This is a critique of the recent photo.net redesign 17 October 2003. Here is a link to the relevant post.

First, screenshots of the old design:
top, middle1, inline photo

Now, screenshots of the new design. Note: I had to add the "Options" area to the top example, as it isn't there on the photo.net page. It appears on newer pages, but for some reason not on this April 21, 2003 page. Perhaps it will be there soon.
top, middle1, inline photo

Readability (flow) is key

The more readable a web site is, the more usable it is. The more usable it is, more people frequent it, and come back more often. This means more eyeballs on ads. The old design, while not a nirvana, was much, much more easy to read, easier to scan, and was easier to group individual posts with your eye.

Why am I doing this? Who am I?

I'm doing this because I like photo.net very much. It's been an invaluable resource...I've been a member since 1998. I've been through many redesigns. The new redesign bothers me because it is less usable. Especially irritating and caprious was the moving of the signature from the bottom to the top. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal do not mess with tradition lightly.

I do not want photo.net to be less usable. I spent time on this to convince the people running photo.net to switch back to elements of the old design, detailed below.

I'm David Ray Carson, a graphic and web designer for 6 years (and photographer for a long time), and I own this web site. It's homepage is here.

Let's get critiquing. Overall view of 3 parts of one page

Granted small details are lost, but this will give us a good start at comparing the new and old designs. One can see how the content is delineated in a rough fashion. 10/18/03 Update: photo.net have taken my (and other's) suggestion and changed the "=" that divides the posts in the new design and reverted it back to a gray line, albeit a shorter one.

Detail critique of top of the page

Detail critique of the inline photo area/middle of page

A quick screenshot of subject line problems in the new design

10/22/03 Update: Photo.net has fixed this issue.

I just noticed my examples above do not show an additional problem regarding the subject line. In the old design, the subject line, if changed from the original poster's, would be bold and logically above the post. Now, the subject line, if changed, is...well, read the screenshot below. A fixed (and fake) screenshot follows it:

Subject line problem

Subject line fix

Finally, a critique of the old design

Conclusion

•  Keep the right gray bar and option area
•  If wanted, keep headline color blue, and icons small
•  Revert everything else to the old design

Questions? Comments? Email me.