CNN’s Redesign

A few weeks ago CNN launched the redesign of their site, and in my opinion they really nailed it. With a cleaner design and new up-to-date features, the new CNN is really a leader in the major news industry websites.

Design: Looking at the old design, You can tell the new CNN is much much cleaner and more organized. With a full width header and fixed width content, everything looks more spread out and less crammed. The user is not overwhelmed by the massive amount of content CNN has to offer. They also decided to tone up their color scheme a little, going with more consistent reds, whites and lighter blues, like teal. This makes the site conform better than their previous design. Finally, a quick look at their source will reveal significantly less tables in the new design. This puts them way ahead of other major media sites.

New Features: I feel the best part of CNN’s redesign is the fact that their new features are more user oriented. They offer a great number of videos, blogs, podcasts, polls, RSS Feeds, hot topics and even comments to allow the user to make the CNN experience their own, which is a huge plus. My favorite new feature, however, is the “Local” box on the homepage.

The CNN Local box gives you weather reports and headlines from whatever zip code you decide to put it, and I find that awesome. Instead of having to navigate away from CNN, I can get all the news in one place. It also pulls from a number of local news sources for your area, which almost serves as an RSS feed for your zip code.

Over all, CNN’s new design is pretty nice. While they could have gone totally tableless, I think the new features and mostly tableless design puts them way ahead of their competitors. The new website keeps me coming back even if their brand of news isn’t mine.