As a web designer, I should be all over this new media stuff — the integration of rich content like audio and video into websites — right? Well, like any other media, even text or static images, there is an appropriate place and time for this stuff. Simply adding video for the sake of adding video, for example, can be a huge usability mistake.

For example, when Macromedia Flash first hit the scene, a lot of “cutting edge” web developers rushed to create websites designed entirely in Flash. These websites were mostly usability nightmares, full of a lot of pointless animation, like 10 seconds spent flipping some ridiculous panel onto the screen just so one paragraph of text could be displayed on it. Back then, I had trouble figuring out what the point of Flash was, because that’s all I saw it being used for, and that, to me, is a spurious use in 90% of applications. Interestingly, although Flash has gotten even more powerful over the years, it is being put to much better use today.

I’m seeing the same kind of thing in the rapid explosion of video content on mainstream websites. It’s a relatively new phenomenon, because until now, only a small fraction of the American public had the bandwidth necessary to watch video. Now that broadband is becoming more commonplace, major news websites like CNN and MSNBC are adding video of news stories, rather than just written word, to their sites. But just as with Flash in its early days, they have yet to figure out how to use this rich media effectively.

This irritates me. Because when I visit a site like CNN, I want to scan the headlines, find a story that interests me, and then skim through the story to see if it interests me enough to warrant further research. This is known as the inverse pyramid model of navigation. CNN screws this hopelessly up by making certain stories video only. So if you want to just click a headline and read quickly to get the details, you can’t. You have to sit through a video segment on it.

A video where there’s usually some buffoon reporting on the story by using lots of “ums” and “uhhhs” and “aahhs” and who takes forever to get to the damn point. And he strings you along like you’re brain dead because that’s how the mainstream media works: By deliberately withholding details and delivering the news like a drama, so that you sit on the edge of your seat and won’t want to leave during the commercials.

And when all you wanted to do was skim through the news story, you get to enjoy all of this video hyperbole only after a 15, 30 or even 60 second commercial rolls, ostensibly to pay for the bandwidth your evil self is stealing from CNN by having the audacity to watch their video.

Earth to CNN, MSNBC and you others? Put your precious video in a box on a sidebar, and let me press a “Play” button to watch the segment. In the main content area of the screen, print the news story IN WORDS so that I can digest the content at my own pace, if I decide I don’t want to sit around waiting for someone like Mike Galanos to interrupt delivery of the facts to inject his vapid opinion in that irritating, falsetto “outrage voice” of his. Even “po-dunk” local news organizations like Detroit’s ABC affiliate have figured this out — y’think you big shots can gather enough of your vacuous digital media personnel in a single room to collectively generate the intelligence necessary to come to the same conclusion?

Although I do surf the major cable news networks’ websites for headlines, I mostly rely on other, low-tech sites that do aggregation — like The Detroit Report, for example. It’s far more efficient. The cable networks’ continuous addition of irritating fluff only hastens my departure from their houses of dreck.