Recently CNN.com debuted a new design for their website. For quite some time it was in beta. (A very smart decision on their part). I’ve had some time to use the site now both in beta and since it’s launch. Here are my thoughts on the site:

Good:
- Most popular news: This is something that sites struggle with. We know that folks want the stories that are off the wall and more fluff than news, but we fear (or should fear) putting them in top news. After all it’s not top news. This puts it in t prominent spot with out compromising the top news.
- Graphics: I really like the big “web 2.0″ style buttons for blogs, podcast, rss, email ect. Not at the top of the page but still prominent. This is something that most would have stuck in a vertical navigation.
- Vertical Navigation: It doesn’t have one. This creates a much cleaner site yet everything I need is still on the front page. Great design.
- Story pages: clean and simple. Lots or links on the side. Enjoy the Ajax use of the most popular (video, stories, and topics). I really like that the photo and video tabs keep you on the page. Very easy to use very little load time.
- Photos: Wow…when you are on a story page the photos are displayed in in a box and you can click through (with nice presentation) and not have to leave the page. And the built in slide show on the photo page is one of the better slide show setups that I’ve seen on any site.
- Story highlights: quick bullet points of the article. Better than a quick read. Took me a while to realize it was there. In my head i thought it was more links to other stories. Guess I should actually read things.

Needs improvement:
- Hot Topics: Great concept. They have put the “hot topics” as their own links on the top of the site. When you click on it it takes you to a story gallery of past stories on the topic. This gets very close to a concept I have talked to some folks about, but I’ll save that for another post. I just think there is tons of potential here.

The Bad:
- Video: a couple things here. I like the player but they are not embeded on the story level. It seems that CNN is treating video as something that is not meant to compliment the print article but rather an ‘either you read the story or watch the video.’ This may not be a bad idea because most of the video they do are full pkgs from TV. The player also doesn’t have a feature that allows you to take the code and embed it in your blog. This is quite simple and allows your video to go viral a lot easier.
- Still a TV station website: OK I’ll admit I probably won’t every be satisfied on this one, but something that bothers me is that there are things on CNN.com that are still centered around the the TV station. For example on all the section pages page there is a mini TV lineup with Anderson Cooper, Larry King and the Situation Room. If it’s an ad fine, but If I’m looking for news don’t waste the space to promote shows that have only a little to do with the topic. I’m OK with a promo that is promoting a special program, but not just the TV lineup.

Overall I am very impressed with the site. It would be interesting to know how the design was created. Usually sites suffer from going through too many committees and focus groups. This one doesn’t appear to have the problem.