BANGKOK – Bangkok’s online news community celebrated another advancement today as one of its English-language newspapers unveiled a new website, designed for easier digestion of the Kingdom’s news.
The new website of The Nation, which calls itself “Insightful, Intrend [sic], Independent” features an all-time low of just 12 moving, flashing, or animated parts on its home page, an approximate 50% reduction in movement from its previous design.
“The new design is just our way of keeping up with the times,” explained Maneerat Pornprikarn, the head of the Nation Group’s online design division. “We’re using the latest technology and research to best assault our readers with multiple data streams while indulging their short attention spans.”
According to Maneerat, the choice of 12 moving parts, including an auto-play slideshow of top story photos, a rotating columnist navbar, a text ticker of breaking news, a large video screen of Sutachai Yoon and Tulsathit Taptim discussing the day’s events, and an illegibly fast-scrolling sidebar of Thanong K’s endlessly repeated, neurotically shrill Tweets, “perfectly engages the senses of the average Nation reader.”
The design also addresses some reader complaints, such as the former lead slideshow being so large that it couldn’t actually fit on one screen. The new slideshow, according to Maneerat, is “just big enough to squeeze everything else out of the picture.”
To accommodate the graphic elements, the home page is now so long that the main navbar and search bar is repeated at both the top and bottom of the page, “in case people forget about it by the time they reach the end,” according to Maneerat.
He also defended the somewhat unorthodox decision to place the editors’ videos and Most Viewed menu in the middle of the sectional listings, essentially dividing the sectional listings into three parts for no apparent reason.
“The groupings of Lead, Business, and Opinion together, along with National with Life, followed by Tech, Travel, Sport, and World in the last bunch, may be counterintuitive to how people actually read their news,” he said. “But we think grouping news topics in illogical ways will actually encourage people to think about the news more deeply.”
Readers will additionally enjoy the fun challenge of trying to find the Forum, Stock Watch, Archives, and Weather, which have all been randomly and playfully scattered around the three-fold home page.
However, Tulsathit assured readers that many of the things they loved about the Nation would remain the same.
“We’ll continue to integrate intrusive advertising into every section, and devote excessive space for teasers to our paid-only content,” he said. “And, of course, Thanong will continue to make up facts he wishes were true and contradict himself on record for everyone’s entertainment. That’s a promise.”
