Oh no! Now it's La Tercera

I’ve been reading Guaquil, who writes on his blog about the third iteration of the website of La Tercera, the Chilean daily. I congratulate them, and I want to make clear that my criticism isn’t personal, since I don’t know them, nor is it aimed at their professional quality, which I consider remarkable, given that La Tercera’s site is a good site. But I’m afraid functional decisions have been made that hurt its usability.

I stopped using La Tercera on the web a long time ago, and that’s with journalist friends who work at the paper. To read it I prefer the print edition.

Notice I said use, not read, because websites are used. You have a user experience with a website; websites aren’t read, they’re used, I insist.

I have the honor of being a friend of Pepe Flores, the innovative creator of the first version of La Tercera’s website, which I liked a lot.

But afterwards it seems more thought went into technological cool stuff than into the value of information, and La Tercera lost interest in its users.

The design may be very pretty, fast and well thought out, and the so-called digital paper may be the latest trend in site design, but the reality is that what matters is the news, not the graphic design.

At the very least, the changes this site has gone through have cost me the following:

1. They force me to subscribe to read past editions, which I don’t want to do, because I don’t want to give them my RUT (national ID number) or tell them where I live, and all that just to be able to go back 7 days in the news

2. They removed everything before 2001

3. I can no longer read an interview they did with me about the adoption of AES, so I could show it to my children and future grandchildren.

4. I was never able to sync my AvantGo again

5. The WAP version is gone.

OK, AvantGo and WAP may be démodé, but they’re useful, and they still are.

But worst of all, Google no longer works with La Tercera.

And now the news has to be read in FLASH!! At least LUN went with a standard technology :)

While I was writing this post, I was trying to view a news story in “digital paper”, and you know what? The Flash logo is still spinning, and I suspect I won’t be able to read it, and I have 1 Mb broadband.

As you can see, there is no such thing as progress.