randomWalks

Maybe it's my browser(s), but I've done it in ie and mozilla and I hate it. I think because both you and Mark :::woods::: like Paul Ford you like the redesign. I'm saying that because I need to feel that two people whose writing and world view I respect and enjoy must have some valid reason for saying that it's a fine thing. I get a headache just looking at it. There was no need for a change either, it was already all stripped down and effortlessly readable. Now it's cramped and busy, the Index has lost all its punch and the Weekly Review looks like a Tokyo commuter on a rush-hour subway. I really don't understand it. It makes me feel like an alien or something, it seems so obviously a mistake, why doesn't anyone else see that?

There was this big plain wonderful page(s). Now there's a scrunched up little pamphlet.

Overall it looks as though a particularly irritating and manic little clown got splattered against the bow of a freshly painted battleship.

I'm not against change, I think KWSnet's recent redesign is powerful and user-friendly.

KWSnet

That's the difference I think. Harper's went backward.

The old Harper's site was indeed "effortlessly readable," but had so little worth reading I never went there (I get the Weekly Update via e-mail and read the Index in the magazine), seeming like a placeholder and little more. I'm glad Harper's is trying to do something new and different on the Web that at least has the potential to be on par with the magazine (of which I'm admittedly a big fan).

That said, navigating the new site is not exactly intuitive. I admit I haven't yet invested the time to get the most from it. But right off I don't see anything particularly offensive about it. In fact, it's fun to click around.