News article with some screenshots of the first Norwegian newspapers online.
BBC News website redesign
Steve Herrmann:
And we've done something which will be less obvious to you, but hugely important to the journalists working on the site. We've completely rebuilt the content production system (CPS) which we use to create content and run the site. The new version of the CPS is designed to be easier to use and – crucially when we want to get stories out to you fast – quicker too. It's also built to be more flexible, so it should be easier to keep the site evolving, and to produce the content in ways that work well on other platforms, such as mobile.
Design is key to good online journalism, not just coding and data
John Hillman:
Yet in many ways a digital journalist is more likely to struggle with design than coding. Before you can begin coding you have to have this side of things clear, whether you are working on your own independent blog or developing a complex data rich piece for a much larger news website.
[…]
My opinion is that, like coding, you’ll get the best results when you’re working in a team of professionals; that digital trinity of a journalist, a coder and a designer.
As an online editor for a digital media company, I am aware of just how important coding is, although I don’t believe that journalists and coders will ever meld into the same role. I just think that a modern journalist should be able to understand and talk about web architecture fluently. The same applies to basic design principles.
Make that information architecture and I'll agree – should be understood by all modern journalists.
Gestures
Lukas Mathis:
Gestures are often not obvious and hard to discover; the user interface doesn’t tell you what you can do with an object. Instead, you have to remember which gestures you can use, the same way you had to remember the commands you could use in a command line interface.
[…]
The gesture is the verb. This works if the gesture is intuitive, but breaks down if there is no «natural» gesture for a verb. And since there is no intuitive, natural way of moving an object by one pixel (or skewing it, or mirroring it), we have to learn that command, and memorize it. The user interface doesn’t tell you how to nudge an object by a pixel; in fact, merely from looking at the application, you wouldn’t figure out that this feature even exists.
When natural user interfaces resort to non-obvious gestures, they essentially regress into a really pretty, modern version of the quaint old command line interface.
iPlayer Makes TV More Social, Without Re-Inventing The Social Network Wheel | paidContent:UK
Robert Andrews:
Rose acknowledged it may be used only by early adopters but said it’s “the best feature” of the upgrade: “If i see Erik is watching EastEnders, I can join in and watch. The integration of chat with live TV has been the holy grail. This, for some, could transform the way they watch television.” The feature has missed today’s beta for Rose’s third-generation iPlayer, but is due in two to three weeks.
Shame that chat facility will be powered by Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger (or whatever it's called now).