Channel Surfing… the Web?

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I’m always curious about what websites look like. And since the holiday season is a time when people come together – and in America that means inevitably watching television – I thought, why not combine the two? I looked at the websites for a bunch of popular television channels, and here is what I found.

Design Observations

The vast majority of the websites have sharp, modern looking designs. I really liked the lifestyle channels in particular – HGTV and the Food Network have very simple, clean, and functional designs. You can tell which ones have a focus on usability vs. a focus on multimedia content.

E!’s website is in a blog format – the only one that is like that. That surprised me, but for their audience, maybe it works.

Only one channel was guilty of still having a website that looks like it has been around for more than 5 years (that would be you, HBO). And only one (for Bravo) was downright awful – which is a shame because I love “Top Chef”, which is one of their shows.

Let’s Surf!

So without further ado, here are is a look at the websites that I found (in alphabetical order)…

A&E

ABC

Bravo

There are so many things wrong with this website, I’d be here until New Year’s going through them all. It’s definitely my least favorite, but not by much, unfortunately.

CBS

Comedy Central

Discovery Channel

E!

ESPN

ESPN is coming out with a new website soon – they’re previewing it on their website for ESPN Insiders, of which I am not one. But, from the image on their homepage, it looks like it will be a big leap forward!

Food Network

Fox

HBO

Yikes! I could go into a long rant about this website, and it’s easily my second-least favorite of the bunch. There are all sorts of problems with I have with it, but the one saving grace it has over Bravo’s website is that at least it has a site navigation.

HGTV

History Channel

I’ll forgive that the main content area is left-aligned on the page, because overall I really like this website. And, it doesn’t have the same problem that TBS has (see below).

NBC

Showtime

Spike TV

TBS

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a… chicken? I really like this website – it has a clean, modern design and is very usable. But with the main content area being aligned to the left, I was a little suspicious of the design. Sure enough, it turns out that the website is still using tables to lay out their design, rather than CSS – so get with the picture, TBS! (And no, I was not intentionally trying to rhyme.)

TNT

USA

VH1

Your Thoughts?

So, what do you think – do you have any favorites or thoughts about any of these websites? Are there are any that you were disappointed with? Or maybe there are some that you visit frequently and really like? Let everyone know by commenting on my website!

2 Comments

1. 

   Reply

   Ezra wrote on December 23, 2008:

   Everyone should be able to view the new ESPN homepage at http://beta.espn.go.com/ – it’s definitely less cluttered than the current one, but I don’t think it’s THAT huge a difference. Maybe others disagree.

   Posted at 10:51 pm

   • 

     Reply

     Addicott Web wrote on December 24, 2008:

     I wrote this post last week, so at the time ESPN hadn’t opened up the preview of the new site design to a general audience yet. Go figure that in the few days since, they have, so I had an opportunity to check it out. It’s not what I would call a huge difference, but I think it’ still an improvement over their current website. The top navigation looks sharper and more up-to-date. Once you start scrolling down beyond the main content area and news links, everything else has almost like a widgetized look-and-feel to it, which I’m still torn on, but it’s definitely different from the current look.

     Posted at 8:26 am

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