New York Times vs. Sydney Morning Herald

Today I’ve decided to take a good hard look at The New York Times online affiliate, nytimes.com, and The Sydney Morning Herald’s, smh.com.au, to see how they compare/give an opinionated judgment on them. Now I’ll be honest: I love The New York Times. There’s something about that newspaper that gets me every time. From the history and prestige to the font and layout, I can’t get enough of its American attitude and biased view on world issues (this may sound like sarcasm but it’s really not). To tell you the truth I’m not an avid reader of The Sydney Morning Herald, living in Brisbane I don’t go out of my way to pick up a copy, so I can’t say too much about it in terms of font, layout and overall interest but I certainly don’t have any major complaints about it (tacky Sunday edition The Sun Herald excluded).

But this post isn’t about the hard copy of each paper; it’s about their online presence. As previously mention, NYT (hard copy) is a great and easy read in terms of layout and design. The paper flows seamlessly and is easy for the reader to follow. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for its online counterpart. The home page is cluttered and the font and colours just don’t work well together. The font itself is bulky and to “fancy” to work in an online environment. Online news should be easy to read and skim through; nytimes.com has crammed everything together and used tiny barley readable font in some sections just so they can fit everything in. 

 

 The smh.com.au on the other hand has things set out in a way that is much easier and enjoyable to read. There is a good amount of white space used and the font is simple and less compact then the nytimes.com. There is a series of tabs running across the top of the page which give easy access to other pages on the site. This is opposed to the nytimes.com which has their tabs squashed on the side

 

As you can see below, the format is clean and no fuss. There is enough white space between each section to be able to actually register without squinting that a new category is starting.

Maybe it’s just my bias towards white space and minimalism, but I really think the smh.com.au wins this round. They have created a site which is easy to navigate, quick to read, and pretty to look at.