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Calling All Sports Fans – ESPN.com gets redesign
ESPN.com - 2009 first major redesign
In the first major redesign of the new year, ESPN.com unveils it’s latest redesign today, after two weeks in “private” Beta for it’s Insider subscribers. Despite the two week focus group, today’s redesign doesn’t appear noticeably different from the version that launched privately 12/15. Their stated goals were:
1) less clutter, ostensibly to drive higher engagement (more time spent on site, more pageviews, more traffic)
2) more ad space, to drive higher revenue
Do you think the new site accomplishes it’s objectives?
I’m not sure they achieve their primary objective (although one must wonder if that’s really their #1 goal behind the scenes in Bristol, or do Advertisers trump Audience?) as “less” clutter is a relative term. I wouldn’t exactly describe the redesign as minimalist. There are some nice touches though, even if they’re slightly hidden (checkout the scoreboard on the homepage, above the top navigation). As for goal #2, after visiting last night I fell asleep dreaming of buying a new F150, and couldn’t figure out why the Ford homepage had so many clips from Sportscenter on it, so I’d call that a success!
Let’s hear your thoughts. What works, what doesn’t? How will you apply these lessons in your own redesign efforts in 2009? (Hopefully NOT by taking 1 calendar year to work on a single redesign!) We’d love you to weigh in…
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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January 5th, 2009
10:59 am
Well, I went to ESPN.com and was immediately hit with an ad boasting about their redesigned web site, and somehow tying it to the redesign Ford F150. The ad was an annoying video that played automatically. Ugh!
January 5th, 2009
11:08 am
I really am enjoying the new design of ESPN. Much better than their old. The use of video is much better and flows well now. Very clunky before. They are definitely trying to push the personalization of their site now.
January 5th, 2009
2:40 pm
@Tom the annoying ad at http://a.espncdn.com/prestitial.html was pretty cool tho (check it out again) with the video-animation tie in
January 5th, 2009
4:59 pm
They finally got rid of their auto-play video sidebar! Yes! That change alone makes my espn.com experience 10 times better.
January 5th, 2009
5:30 pm
Their redesigns are always pretty subtle from my point of view. I think “less” clutter is definitely a relative term because sports sites always seem very cluttered to me. However, I never hear sports fans complain about them. I am sure sports fans would enjoy a cleaner interface but then ad monetization wouldn’t be as high to support development efforts and what would marketing agencies do with their time if they weren’t making ultra creative and super annoying ads like this Ford ad.
January 5th, 2009
7:08 pm
Nothing like copying FoxSports.com exactly.
January 6th, 2009
8:27 am
It still looks a bit cluttered, but it has improved since the last time I visited ESPN
January 6th, 2009
12:53 pm
I like ESPN better than most sports sites. That said, I wish they would get rid of their pop up ads which are the only pop ups able to get through my firefox browser and pop up blocker.
I like the new site better than before though.
January 6th, 2009
12:55 pm
The new site design is still way to heavy on the advertising, but I guess they have to make money too. I wonder how many people actually are interested in anything they are advertising. It is just annoying to me.
January 6th, 2009
1:43 pm
I do like the fact that they dropped the video feed. I’m not sure about the look, however. What is with all the red?
January 6th, 2009
7:44 pm
I don’t like their new one. I hated the old look, but the new one is even worse.
January 9th, 2009
5:05 am
“Firefox prevented this site from opening 2 popup windows”.
*sigh*
Guess which website I’ll never visit again…
January 11th, 2009
6:52 pm
I agree with all the advertising. I guess with all the traffic they get advertisers willing to pay a pretty dollar for it so why not but its still anoying
January 15th, 2009
2:00 pm
I’m a little mixed on the redesign. I agree with the poster who said getting rid of the auto-play video sidebar was a great idea. Big thumbs up their. But I don’t like that they moved the commentators blog posts out of the main “top stories” scrollbar. It used to be that every new story would be in the top stories section. Now they’re spread around. Big Thumbs Down for that.
July 29th, 2009
11:25 pm
Jaan, Yup kinda looks like the foxsports page. Although, fox has absolutely no rights in my opinion due to their consistent blatant errors in news, so if ESPN can take some of their business, all the better.