Critique of Web designs

Word.com

Resnick: The next site that we're going to take a look at is word.com. Now if HotWired was the California look on the Web, Silicon Valley, multimedia gulch, word.com is Madison Avenue and New York. Word.com has truly brought the New York look to the Web. One of the things I love about word.com is it's not handicapped by having once been a print publication. Word.com is a product of the Web that has sprung fully formed, and is a really beautiful site. Now it does take a little long to download to your screen if you're dialing in at 14.4 or 28.4, but at the same time, once you get it on your screen, it has a beautiful look and feel.

One of the cool things about it, and again, this style has been widely copied, is that it was one of the pioneers in adapting floating icons -- the images that seem to hover above a white background. In addition, instead of the old menu bar stripped across the bottom, it has those cool black and white picture logos, and picture icons stripped down the left-hand side of the screen. So it's very much a product of the Web that uses Netscape extensions to the fullest; it pushes the envelope of new media.

Now the other thing I like about it is that, unlike the Pathfinder site, which really chokes you in content, especially printed content, this is a site that's made for surfing. It doesn't bore you with too much print on the page. It gives you stories where you can surf around. You can look at something here, look at something there. It's really a visual treat. I think it's perfectly designed for the Web medium.

The only concern I have about word.com concerns, as we were saying before, dog years and Internet years. I think that the HotWired style that was pioneered in October is already beginning to be a little dated now, and I'm concerned that word.com, even though it's pushing the envelope today, three months from now is going to be old hat. I still like it a lot though, so I would give it one-and-a-half thumbs up. David, what do you think? I saw you shaking your head.

Cole: Oh, geez. This site is just unbelievable. Brian, could you go to the front page and pick "habits?" When we get through "habits," pick "cocktail party." This is just unbelievable. There's trite material here. The design, I have to agree, is wonderful. I have to disagree, though, about the notion that this is New York design. Clement Mok, who's based about six blocks away from here, really pioneered the look of floating icons against a white background two-and-a-half, three years ago. There's no question in my mind that this is a look that's at least bi-coastal. Maybe some people in New York have co-opted some work that Clement Mok has done, but once you get beyond the design of word.com, it's just an enormously thin, thin, thin site. And I just have no real interest in it. I mean, you know this nice "we're going to see these bananas move," is cool. I like to see moving bananas. But, it seems to me that a site's got to have a little more meat on its bones than moving bananas.

Seybold: I think the design is elegant. I think that it does have a longer life than you're giving it, perhaps on that. So I like it from that standpoint. What bothers me about it is that in the end, that's really all there is. I can go there, I can enjoy that, I can say this is cool, but I don't find myself wanting to go back.

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