First of all, the homepage looks radically different due to the new font for text and headlines as well as the widened page which in his letter to readers, the Times Editor-in-Chief Len Apcar explains was designed “to take advantage of the larger monitors now used by the vast majority of our readers.” There are also tabs at the top of the page that direct readers to new features: “My Times,” “Today’s Paper,” “Video,” “Most Popular,” and “Times Topics.” At first attempt, it may seem more difficult to navigate than the old version but this problem is quickly cleared up with a little practice.

Below are some of my feelings about the pros and cons of the site. Please visit nytimes.com yourself and add your opinion to the comments.

Things the Times has done right

Paying attention to reader habits: Instead of listing only the five most emailed articles, the Times has added a box with three separate top tens: emailed articles, blogged articles, and searched topics including a "go to complete list" that extends the selection to 25. The box appears on every page and flows flawlessly between the three top tens. For some reason which I can’t figure out, “Most Popular Movies” is thrown into this mix on the “Most Popular” page, but hey, why not?

Emphasizing multimedia: The Times was doing a decent job before of joining articles with related multimedia features, but now podcasting and especially video have been given an even more prevalent role. In the middle of the homepage, large, colorful pictures lead the reader to the latest video of various topics with the click of a mouse.

Tying the Web to print: The Today’s Paper feature is a cool, easily navigable tool in that it lists the headlines (with links of course) by section to the articles printed in the actual paper. It also has a screen shot of the front page with a clickable sidebar of the paper’s sections. Now the question is, is Today’s Paper meant to encourage and ease the transition from print to Web? Is the print edition directing readers more to the website (any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated)? An ad featured on the page, as well as many other pages, would have us think otherwise; it’s an ad for home delivery at just under $3 a week.

Personalization: A new feature called My Times is still under construction but it promises to “let you create a personalized page with what you like best in The New York Times and your favorite sites and blogs from all over the Web.” In his letter, Apcar emphasizes that the service will offer “the guidance of Times editors, reporters and critics,” in “editing” the Web to individual readers’ personal tastes.

Background information: The Times has taken a huge step in helping its readers dig deeper into issues while keeping them on its website through an enhanced version of its old Times Index print feature which is “a simple annual index to the contents of the paper.” The new addition is Times Topics which lists alphabetically the names of people, places and organizations accompanied by all of the Times articles that reference these names.

As we’ve said before on this blog, providing links to background information will be increasingly important for newspapers online and keeping readers on your site when doing so is a strategic business move. Today’s Times demonstrates an example of this practice. In an article concerning a new play about the Bush administration, names such as Dick Cheney and Colin Powell have links to their respective Times Topics page.  
But a quick trip through Times Topics also proves that providing background information is a monumental task. For example, the page on George W. Bush has a brief biography along with some multimedia followed by all of the 20,000 some-odd stories that reference him. But on his VP’s page, there is no brief bio, as there is no explanation nor bio for (I’m assuming) most of the thousands of people and places the Times lists.

What will the Times do to complete these topics? Hire people to fill them in? Open them up to readers to fill in? Or maybe just link them to Wikipedia, saving itself the trouble. Of course, the Times would then lose advertising and page views. But maybe the non-profit Wikipedia would be interested in some ad revenue sharing; if the Times or any paper sends readers to Wikipedia as a reference source, advertising from the paper would appear on Wikipedia.  

Things the Times still needs to work on

Freeing up the archives: If you’re an information fiend, Times Topics is great. But if you want to access an article that’s more than a week old, you have to pay, per article or through a Times Select membership. This could work in two ways; either it will entice more people to sign up for TimesSelect and pay for archives (which by last count brought in about $1 million in revenue) or it will drive them away to other sites that provide historical background for free. Me being the pessimist that I am tend to float towards the latter mainly because I can purchase a television program on iTunes or a rent a movie on my cable box for around $2. Why would I pay up to $4 for an old newspaper article?

Linking to outside sources: Although it now provides the 10 most blogged stories, it doesn’t furnish the reader with any links to those blogs like the Washington Post does. This would help create relationships between the paper and its readers and entice even more blogs to link to the paper, ultimately increasing traffic. It would also complement nicely My Times.   

Interactivity: This is arguably the area where the Times is most lacking. There are still forums on various topics but I only found two blogs, both in the Style section (one on restaurants and one on food & drink). We’ll have to wait and see if the My Times feature integrates some of the ideas behind TimesSelect in which the journalists converse with readers, but as for now the Times still seems hesitant to allow its readers to comment.

Perhaps this is because of the problems that the Washington Post has had with racy comments on its own blogs. But by allowing reader interaction, the Post has greatly increased its rapport with its readers, something that the Times, especially in the face of numerous scandals and criticism it has received because of them, could certainly stand to do.

Furthermore, it would be a good idea for the Times to start a blog specifically for comments on its redesign so that it could figure out what it’s doing well and what it needs to improve. Instead, readers will be voicing their opinion on other publications (hopefully including this blog!)

Finally, one thing that struck me about the redesign is the absence of the ad for TimesSelect that was very prevalent on the homepage of the old version. Although in the top corner there is still a call for a 14-day trial, since “the jury is still out” on the success of the paid program, does this mean that the Times could pull the plug? By some accounts it has been a pretty successful trial for paid content but it has significantly affected the traffic of some of the paper’s most popular columnists. Wouldn’t it make the 21st century reader and those columnists happier if the entire site was freely navigable?

Sources: nytimes.com, PaidContent, also see News Designer's take on the redesign