Some good points, but also some circular arguments. Is MySpace's content primarily visual? No. It seems, rather, that Myspace is retooling itself to appeal to viewers who do want to communicate visually. And a lot of younger people do, as can be seen from the popularity of 4chan and its derivatives. Myspace is also pitching itself as a destination for music artist promotion and music sharing, and visuals are important to that.
You're right to be skeptical, I guess where we differ is that I'm not sure those things are absolute must-haves to get things off the ground, especially as Myspace is trying to reposition itself as a music/arts promo platform rather than a one-size-fits all social platform (or so it seems to me based on their PR).
It will not save you, but... it works very well for tablet surfing, which is a must...
Mass market adoption of tablets is just around the corner. With a very large number of affordable tablets on the market (Google/Amazon/B&N and the illusive Mac 7"-er later this week) this xmas will surely cause a landslide in traffic patterns.
Case in point: one of my clients (hospitality industry) has seen site traffic go from 5% mobile to 20%+ in little under a year. The iPad alone is responsible for 3/4 of that 20% these days. We're expecting 25-30% by the end of Q1 of 2013 (worldwide traffic, sooner if we look at the US market alone). Of interest perhaps, iPad:iPhone ratio now 4.7:1 (was the other way around a year ago)
Don't mind the digg design on my tablets, though I'd be fine with a different lay-out on the PC. Google+ does a great job of mobile vs tablet vs PC layout.
I absolutely LOVE the MySpace design as shown in the demo video, though I doubt it will be easy to fit all typical content into that framework (I see a lot of pretty demo data, now let me see the ugly user posts).
I've found the Pulse news app to have the best layout for tablet. It's balanced, symmetric, utilitarian, etc. and each row/news source scrolls horizontally. If it had a jagged layout with larger images and only vertical scrolling like Pinterest or the new Digg, it wouldn't be near as good.
My favorite app that covers and combines (but does not enforce) the utilitarian and visual options and on the iPad is the reddit client AlienBlue (Jasmine for youtube by the same guy, is good tool).
To my eye the Pinterest masonry grid is a trick for creating 'false excitement' around the content. In that way, it's like rapid edits or a shaky camera in video.
This works for a while, in certain domains, for people in certain leisurely modes of operation... but can also eventually lead to frustration and distrust. ("Why is this page making it hard for me to do an thoughtful review of what's new or important?")
No, a 2D layout (vs a linear layout) isn't new or incorrect. It has been around forever and is best-suited for a non-hierarchical browsing of items. The lack of hierarchy is a feature, not a bug.
At the risk of sounding sexist, I think Pinterest appeals to women precisely because of the layout. Men tend to gravitate toward more utilitarian, structured layout that allows them to systematically scan large amounts of data one by one. Women tend to hunt and peck, floating around the page for interesting content. Pinterest's layout drives me nuts but it's the first website outside of Facebook that my wife has really gotten into.
I think that you are trying to attribute the differences between "browsing" and "searching" to biological differences between genders. Every single porn site that I've seen has layout very similar to Pinterest, so clearly, men enjoy hunting and pecking, or "floating around the page for interesting content" as much as women do.
On a related note, I sincerely hope you are not in a position where you interview women for positions that require systematic thinking (a.k.a. "jobs"). Personally, I'd hate to be on the other side of the table if that were the case.
I somewhat agree but would de-emphasize the "sexist" part (although it is somewhat true), and emphasize that the nature of the site. If the site is meant to provide information quickly, or the users look for information quickly, a Pinterest-style layout is bad. If a site of this style has a Pinterest-style layout, it should give all tiles a constant height so scanning the information is easier. On the other hand, if the site is meant for browsing, or to be visually inspiring, the Pinterest-style layout works very well.
I would agree that Pinterest's layout works terribly for any that is text based.
The issue for a lot of websites is getting users to be intrigued enough to spend 10 seconds checking out the site. Making the site familiar or tying it to a sexy trend can maximize short term traction but at the expense of long term traction (unoptimized UI). I don't think this is right or wrong, each company has to make their own decision.
Pinterest wasn't the first use of masonry, and any use of masonry isn't necessarily aping pinterest. Digg doesn't look or feel much like pinterest, neither does the verge (which seems to be quite successful). If anything, they appear to mimic traditional newspaper layouts. Digg is unsuccessful because its content is mediocre - not because it's using a layout that's un-conducive to displaying news.
I would argue that the assertion that news sites should be a dense list of headlines is false, and that Reddit and Hacker News thrive DESPITE their layouts rather than because of them. Making elements on a page visually distinct and easy to scan is not a bad thing.
Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool. You scan it quickly and find things that interest you. It works because the images are topical. An album cover is usually tangentially topical. A news photograph may be topical, but you have to quantify what you're looking at by reading the description.
That's the beauty of Pinterest: its photos ARE its descriptions.
A news site, by comparison, is damned hard to navigate when the articles are not sequential. It's the difference between browsing an old Sears Wishbook and reading a magazine.
Pinterest does influence a lot of new and current design, but I'm not sure it's necessarily bad. There's something about the design that says "information is endless, we'll never get through it all", which I feel is a concept that comes to terms with online reality better than previous concepts that were imitations of paper print, which you would read from start to finish. Also there's a strange correlation with the proposed Metro aesthetic.
Pinterest works for the average Pinterest user primarily because it fits into the metaphor of the site (items pinned on a bulletin board) and therefore enhances the information architecture of the site. This acts as a functional multiplier across the entire site. The fact that the content is visual falls out from this but is not necessary; many pinned items are actually primarily textual. Sign up flow, email notifications, etc are tertiary.
Generally, a non-traditional layout (where traditional is flat list or tree-based) should be chosen if it is compatible with or can even reinforce the information architecture. E.g. if you're site is based on the idea of building a house out of bricks, a 'mason' layout would work :)
"The Pinterest Layout" is just another tool in the toolbox of a good designer, and many designs already features similar patterns way before people started pinning. It's only natural that successful sites get copied, but that doesn't make it a good thing.
SBNation.com recently rebranded all it's fan-sites (such as Celticsblog.com, Silverscreenandroll.com and many dozens of other American sports-related sites) and went for a full-on visual approach.
However pretty it looks, for a bunch of sportsblogs it seems like the wrong approach. Content got scattered and the mobile (responsive) design makes loading it (even on wi-fi) a pain in the rear.
Yeah, this one is a trend that, imo, can go f itself.
The MySpace layout is what happens when too many people are working on a product. It isn't being built around a job to be done, it seems that they are simply redesigning shit for the sake of redesigning shit.
Any product should ultimately be built, optimized, and if necessary, redesigned to best perform a job. Too many sites are just piggy-backing on other site's success because they simply don't know what else to do. In their mind I'm sure it seems like a great idea, but then nobody uses it. It's because the changes are not being made out of necessity. How do more people not see this?
A similar issue is the preponderance of hyper-image-oriented mobile app designs at the expense of content and usability. Examples that come to mind for me are Urbanspoon, Flipboard (perhaps a controversial view), the new Chef's Feed app—if I can't figure out how to navigate because I'm blitzed by so many photos, something's wrong.
The whole point of Flipboard is to add a magazine layout to existing content. As important is the fact that Flipboard allows you to choose what content sources to apply their layout to. In this regard, it leaves the whole issue in the hands of the user, who is always right :)
I'm with you conceptually, but I don't end up using Flipboard much if at all—and I understand I'm generalizing from a minute sample, so bear with me—because I don't find it to be the best way to read anything. For news/text, Instapaper is king, and for Facebook and Twitter, I find that the Facebook app and Tweetbot win out.
Is there a type of content that you find Flipboard excels at presenting, particularly on mobile? Or that "the Pinterest layout" does, besides Pinterest?
Well, I personally agree with you, but my significant other likes to view social network content through it in certain circumstances, particularly at the end of the day after getting in bed. But that's the saving grace of Flipboard; it's there if you want it, but it's not forced onto anything.
I am using a pinterest-inspired layout for an upcoming project (Collaborative poetry). Planning to come out with a beta this week, and apply for YC this month.
A UX risk is that the prominent photos, as in your mockup, draw the eye and activate a visual mode of thought with specific concrete images. Appreciation of poetry also tries to trigger visual thoughts, but through words and imagination/ambiguity instead. So the concrete visuals might interfere with literary appreciation. (Consider also: often the most-appreciated text appears bare on a plain page.)
This is just a hunch, and you could perhaps test an imagery-heavy look against a spartan text-centric presentation, and see which draws more of the exact kinds of reading/engagement you want.
I read the domain first as "po"-"three", and thought of Edgar Allen Poe, but with a little thought can see it as "po"-"eh"-"three". As that, it is effectively short and memorable... I think it could work well.
I don't think you're going to get people to pronounce your site "poe-uh-three".
If that was your intention you might want to rethink the name. I read the name as "poh-three", which frankly meant nothing to me.
Thanks. I get mixed opinions with the domain name. Some like it, some not so much. The initial idea was along "Poe3, Poetry by 3 people".
One reason I like it is that it is very short. Even with random alphabets, four letter domains are hard to come by. eg: www.poe3.com/123 (123rd poem), www.poe3.com/jeswin (my profile).
This is mostly targeted at casual users. More than making great poems, it might be about the social, collaborative aspect of writing something. Actually various forms of poetry (haiku, free verse..) aren't the only options available, I also added "Six word story" as an option.
Many users of pinterest that I have talked to have said they find the interface confusing. Specifically the content layout. The very feature these other sites are now ripping for their own.
http://intotweets.com is another product that is making use of the pinterest layout. It displays tweets with in place content, such as video, images, or website previews.
I'm still undecided if it's a good thing or not as to the experience it provides.
