McIntyre disses Boston.com

While I'm not the world's biggest Boston.com fan, I think the site is pretty good, getting better, and occasionally brilliant.

Douglas McIntyre of Wall Street 24/7 doesn't exactly agree. In fact, McIntyre--the man who presciently predicted the Globe's near-closure back in March--gives Boston.com a D. Some of his gripes (paragraph breaks added):

[Boston.com's] editors would substantially improve the look and usefulness of their website if they simply borrowed some of the basic elements of NYTimes.com. The navigation bar at the top of the home page has only a few options, which makes it harder for users to get to specific parts of the site. The editors allow readers to look at videos for most of the main stories, but multimedia takes a back seat on the homepage with the main navigation for it being well toward the bottom.

The section organization on the front page is sloppy. A story on a local murder runs opposite news about the NBA finals. The front page columns are poorly designed. The editors do almost nothing with the tools they have to create reader priorities. Almost none of the stories on the inside “News” page are illustrated. There is a “Top Stories” section near the head of the page to engage readers.

The rest of the page looks like a mock-up from “Google News”. Even the “Sports” section is poorly illustrated. The “Sports Video” section sits relatively low on the page and is cropped so many of the headlines are cut-off. The design is simply careless. “Today’s Top Globe Sports Stories” is near the bottom of the page, instead of at the top which would be an industry “best practice”.  The editors do offer content widgets to get their stories onto other sites, but this has a very limited audience. The area for readers to get news onto their mobile devices is well done.

Boston.com is a mishmash of content, much of it very good, but its poor design alienates and confuses the reader from his first visit to the homepage. The site carries a lot of local premium advertising.

Any thoughts, readers? Am I too kind to Boston.com, or is McIntyre too harsh?

Via Romenesko.