The FT.com Redesign

The FT.com redesign isn't live yet, but you can get a preview here. It has a lot more white (or, rather, pink) space than before, and places a huge onus on the front-page editors to get the story mix exactly right. It also, at least according to the preview, has the grand total of one ad unit on the whole page. I can't imagine that will last long.

The most depressing part of the relaunch, though, is that the FT hasn't taken advantage of the opportunity to throw out its idiotic business model. Indeed, it's been tightened up, and you now need to ration yourself to just 20 articles per month if you don't want to subscribe -- guaranteeing that no non-subscribers will be able to explore what the site has to offer.

Incidentally, the technology behind that business model still isn't working properly, a year after it was introduced: despite being a full-access subscriber, I regularly run into the subcription firewall when I follow a link to the site from elsewhere, even though the site recognizes me as being logged in. Maybe that, at least, will be fixed with the redesign, although I doubt it.

When it comes to business models, I'm beginning to think that there's some kind of Sotheby's-Christie's style duopolistic cartel action going on between the FT and the WSJ. If one of them went free, the other would have to go free as well, and so they've got some kind of implicit understanding that so long as neither of them makes the first move, they might be able to save themselves some subcription revenue through this recession. (Is it germane that the editor of the WSJ ran the US edition of the FT for four years? I don't know.)

As for the substance of the redesign, are drop-down menus at the top of the page really better than a left-hand navbar? I hate drop-down menus, because they tend to drop down when you don't want them to, and because you're never entirely sure how to get to where you want to go. But designers love them, because they mean much less clutter on the page.

If the FT was serious about its website, the home page -- and the rest of the site -- would be a constant work in progress, instead of being stuck in aspic for five years and then undergoing a major rehaul. But that's probably too much to hope for. Instead, I'll just be happy if they manage to fix their RSS feeds. Not that I'm holding my breath.