SilentTalkie

Good web design is a pretty tricky animal. Like any new design project it’s got it’s own list of things you need to consider. Operating systems, end user browser preference, available fonts and the like can be a nightmare to deal with, let alone considerations to expandable of fixed layouts, and all this before you even begin to pick out a color palette.

What’s even more difficult is the website redesign, especially if its a site that’s been around forever and has a user base that knows, trusts, and loves the original site. Sometimes a redesign can be a very subtle but effective one. When Wired switched to a completely XHTML/CSS back-end it was a revelation. Amazon is constantly updating and tweaking, adding new features and slight changes that over time add up to a wonderful and always improving whole. Sometimes it’s something completely drastic and amazing like when A List Apart relaunched just over a year ago.

Mostly I point all this out to bring up how much I HATE HATE HATE what they are doing with The Internet Movie Database. I’ve been using this site since I first became aware of the web and I don’t even want to know how much time I’ve logged clicking my way from page to page on the quest for the perfect Bacon connection (I’m four steps away, FYI). In fact the only reason I didn’t mention it last week is that it’s become such an integral part of my web experience I kind of take it for granted.

So imagine my chagrin as a few weeks ago, I pull up the site as I’m watching an episode of my current NetFlix obsession and I get a page that about had me about half convinced my wireless wasn’t working correctly. Now granted, this site has looked pretty much the same as it did the first time I came across it around 1997 and it has needed a face lift for some time now but THIS is just weird. I can see that they’re pushing for a more Web 2.0 feel: we’ve got big buttons, everything’s actual text, content is mostly clear and readable, and the back-end has been stripped way down. It’s a leaner, meaner presentation which is great, unfortunately it looks like complete hell.

It’s almost as if one of the web monkeys forgot to upload a style sheet or maybe an images folder didn’t get moved to the right place. It just all looks kinda half-assed and I think that’s what bothers me the most. From a usability standpoint i think it might be better in many ways but the mass of text that fills every free space on the page ends up just creating a fog of gray that my eye has noting to grab onto.

This isn’t to say that this is a complete failure, for that you don’t need to go any further than the redesign of AllMusic a few years ago (which they have been improving but it’s still a bit of a mess). Overall, I mostly just find it to be a bit of a disappointment and one that I can only hope will improve sooner rather than later.