I have been thinking a lot recently about publication for the Web and how we as journalists must embrace it to survive. What’s so exciting about publishing on the Web is that it opens up a completely new creative aspect of design as far as strategic editing.
Web sites are a completely new animal. Not only do the links, pictures and headlines change throughout the day, but layouts are completely free form. This can be effective, or not, as I will describe.
Just look at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Web site. With a head bar and three columns, it’s a mess. What I think I hate most about the homepage layout is that there is no big, bold ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION across the top of the page. Instead: a small “ajc” graphic peeks at you from the top left corner. Also, the dreaded advertising space is definitely distracting.
Without scrolling down, you see a few pictures and probably 20 links distributed across the page. Headlines are visible on the site, but there are so many. There’s no distinction between, or even excerpts about, the articles. It’s good that the Web site presents so much information on the front page, but I felt stories were lost in the layout. I don’t know how many people actually scroll down on the front page, but I was almost sorry that I did. At first, there is a little organization and even some pictures, but then you are faced with a sea of links. The amount of links creates odd negative space.
However, The New York Times Web site appears to be cleaner. The home page of the Web site is laid out very much like a front page of a newspaper! There’s the nameplate, just how I like it at the top of the page. There are more than three columns and lines that separate sections and organized sections of links. Along the left side, there is a list of links to sections of the newspaper that stories are filed under. The layout creates a visual hierarchy, and it’s very easy to distinguish what is important.
However, just like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Web site, once you scroll down on the homepage, you find a link graveyard. I may be ignorant, but how many readers regularly use the bottom of the page like that? And is there any newspaper Web site that doesn’t utilize this?
Maybe I surf the web differently, but I would almost never scroll down to access a link when I could just click on a section and see it that way. I just wonder why web editors and designers decide that this is how Web sites must look. What is the model that they are working from? What do you think?
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I think I like your blog. That's what I think. Great Web site comparison. You raise a great point about link graveyards (btw I love that phrase). Are they really useful in driving browsers to other content? As you point out, some the Web design of some newspapers leave much to be desired. Great work.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good example of what the internet opens up for journalists. It doesn't necessarily eliminate the need for journalists (although it might reduce the number of journalists) - it changes what KIND of journalists are needed. We may be losing writing jobs, but there are whole areas in design and layout that have yet to really be explored in internet journalism.
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