Mobile Feature: National Geographic News
The National Geographic website is not mobile-friendly, not even close. It's not even responsive. What you see on the screen is just a small version, not a version that adapts itself to a mobile screen or favors a mobile viewer. Even on the iPhone 6+, the iPhone with the largest screen size, I find it difficult to navigate the general website.
But it appears that National Geographic is attempting to make strides for their mobile audience, starting with a beta news page. I really love the reading experience of NG's beta news page. It feels like a magazine rather than a website. It's clean, simple, stylist - with not too many links or features that distract you from your reading experience. I explore more about National Geographic's new news page by looking at "How Ebola Found Fertile Ground in Sierra Leone's Chaotic Capital."
The section, topic, headline, and subhead of this story all look very good at the top of the page. I like NG's style of utilizing white space to their advantage. Maybe there is a little too much white space between the section title and the topic title, but it's nothing major.
Everything feels light and fast.
There's a lot of debate out there of how to use links to keep the reader engaged and to grow page views. I like this related notes design: a block that doesn't stand out too much and distract the reader, but still can grab their attention with a simple headline.
The first related content link appears halfway through the article.I counted a two related content links throughout the story. At the end, there was a "next" feature that brought the reader to a story in the same topic.
National Geographic is known for their emphasis on great photography. Therefore, it is no surprise that their photos are amazing with in-depth captions. I talk in other articles how images can serve as index cards, features that serve as summaries or bullet points. If the viewer doesn't want to read the whole article, they can look at photo captions to get a quick idea of the story.
Story Footer and Wrap Footer
I did wonder why the names in the bylines at the top did not link to anything. However, before I could note down my complaint, I saw at the story footer, they include links to the author and photographer's story list, Twitter, and Instagram.
There is something I never was a fan of with National Geographic's website. There's too much. It feels so saturated with content. All I really wanted was a magazine experience, like the one I had with the National Geographic Magazine: a few big stories with amazing photos and in-depth content and lots of small, smart stories that provoke questions in my head. But I found that on the website, there was a difficult user experience and a mash-up of quick blog posts with feature stories.
As a user, I don't like a lot of content. I say to a lot of people that I don't read more than 5 articles a day. But I felt like National Geographic was just overwhelming at times. I may be an outlier, but I'd rather read one long, good story, than 5 smaller, superficial stories.
If you think I'm being overly critical of National Geographic, I don't see it that way. I am holding them up to a very high standard that I know they can reach, and I want them to be great. I should add a disclaimer here, that I was an intern for National Geographic - twice. But never with their digital department, so I don't know their day-to-day workings or the challenges they have to face. I love this mobile page because I know there is a lot to read, but I am not overwhelmed and bombarded by content.
Let me try to show you what I mean.
The Old National Geographic Design
This is an example of why I say I am overwhelmed with content. Do you see how many things I have to look at when the page loads? I just don't think this fits the user experience in today's day and age.
As you scroll down the old design, you see a uniform style: small images, headlines, teases... little boxes all over.
The New National Geographic Design
This is the same design layout that I just talked about on mobile. As you can see immediately, it is very different from the old design. There are only large photos. The story boxes are designed differently and you eyes follow a very straight line.
I feel almost like I'm going through pages.I don't think this design is 100% perfect, but it is better than what they had before. This design easily translates from desktop to mobile.
feels like the magazine, National Geographic's flagship product
not as many embedded links. I noted in my analysis of the Pew Research story design that shareable links operate as bolded phrases. They draw the reader's attention to a certain phrase and idea, and also serve as an opportunity to read more related materials