New Globe Books And The Sum Of Its Parts
Don’t listen to users. That is what Canadian millionaire Markus Frind says to do. “The people who suggest things are the vocal minority who have stupid ideas that only apply to their little niches.”
In the past couple months I have been making entreaties to the power brokers at the GlobeandMail.com to update their book section. That section was updated this morning. The Globe team have given us a great online destination for Canadian readers. Congratulations to them for planning, creating, and delivering the new site.
If they listened to me at all then I may owe them an apology. I think I was wrong.
Looking at the (almost) completed site this morning I was reminded that publishers have had 200 years to figure out how to put together a newspaper. They’ve only had about 15 years to figure out what to do on the web. Like Frind suggests you might as well make this internet thing up as you go. Your answers aren’t any better than anyone else’s and there are no set conventions for a book news site.
I was aware of the precedent problem early. I knew I had high expectations of the Globe’s move on-line, I just didn’t know what those expectations were. A peculiar problem. So I tried to put myself in the editors’ shoes. I put every conceivable idea down on paper. I then tried to distil those possibilities into a few heuristics. Then over Christmas I convinced myself that I knew the keystone to the whole thing — the book review. A broader scope of better-presented reviews was it.
After seeing the site and thinking about it all day, I have decided that is plain wrong. A collection of small reviews loosely joined does not a book site make.
This is my complete reversal: I want more editorial structure not less. I want better visual pointers that tell me what is important. I want the editorial and the design to gel into a cohesive and compelling meta-story.
My issue isn’t with the information, it is with the information design. Up until now I have been confusing my thoughts on content with my frustrations with content presentation.
For that I am sorry.
One of the nasties of web publishing is dealing with the restraints of your content management system (CMS). They may call it a ‘web publishing tool’ at the Globe. Either way if you have ever worked with a proprietary CMS you will know that can be a soul-sucking experience. The GlobeBooks editor, Peter Scowen, called their CMS ‘prehistoric’. No doubt it is proprietary. It is being replaced in the Spring. Until then he isn’t going to have the flexibility to do things he wants to do. I feel that pain.
The Globebooks rollout is very well done. All the elements are there. But their CMS is letting them down.
Take for example the cover of the old tabloid section. It was a great indicator of what Mssr. Levin et al thought was important. On the website there is no such statement. The space above the fold on the left is where your eye naturally goes. This week that space has an image of Brando. Compare the two included scans. Which tells the better story?
I get “The Reading the Movies” theme immediately. As it is translated using the web template, the “Books on Film” feature has no power.
Another example is the bookclub feature called Clubland. This has amazing potential. It works reasonably well in the printed edition, but on the web — because of the CMS limitations — we are left without an entry point as readers.
The approach to the content is perfect but the presentation offers no personality.
Lastly, there is the audio and video content. I thought it would be great to have the IFOA host their archive of author interviews on the site. Since I love Authors@Google and TED I thought I would eagerly consume IFOA content given the chance. Their CMS doesn’t make this a compelling experience at all. It turns out watching videos willy-nilly is not something I want to do here either. And before today I was certain I wanted to.
So what does all of that mean. It means I think the content is great as-is. I think the editors are doing what they should be doing. They are doing it well. As the audience builds, the ’social’ stuff is going to get more interesting. I look forward to the review database and I look forward to the incremental tweaks that Scowen is going to make. I hope the Spring upgrade of their CMS allows him to make the changes he wants. I also think it confirms users don’t always know what they want even if they say they do.
Me and my stupid ideas.
3 Comments