The formulaic three-headlines-per-section on the front page. Some days some sections deserve far more news, and some sections (sorry, but "Dining", "Fashion", and "Automobiles" hold little or no interest) deserve none. To me.
That's one of the big arguable weaknesses Andy could have mentioned. If you have a subscription to a newspaper website they ought to be able to algorithmically identify which sections and columnists you read the most and prioritise content from them on the home page. The problem with "visual noise" on headline pages is far more to do with displaying excessive quantities of uninteresting content than lack of white space; Andy's design goes too far the other way in leaving one homepage story above the fold on a typical user's browser.
That's one of the big arguable weaknesses Andy could have mentioned. If you have a subscription to a newspaper website they ought to be able to algorithmically identify which sections and columnists you read the most and prioritise content from them on the home page. The problem with "visual noise" on headline pages is far more to do with displaying excessive quantities of uninteresting content than lack of white space; Andy's design goes too far the other way in leaving one homepage story above the fold on a typical user's browser.