Independent.co.uk redesign

Following the lead of The Guardian and The Times, The Independent’s website has undergone a web standards makeover.

The redesign feels more like a work in progress to me as it looks largely the same as it’s predecessor — fixed width, same fiddly navigation — the only thing which immediately stands out is the switch to a larger Verdana font, inline images in articles and a splash of beige on the header. Hardly inspiring.

It’s bravely marked-up as XHTML Strict but, alas, it doesn’t quite validate. They still have a few (511) errors to deal with on the home page. It also looks like (as with Guardian Unlimited) they’re running a Java-based CMS:

<!-- 
DEBUG CODE IN DOAD.JSP
sec.getUniqueName()=foopre
pub.getName()=independentLondon
dartServer=http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net
dartSitepublication=sport.independent
-->

Oops.

Perhaps they’re restricted by short-sighted bosses who only look at the local competition, but you’d think the designers at these huge media companies would spend a little more time browsing other newspaper offerings on the web. In fact, they only need to visit one site to see exactly how a newspaper should be represented on the web — Khoi Vinh’s masterclass in understated elegance, nytimes.com.

Posted by Olly on January 24, 2008 at 1:48 pm in commentary, css
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