Oh no, not that "Magazine Layout" crap. I get why designers choose it, they want to make the page look lively and balance content all over the place but it's terrible for readability. It breaks natural eye flow from left to right then top to bottom. With magazine style layouts, your eyes have to go all over the place to skim through the content and that just gets annoying. If they wanted to avoid looking like a blog but still keep the lively look and feel they could have tried a grid like layout where at least the stories are aligned horizontally in a straight line.
The style itself is really nice, blocky and beautifully simple. This is how you redesign a content site, its elements are purposely made minimal, simple, and sterile so that the content stands out above everything else. The site disappears and the content takes the stage. Basically, it puts the spotlight on the performer rather than the stage. Also, the site's so lightweight that it just feels fast. Very few elements are begging for your eye's attention which is great, it allows the eyes to go straight for the image and title. Everything about the redesign is just so right, it's a shame they went for the magazine style layout.
Either way, great redesign. It's won me over, and I will actually start returning to digg to see how things go over the next few months. This was a very nice rebirth, back to simple, back to content.
The fundamental issue with the "magazine layout" is that it is completely pointless in a digital world. The reason why magazines are laid out the way they are is because there's a limit on space, so everything has to be crammed in wherever it'll fit. When you've got a website though, there are no such restrictions, so the focus should be on presenting content in the most orderly manner.
well to be fair there is some constraint in how much of a site afresh impression is going to look at and the average screen size they will be using. The grid is a less applicable but there's still some advantages to displaying all of your important bits in a semi clean fashion on the landing page with out flowing to far in any direction.
I personally like magazine style layouts, but the layouts need to be context sensitive like you would see in a magazine or newspaper. Stories that are more prominent in the design should be more popular. Stories should also be grouped sensibly.
Zite does this extremely well. Pulp, on the other hand, does it pretty poorly. Doing this on Digg's homepage is going to be challenging to not look schizophrenic. But on Digg's sub-topics, this type of layout will work well. I find scanning through tabular data to be fatiguing and I often scan over items out of boredom.
On my iPad, magazine layout via Flipboard is the only way I consume my content now. Because it is non-linear like Google Reader, I actually pay attention to each headline rather than skimming for key terms or phrases.
This layout for digg fits in with casual consumption and discovery, rather than a structure that encourages seeking out specific articles.
I do agree with you that this is a beautifully simple site and will also revisit on a regular basis to see how it progresses.
A 2d (versus 1d) layout is great for items that are meant to be browsed without order. It isn't an RSS feed or your inbox where you're supposed to diligently consume each piece before moving onto the next one in chronological order.
The style itself is really nice, blocky and beautifully simple. This is how you redesign a content site, its elements are purposely made minimal, simple, and sterile so that the content stands out above everything else. The site disappears and the content takes the stage. Basically, it puts the spotlight on the performer rather than the stage. Also, the site's so lightweight that it just feels fast. Very few elements are begging for your eye's attention which is great, it allows the eyes to go straight for the image and title. Everything about the redesign is just so right, it's a shame they went for the magazine style layout.
Either way, great redesign. It's won me over, and I will actually start returning to digg to see how things go over the next few months. This was a very nice rebirth, back to simple, back to content.