Critique of Web designs

Nando.net

Resnick: OK, the next site we're going to look at is Nando.net. Nando.net is -- we've been looking at magazines so far -- Nando.net is the Internet edition of The Raleigh News and Observer. Raleigh News and Observer put up Nando.net. I think it was either the first or second publication to go onto the Web. It's been a pioneer since March of '94, and it remains a pioneer, pushing the envelope technologically and in every other way. Now, when you take a look at this site, this is not HotWired. It's not Pathfinder. It's not word.com. It's simple, clean, straightforward. It gives you the news. It gives you the information and that's it. But the great thing about this site is that there's plenty of information here. And it's not just shovelware. It's not simply information taken from the printed paper and put on-line. There's a whole lot more to it.

That homepage graphic takes a little while to get on your screen, but once you can get past that, the table of contents of the interface is just regular text. There's no fancy icons, nothing floated, no black and white pictures. Click on NandoTimes, and you can see that they have a very clean easy-to-use interface for searching world and local news. At the same time, if we scroll down, you'll see that they make use of NetScape tables as well. I personally believe, and this is really a comment on all of these publications, that it makes sense when you're designing a site, to make full use of the Netscape extensions. Netscape controls something like 75 percent of the browser market, and to me, it makes no sense at all to design for the lowest common denominator.

Seybold: You see, that's the point. That's part of the problem.

Resnick: Exactly, but one of the cool things that Nando has is, it has a sport server that is unparalleled. I would say it's as good as anything that's out there except maybe ESPNet Sports Zone, which we'll look at next. But if you take a look, they have baseball. They have hockey. They have football. They have practically every sport and every statistic about a sport that you could possibly want. One of the other cool things is that you can scroll down and see they have a ton of information about sports. Not only can you check out their sports servers, you can also chat in their Web chat room, but you can also create your own sports server tailored to whatever sport or sports you happen to be interested in.

One of the other cool things about Nando is that it has some unique little features that you really can't find anywhere else. One of my favorites is the Cyrano server. The Cyrano server is for the romantically impaired. Personally, I'm never at a loss for words, but there are many people on the Net who are and the Cyrano server lets you write, actually generates, a love letter for you. What you do is go in, pick a bunch of nouns, adjectives and adverbs, click the button, and lo and behold, there you go, the perfectly tailored love letter, just for you.

So, let's go back, but I would say, on the whole, even though the graphics and the pages have been a little slow to be served this morning, overall, I think they've done a great job with it. And I think they're one of the best examples of what newspapers can do on the Web. So I would give them one and a half thumbs up. David?

Cole: I have to agree. There's no question that the folks in Raleigh have done an excellent job. Not only with manipulating their content onto the Net, but also with the CGI's, the automatic work that they've done. The Syrano server is a good example of that. The daily classified section of the newspaper is available at 5:00 Eastern Standard Time every day, so the next day's classified is available that evening. If you're looking for an apartment in Raleigh, that might be a big deal. I think that the folks at The News and Observer have done an excellent, excellent job with Nando. There are some issues about working with school kids that we haven't addressed here, but nonetheless, there's a commitment at the newspaper, a commitment now corporate. The Raleigh News and Observer was just acquired by McClatchy Newspapers, and there's a commitment corporately to make this site one of the best, if not the best newspapers on the Web and I give it two thumbs up.

Seybold: I think what you're seeing here is a marvelous snapshot in time of an art form in development. This sort of thing, I hope, will look incredibly primitive a year or two from now. But it certainly is a nice step along the road to where we are probably going. I think from that standpoint, it's worth looking at now, and it's probably worth remembering what it was like now as we look back on it and see how we got to where we're going to end up being.

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