ESPN.com just released the beta version of their new redesign (http://beta.espn.go.com/) and unlike their past redesigns, it affects index pages across the board and actually adds value to the website by cleaning up the interface. To my surprise, someone finally decided to take out content instead of adding, adopting the "less is more" approach.

After giving it a test run for the past few days, I have the following observations to share:

1. The top "leaderboard" banner is gone - Awesome. Leaderboards and skyscrapers are eternal enemies of web designers and art directors alike. Good to see one of our leaders on the web put that UI killer in the can! Leaderboard ads do not make any financial sense either. Over the past few years, almost every website has adopted the 728x90 leaderboard on top and 140x600 skyscraper on right format; leading to a "banner blindness" symptom for users. In other words, web surfers are subconsciously trained to ignore these banners. Impressions tracked are therefore unreliable and click through rates have dropped to an all time low. Although it is the second best performing banner ad from the list of IAB compliant banners, "banners" themselves have a diminishing rate of click throughs. Ads or content that are integrated into the content are far more effective and out produces banners in performance by the ten-fold. Therefore, for ESPN to finally get rid of this age-old advertisement option is more logical than bold. However, I nonetheless applaud the guys at ESPN for making a good first step and not opting for ad-generating focused redesign like IGN.com's recent new look which essentially transformed IGN.com into a banner-ad whore (75% of the top fold is dedicated to ad-space and sponsor skins! Yikes!).
2. Videos are truly ubiquitous - Video online has become a love/hate relationship for me. First off, most of my recent career ascension can be attributed to the explosion of video technology developments online and my coincidental contributions to it. Starting at ABC, I have focused much of my design and development skills in video online and to much of my benefit, I have remained on the cutting edge through multiple high-profile web applications and website projects that I have helped design and build including ESPN360.com and VIDEO.ESPN.COM. It suffices to say that I am greatly appreciative of video's almost exponential growth in recent years. However, I think it sad that our "well read" Internet users have been dumbed down by growing video availability online. Almost to the point where, according to many usability surveys, users do not read anymore and prioritize photos and videos when browsing on websites. This is a trend that makes for my "guilty" pleasure. Morally speaking, I disapprove it, but I am nevertheless one of it's biggest proponents. In any case, video is live and abound on ESPN's new redesign. For the past few years, video has been sprinkled around the site through embedded video players and pop-up links, but with the advent of this beta, video is a part of the main content areas as illustrated by the "video tab" on the cover story modules of the homepage and each sports index pages. For ESPN, this creates opportunities for video ad integrations, higher user retention rates and longer stay-times (each important web statistics for advertisers) and should improve/decrease the bounce rate for each page since video requires more time to be consumed and at the same time, grabs the user's attention more effectively. Since I was the first to vouch and design ESPN's all-video website during my employment there, I am particularly proud that my contributions made such an impact to the company's path. Even so, personally, I prefer a clear separation between video and reading-materials as I believe the consumption mode is very different between the two UNLESS the use of video is in a more interactive environment and experience. My hunch is that video integration was done more for the sake of video ads. My hope is that the videos themselves do not take over the reading materials. ESPN.com and its magazine established themselves through fan readership. I'd hate to see videos usurping the place of a good reading 'in the can' if ya know what I mean (unless you can print out a video in the future which could be possible with the remarkable progress technology has made towards electronic ink)
3. Customization - The third point I would like to make about ESPN.com's beta redesign is their faith in customization. Sports, as we all know, is truly a visceral thing. Say anything about any team or sport at a bar and you're bound to have someone screaming down your neck or slapping you a high-five. For the most part, ESPN's commitment to upgrading customization in all of their products has been both rewarding and commending. ESPN has taken on a few risky ventures. In particular, they have created an aggregator/rss reader portal, MyESPN, and community platform, Fan Profiles. These two product releases made it clear that ESPN's visionaries were serious about customization and community even if it meant cannibalizing unique visits to ESPN.com. But to my surprise, after scanning around the new beta UI for 5 minutes, I haven't seen a link or area that allows a user to go directly to MyESPN or Fan Profile page which leads me to believe - are ESPN.com execs ready to dump those ventures? Or has those two products become after thoughts in favor of subtle, more seamlessly integrated customization like their "custom" RSS headlines tab. There is the drop down link/button on the top right next to the "En Espanol | Welcome, user" area, but that opens up a dialogue that includes links to clubhouse pages and what not. While this is a great start, I'd like to see My ESPN and Fan Profiles exhibited somewhere. To me, there should only be 5 main branches to ESPN.com which are ESPN.com, ESPN Video, My ESPN, Fan Profiles, and Fantasy. They represent the 5 different mental models that a user can be in while experiencing content online: Reading, Watching, Scanning, Communicating/Interacting, and Playing respectively. In my mind, ideally ESPN.com should be divided into these 5 sections to create a true user-centric experience. In a nutshell, until they do that, any kind of redesign is just rearranging boxes.
4. Look and Feel - Any designer who judges only based on his/her opinions is a fool. Hence, I've took the liberty and time to ask around, showing my friends and coworkers (consisting of designers/non-designers, sports fans/non-fans, savvy/non-savvy web people) the new site and asking/listening in for opinions, reactions and suggestions. Not surprisingly, the first reaction from almost everyone was that "it looked the same" or that they couldn't tell where they were. This leads me to believe that although ESPN has adopted a much cleaner, consistent design look and feel that's clearly modular (for anyone who's in the web development field), they have forgotten about content separation. Aside from the background and colors, it is hard to tell where you are at and what you are doing in the first minute. Maybe ESPN is banking on users' learning curve, but my suggestion to their designers is that they should leverage some inconsistency to differentiate the content and mental model that the user should be in. At one point, one of my friends was confused if he was on a video page or an article page which prompted him to criticize the website from a video-watching perspective instead of a web-scanning/reading perspective.

In conclusion, I believe it is a step in the right direction. The beta redesign is not just a new coat of paint. Ads have been taken out in favor of displaying content more clearly and prominently. Video has gained larger real estate and customization is possible for headlines and video lists. You can also see that attention has been paid to consistency and clean/white design. Although, I believe not everyone's wishes can be satisfied, there are a few improvements that can still be made, but more on the macro level. Content should be structured according to mental models and some inconsistencies or asymmetries should be implemented to further differentiate between content pages. It remains to be seen what other changes or additions will be made before they officially migrate to the beta. Nonetheless, video and advertisement will surely play a large part in this new design and more redesigns to come.

This has been a review of one designer who happens to have worked for ESPN's video products team. Thank you if you have come this far and I welcome any opinions and/or comments regarding ESPN.com's new beta.