No, we are not talking about customization here.

No, not at all. I’m describing the interesting and curious case of Phyl Gyford who thought that there was a thing or two about news websites that needed to be sorted out. And he went ahead and did just that - on his own.

Now before we go any further let’s note that he has experience as a freelance web designer and programmer.

The problem with news websites, according to him, related to issues of friction, readability and finishability which he has described in some detail on his website.

Friction has something to do with the flood of stories that a news website offers to its readers - they cannot be read without ‘performing an action’ like clicking on a link. As for readability, well, a news story on the web is less readable compared to one in print. And finishability has to do with not knowing what is the quota of news for the day, and the dissatisfaction that comes with it. (’There is no sense of an ending.’)

So what Gyford did was to create his own version of The Guardian’s website (his preferred news source) using its Content API.

I’m not sure if it satisfactorily solves the issues described above, except maybe on the readability front. Friction there is, maybe of a different kind. And as for finishability - it’s a patience-testing-kind-of-finishability that is on offer. I was also curious to know if he would have anything to say about the new version (5) of Safari that promises a ‘distraction free’ version of web pages. He does. And not surprisingly, he also refers to the Readbility bookmarklet which performs a similar function. In terms of experience, his solution resembles somewhat Google’s Fast Flip.