DailyBeast/Gawker type melange is, in fact, “a thorough reimagining of what a magazine’s website could be: Current, topical, intellectual, earnest (and ironic), but rooted in the culture and history of one of America’s most indispensably important magazines.”
I understand that advertisers like “verticals” to pitch certain kinds of products, and are allegedly leery of individual bloggers with style. I also know in this media climate how vital advertising is, and how our survival online is critical to our endurance in print. I am not a businessman. And I deeply believe in the Atlantic, as readers well know. If this keeps us afloat, that sure is better than going under. If there is business genius here, congrats to all involved.
But treating blogs as a series of headlines, designed to maximize pageviews, is a deep misunderstanding of blogs, their reader communities and their integrity. I hope they get restored to their previous coherence, and these amorphous “channels” gain some editorial identity. I hope writers like Fallows and Goldberg aren’t treated as random fodder – anchors! – for “channels”. I believe in the Atlantic as a place for writing. The redesign seems to me to ooze casual indifference to that and to the respect that individual writers deserve.
Jeffrey Goldberg jokes:
I think you can still find my blog the old way. But I’m not sure. There are a lot of buttons on this thing.
Ta-Nehisi Coates predicts:
And after some conversation on Friday, expect the appearance, and feel of that “Ta-Nehisi” page to change in the next couple weeks or so. It won’t completely be the old blog, but we are going to do everything we can to get as much of the old blog back as we can. Moreover, we will specifically address the formatting issue that a lot of you raised in terms of seeing only one sentence. That will change. Overall, something better, if not perfect, is on the horizon.
James Fallows complains:
I consider the new layout of “personal” blog pages to be a serious step backward, since it makes all sites look the same and drains them of personality and visual interest, plus making them much harder to read. I hope, and think, that this part of the design will be re-visited.
On the one hand it’s refreshing to see this level of transparency, (mostly) thoughtful critique and dialogue with lots of feedback from the comments to bolster arguments. But I can’t help wondering what message is sent out to the world about The Atlantic when its contributors use their columns to criticize the business and product decisions that drove this redesign.
What do you think?
