#AOPsummit: News websites are being killed by templates, designer warns publishers

Online templates are killing newspaper websites, design director for Bonnier Business Press International told the AOP Digital Publishing Summit today.

Outlining the main lessons for media to survive in a digital world, Jacek Utko told the audience that newspaper sites need to inject greater emotion and engagement into content and presentation.

"The big weakness of website design is that it's a template. Newspaper sites look the same every day (except on the day of Obama's inauguration). The template is killing news websites."

"In print we can break the template everyday. We can have fun, we can show the importance of the news, that there's something special ... so sites can learn from print."

But, he added, newspapers need to recognise that their future is not in the provision of news.

"News is not the future for print. News will be digital. The way for print is less news, more knowledge."

"I personally love crisis, it forces you to think harder. I have been involved in three redesigns in the last three years ... we improved every page as we kept only the important, relevant parts.

"Print can be good still. We believe that the three main platforms are different - print, web, mobile. Print competes with digital media but is giving the same stuff, a day later.

"Why not use the advantages of print? Why not bring something that's unique, such as multi-layered storytelling - a package with the main story, many sub-stories, quotes, comments, analysis, figures - the fastest way to digest a lot of information without scrolling or clicking."

Expanding on the importance of design, he highlighted the value in spending time planning the rhythm of a publication.

"Flipping through pages is an experience you can design. I spend one to two hours a day planning the rhythm of the publication.

"You have to sell the story ... grab readers' attention and then help them to digest information. If text is too long, the story is not told."

"People read 30 per cent more on the web. Every short story on the web is almost 100 per cent read which is a great result... readers read only seven per cent of the text in newspapers," he added.

The iPad he added would be key for development, particularly for print publishers.

"The iPad has hope for a lot of designers/editors ... It can preserve some traditional print design for newspapers. It's not just another web browser, much closer to print."

But, he added, the platform will require innovation on the part of publishers.

"A lot of newspapers are just giving PDFs, it doesn't make any sense, because the iPad is not a reading device," he said in an interview with Journalism.co.uk.

"People that want to just mirror the newspaper, I think this is a mistake."

As design director for Bonnier, Utko has overseen the redesign of Poland’s Puls Biznesu and Estonia’s Aripaev, both of which were subsequently named World’s Best Designed Newspaper by the Society for News Design.

Related articles on Journalism.co.uk:

Web Publishist: Why group-wide templates are bad news for newspaper publishers

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