In praise of MailOnline (yes, really)
The Daily Mail website’s Grand Prix victory at the Design Business Association’s Design Business Awards is sure to spark debate.
Aside from the frequently justifiable misgivings about MailOnline’s journalism (the website is probably the most criticised, as well as the most visited newspaper website), the site design itself – developed with Brand42 in 2008 – can hardly be held up as a thing of beauty.
Headlines are long and often grammatically clunky. ‘The Houdini horse who keeps her owners on their toes by refusing to stay locked up and regularly leading a jailbreak from her stable in search of food and fresh air’ reads one from yesterday.
The homepage, meanwhile, is a hectic vertical scroll, and features the infamous right-hand panel ‘sidebar of shame’, in which scantily clad celebrities are served up for the reader’s delectation.
‘I didn’t look at that many websites for design ideas,’ MailOnline editor Martin Clarke told the New Yorker last year. ‘The site breaks all so-called “usability rules”. It’s user-friendly for normal people, not for internet fanatics.’
So user-friendly is the Daily Mail, that it is now the world’s most-visited newspaper website, attracting an average of 84.9 million unique monthly browsers.
The afore-mentioned wordy headlines and lengthy homepage scrolling are there for a reason – they helped shoot MailOnline up the search-engine rankings.
An addition to this, Brand42’s three-column homepage structure allows MailOnline’s team to juggle stories with the flexibility of a newspaper layout, rather than the restrictions of a website.
The colour-based branding system and clean typography helps readers to make sense of what could be an overly-messy page design, and features such as pop-up previews and interactive elements draw readers into the site and (crucially) keep them there.
And all this was achieved for a brand that, certainly a few years ago, was hugely wary of the internet. Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre was quoted as saying in 1999, ‘A lot of people say that the internet is the future for newspapers. Well I say to that: bullshit.com.’
There is, of course, plenty more to design than simply effectiveness. But to use design to such a dramatic effect – to become number one in the world in your category – is a compelling story.
Brand42 and the Daily Mail have torn up the web design rule-book, and the results, while not always pretty, are incontrovertibly effective. You might not want to admit to visiting MailOnline, but you have to acknowledge its success.
This is definitely going to split a lot of people, but you can’t deny that Mail Online is certainly very effective. If you define ‘design’ as making a very usable and successful product then they have absolutely achieved that, even if it’s not pretty. Just look at Reddit or Craigslist for other examples.
What I find really interesting about Mail Online is their underhand SEO techniques. If you want a laugh, try comparing their H1 tags to their Page Titles and see how different their Google search listings are to the content they present on-page. Unbelievable.
Clearly they’re doing something right. Even if 90% of the content is abhorrent, vacuous and/or dangerous.
Some websites are heavily used *despite* their design.. including google, ebay and many others.. this is such a non-design story it’s laughable.
this is the pound shop of news websites… full of cheap tat of momentary value. Its success story is much more a piece of social commentary than it is a meter of effective web design
iXozfXxdgIkU Canada Goose Jakke ??WoirOtzcUoE Canada Goose Vest qUvsyJmilHdN Canada Goose Outlet zQfreKdwwFnC Canada Goose Wien hBjgoIkwpFtA Canada Goose Jacka xRibsFdbeBtU Canada Goose Jakke Dame iPpzsXmfgSfW Canada Goose Rea kEsnsLnzxTfM Canada Goose Jakke dAbvoQgajDpC Canada Goose Norge cWmmrYvvoKhF Canada Goose Vest
yDkxyWqxkXwR Plaszcz Moncler xRknjMelsOdE Moncler vVanvDctlOpL fRxkqQiuzIjQ Moncler Sverige bMsnzBamvVeJ Isabel Marant Sneakers qHngeMvxeHaS Goedkope Uggs pWdbjMqnbViQ Moncler Jacka vDuwpAthfCoC Woolrich mAiesAlybCpC Ugg Greece rZtdhBjdoVfB Ugg Stiefel
iWzhrOfsrRsU Belstaff Outlet mOsfqAksmBuN Canada Goose Jacke tLkiyYvckChF Moncler Jassen yXnhhDwiiFlG Moncler Jackets Uk hZutxEifjDuX Chaussure Isabelle Marant sPkhbRfraAjD Barbour Coats kStwmNrkrThD Isabel Marant Sneakers ePqstZxofYaF Ugg zWuvsZfnfIbJ Belstaff Italia fWhudFwmnVcY Belstaff Outlet
yMcuwPdxdFcC Woolrich Rea fFkngRcgwAuG Canada Goose Jacke sBpbpXuqgEcZ Cheap Ugg Boots Uk yBfcaMctfGeY Cheap Ugg Boots Uk qCdzhRjsbPcQ Moncler Doudoune aVoldAjkxNpN Belstaff kZukwMenaKeI UGG mMkmsUdajBxZ Barbour Outlet wSbvfKtvcTlH Moncler Pas Cher lQjttWusvLyM Moncler
yEkbrUjdqRvK Uggs Oslo sKstyNsntKuB Moncler Piumini fCingFsuoClQ Isabel Marant Wedge Sneakers qWlqpHlsqNxS Bottes Ugg Pas Cher fNmlyEassSrH UGG Stiefel eEfdzSyreIqV Woolrich iXbvuSeawGkB Peuterey sGbnnGkqsXkD Doudoune Canada Goose Pas Cher iKivbFesmSfH Cheap Ugg Boots Uk wVcdsTatkNmY Botas Ugg Baratas