Designing big news sites

Information architecture plays a huge role in the readability and user-friendly-ness of online news media. News websites with unique, concise and clear design are key to securing readers and drawing them into related stories without overloading them with unwanted information. Simple design is the vital aesthetic for a successful news publication, free from over-the-top image incorporation and a recognisable hallmark structure.

The New York Times



This homepage is something of an overload on the sense for a first timer. On closer inspection the website follows a fairly consistent presentation method, with links on the far left, and stories in the centre, followed by editorials and stocks, more links, weather, advertisements on the far right. Consistency aside, this home page still comes across as an information assault, overloading me with stories and not drawing my attention to any one article.
The design itself feels like a newspaper, just one with all readability removed. The eyes aren't immediately drawn to the left, conventionally this page doesn't appeal from the offset.

The Huffington Post



The award for the most grossly intrusive use of images goes to Arianna Huffington's news beast, The Huffington Post.
This looks almost amateurish when compared to the home pages of more established news media organisations, and subsequently pushes me away a little. The story in question is U.S-based and so doesn't appeal as greatly to an international audience automatically, but there's nothing wrong with not considering an international scope. The links bar under the header, which appears in the Huff' Po's institutional colour scheme, is very vague in defining categories - 'Front Page', 'Politics', 'Business'. This is decidedly effective to find interests, but doesn't encourage discovering stories that don't fit into your predetermined interests. The site still has a heavy focus on blog culture, linking to a variety of opinion pieces along-side the breaking stories, being a USP for website and the foundations upon which it was built, one would expect this.

The Guardian



The Guardian, one of the United Kingdom's best known left-leaning news platforms, has produced a refreshingly readable front page, stepping back from the 'online newspaper' facade and moving towards progressive, interactive news media hub.
The institutional header is unobtrusive and, by taking up little of the 'above fold' of the page, dedicated space for story headlines is established. The colour scheme, though not necessarily institutional, is inviting and eye-catching, though presented in pastel tones to appear once again unobtrusive against the news stories.
The layout is pleasingly uniform: stories, each with its own headline, thumbnail image and standfirst on the left; features in a slightly grey box to the centre-left and regularly update topic summaries (e.g. Sports, Fashion) to the right. A fairly standard feature for online news publications, Guardian.co.uk makes use of a 'most viewed' box - tapping into the 'trending topics' format commonplace on Twitter allowing readers to see what others are interested in. All in all, a damn good egg.

Tweets 101

Since 2006, writing Weblogs has become more accessible than ever thanks to the introduction of San Francisco-based ‘Twitter’. Twitter is the website that started the ‘Microblogging’ revolution, allowing users to update their personal Twitter ‘feed’ in real time, giving short, concise updates to the 190 million registered users. So popular is this method of social media that the site averages 65 million ‘tweets’, or news briefs, a day. The majority of ‘tweets’, like weblogs, simply consists of commentaries of the mundane. However, when people are at the scene of something newsworthy unfolding, they have a habit of ‘tweeting’ about it (thanks to mobile device support). Using Twitter’s integrated search function, it is possible to sift through the posts and discover insider accounts of events in real time. For example, if there happened to be a shooting on Oxford Circus, one need only search for ‘Oxford Circus’ to have a wealth of information from the scene. For journalists, this removes a lot of legwork and, subsequently, a lot of their worth.

Emily Ingram has put together a great guide for those who have somehow still managed to avoid getting to grips with Twitter.
May this signal the end of confused individuals telling me they don't understand how it works, or what the point of it all is!

You can find Emily's guide here


This video might also help if you still can't quite get your head around it...

Death From Above 1979 - Reunited and in London

Thought to be long-dead after disbanding suddenly in 2005, Canada's Death From Above 1979 have announced they will be playing a London date in May - their first since the split and first headlining performance in 5 years.
Speculation about a possible long-term reunion of the band began when they were announced as a surprise performer at this years U.S. Coachella festival in April. This speculation was quickly laid to rest as drummer and lead vocalist Sebastian Grainger updated the band's website for the first time since they disbanded stating that the duo are "together again, as was always the intention, as a collaboration."

Death from Above 1979 will be playing a sold-out show at London's HMV Forum on May 5th 2011