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Sunday, January 23, 2005

Boston.readthisin10seconds.com

I'm stuck in NYC, so I went to boston.com to see what's happening at home.

A message gets displayed on the top of the page that reads:
BLIZZARD UPDATE: Logan Airport is closed and the National Guard has asked drivers to stay off the road in coastal areas in case they have to evacuate people from shore towns. There is a moderate coastal flood warning.
But before I could finish reading the message, it got overwritten with a news slideshow.

That's disconcerting.

The Globe explains it here: changes their homepage.
The slideshow feature rotates on its own every 10 seconds. However, you can control the frames by using the back arrow, next arrow, "Play" and "Pause" keys located at the bottom of the feature box. A frame will also pause automatically if you interact with it.
The user interface on this new feature is jarring. It took me a while to figure out that I could click the arrow to scroll back to that story.

I think the blizzard warning shouldn't be part of the slideshow. Warnings like that for breaking news should remain on the page, and not go away after 10 seconds.