From the delicately animated homepage, you scroll down, both literally and visually, through this issue's layout. Atlas currently boasts four real sections plus some extra 'stuff': 'Cyberbilly' (with the fun 'Buddha's digitoscope ant farm'), followed by the editorial, featuring Pulitzer Prizewinner Stanley Karnow, Ken Coupland's online multimedia novel and a weekly 'Best Use of the Web'. There are also photography sections and 'Paradise online' (with a warning note about its 256k size, implying that this is fun Web stuff not meant for those impatient with 'content' downloads). For first-time users it may seem quite hard to get the measure of each section, but regular readers will be more familiar with the flavour each area has developed. Despite hours of Web browsing, I still occasionally crave the Web equivalent of a magazine rack 'quick flick', and the intro page doesn't quite give me quite enough of this. But you can use the extremely stylish animated site menu to get at least an overview of where you've been and the kind of breadth on offer. Even though you don't get a feel for each section, the animated roll-overs are nice enough to keep you playing through the issues, watching the shifts in content.

The section I actually responded to best was the photography area, perhaps since it seemed to mix good design with more substantial content, or perhaps because I'm always in admiration of a well-handled attempt to deal with a Web gallery! Included in this section are Adam Kufeld' s images from Cuba, Bob Sacha's 'Under New York', Catherine Karnow's 'Bombay Bazaar' and Olivier Laude's 'Photographs of Chinese Rural Architecture'. Although in general the bright characters and slightly 'frothy' Atlas style is wonderful, I did wonder if it was at times a bit overwhelming, or at least less than complementary to the actual photographs, which were on the whole, serious collections. Yet in Oliver Laude's section, for example, any intrusion from the floaty intro page is balanced out by the actual delight of using the interactive animated side bar in order to navigate through the photo journey. The images in this piece are also strong enough to withstand this type of framing.

Some of the other 'stuff' to be found within Atlas is probably the most fun, and I expect it draws the biggest crowds of devoted surfers/designers. As their slightly ostentatious list of Web awards testifies, Atlas is obviously a popular drop-off for those in search of the latest Web gizmo rendered with some panache. The Atlas gallery is great for these viewers - here you see the 'backstage' of all the html or java script additions they've tried, some of which make it to the magazine proper, some of which don't. For some inexplicable reason, I really delighted in 'Plug-in Array', which draws up a list of all the plug-ins currently 'attached' to your browser - sad, I know, but good fun!

The Atlas team produce a Web magazine that combines good content and delightful graphic design with a confident dose of solid interaction design - the small joys of mouse interaction do not pass unnoticed here.