Urban Jacksonville

I'd have to agree with Judson, I think there's more high level things that need to be addressed.

A lot of it has to do with labeling and architecture. For instance, why is there a main level tab dedicated to Mobile? Or Video? Or Photos for that matter. That media is in relation to the real content and while they could be featured on the home page in some way, they aren't really related to the other categories and shouldn't be grouped as such.

And I think that's what the issue is with me, the taxonomy for the navigation isn't grouped cleanly. While it's not bad by any means, there's some stray things here and there that don't quite make sense.

But let me end it with this, like Joey said, it's easy to sit back and critique the site. I honestly believe they made huuuuuge leaps and bounds with this new design and over time I think issues will get worked out. Its a solid site and the people involved in the redesign deserve some credit for taking it this far.

Nice comments Dennis. I agree that it has advanced a bit. There is still some more to do though.

I have to say that combined with Joey's flyout, and Judson's redesign, it looks great. Sometimes I feel that less is more, and the subtraction of that middle column of news gives readers some breathing room. I firmly believe that if it's important news, it can go under the "jacksonville" or "national" columns below the top story. If people are looking for a specific story, they'll search.

nice job. i'm diggin that a lot.

Yikes. I just went and designed the whole fold :X.

<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2594/3698848226_6c2a06b9c9_m.jpg" width="240" height="234" alt="Jacksonville" />

Just a proof of concept-- clearly not enough content that jax.com needs. It's more about ripping out all of the unnessicary content and put what is required on the page. Navigation, a logo, and the news.

I ripped out most of the content and basically added padding. Only major thing that I reinvented was making the sidebar with tabs and ripped out one column. There's clearly not enough content here, but it is a start in a right direction.

The nice thing about jacksonville.com is that you actually have a decently low amount of ads. They aren't the problem as much as the breathing room and spacing of the website. Everything is just crammed together.

I'd definitely bring back the rotating header too, I loved that. You could probably do it in jQuery vs. Flash though, would reduce some man hours if it was done manually.

Joey's flyout is a much better solution (once again, jQuery could push everything down and make the transition smooth). it looks a little crappy here because I just used a screenshot from joey and lightened the background. But *still*, I'm firm on the fact that you should really reduce the 99, to at least 60-75 items.

Realistically, you could make Photos Videos Mobile Classifieds, Real Estate, Auto, Jobs etc static links that move to a gateway page with all of the info there. That's a good start.

Or, track using a heatmap like http://crazyegg.com/ to figure out where people are clicking, and find what are not effective links and just remove them. If they aren't effective, they are just taking up space.

it's amazing how often the links aren't working on jax.com. this seems to be especially true on the sports page, which is what i read the most often. many times, you will click the main story, and while the navigation bar goes to a new place (sorry, not good with terminology), the actual page seems to just refresh back to the main sports page.

I think it's a great start, but I feel that it needs a bigger overhaul in design besides the nagivation. I agree with Judson in that there's way too much info overload and too many links. I like your solution to the navigation, but I think it could be even less.
when I look at jax.com, it's not... pretty. It's not aesthetically pleasing or very easy to navigate and there's way too much going on besides the navigation issues.
I like that your nav redesign is reminiscent of the washington post site, it's nice. It's clean, it makes things a little easier to navigate.

But there's simply too much to take in on the main page. I don't want the first thing that grabs my eye to be an ad, or that for my eye level, the nav is the first thing I see. Shouldn't the news be what catches and grabs me first?

Joey - awesome input. I know the peoples around here with cooler titles than mine will want to see this - and I'll make sure they do.

Judson - You're right - that's a ton of links. We've always had a battle between too few/too many links without sacrificing access to the content. It's a fluid conversation and I'm glad you've joined in. Always tweet @ me if you have any questions/comments

To me, the real issue is the sheer *mass* of links in the navigation. 99 of them to be exact. 99 different navigational items is information overload to me. Even the New York Times has only half of that.

Also, those right hand navigations are really emphasized. I'm not sure if that's to push them to be clicked, but in reality the content is king, therefore it should be muted (sort of like how the newyorktimes.com does it). They actually emphasize it, but in a way that if i'm looking for content, i know to skip over it.

I respectfully disagree about the top bar, mainly just because it lacks some focus. Realistically, it should have a common theme-- silly, but it's all about making sure the user knows where to go, and when to go to it.

I think it'd be great if that top bar was focused specifically on the times-union: the website, subscriptions services etc. It's already got most of that stuff in there, but it throws some random things like the obituaries and RadioJax which don't really belong there.

It's the morning, so i'm tired and ranting. I'm in photoshop working on a volley though, i'll have it up here in a bit ;).

Awesome input Judson! Looking forward to the volley. I'll place it prominently on this post as an alternate version.