Avoid the Wall of News
Too much information is in fact too much information.
Don’t try to put links to every single story and section on your homepage. If you overwhelm users, they’ll get confused and leave your site. Less is more.
A very troubling phenomenon that most newspaper sites have fallen into is the Wall of News. Newspaper editors and publishers mistakenly believe they have to cram as much information as possible onto their homepages. This means putting countless stories from each section of the paper on the homepage, along with links to photos, video etc.
The goal of these sites is to get people to read more stories. What it actually does is cause people to read less, because too much information makes it hard for people to process information.
If people are overwhelmed with the layout of your site and the enormity of your content, they will leave for a less confusing site. The Internet is filled with countless alternatives.
It’s a bizarre phenomenon because newspapers don’t do this with their print editions. Most newspapers have a clear, clean layout in their print editions that offers several access points, but doesn’t try to overwhelm readers by listing countless headlines or promos. Newspapers employ a very measured way of trying to draw interest in the overall product through the cover, and that’s the same mindset that is needed for the homepage of a Web site.
Newspapers editors trust that people who want to read business news can navigate to the business section front and every other section can do the same. So, why can’t newspaper editors and publishers trust that readers can click the business tab on your homepage to go to your business homepage? They should, and if they did, they would have a much better looking product that attracts more readers.
The biggest complaint I have of the current and soon-to-be-replaced Stripes.com is that the section pages don’t look like the homepage. They don’t allow us to have a dynamic layout that highlights each section. Dynamic section pages are what every paper needs.
One of the best examples of how to do this right ironically (or perhaps fittingly) comes from a non-newspaper source — CNN.com. The Health section of CNN.com, for instance, has its own unique look to just display the stories for that section. It really works well and is one of the best section layouts I have seen from a journalism organization.
What CNN does is use their homepage as a showcase for their best and most interesting stories, as well as a place for breaking news. That’s what a homepage should be all about. It should be a place that entices readers to dive in and spelunk around the site.
It should not be a place where almost all the stories of a Web site must be teased. That will serve to overwhelm people. Rather it needs to be a place to showcase why someone should read your news, and it should be a portal to your journalism world.
This is why having dynamic and vibrant section pages like CNN.com has makes all the world of a difference. If a newspaper site has strong section fronts, editors won’t feel the same urge to try to cram everything on the homepage. They’ll realize that have strong section fronts that people want to go to for a specific kind of news.
A lot of this comes down to trusting readers. Trust that readers know how to navigate your site, because if they don’t know how to navigate your site, it’s because your site isn’t easy to navigate.
Fix that. But above all, trust the reader. The best sites understand that often less is more. There are plenty of ways to get people to read more news and one of the worst ways is with the Wall of News.
The Wall offenders:
The Reading Eagle - I don’t know what is going on here. I’m out.
Virtually every local newspaper on earth - Why? The smaller the paper the bigger the distrust of readers? Perhaps. But most smaller papers don’t get usability and why it is so important to users. If a site is unusable, users will go elsewhere.
The Anti-Wall revolutionaries:
The Drudge Report - How else can you explain a site that looks so 1995? Easy, it’s the anti-wall. It has headlines of varying sizes, including one gigantic headline, and the site is just so easy to navigate. The Drudge Report links to countless news sources and yet is so simple. It really shows that simplicity is king.
CNN - The best looking journalism site in the U.S. Bar none. Clean, elegant, easy to navigate and just a joy to use. CNN doesn’t always have the best content, but it’s so easy to discover content I can’t resist.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
CNN really picked it up within the last year. I remember what the formatting was like previously and they have made BIG improvements since.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:36 pm
CNN might just have the most beautiful journalism site on the planet. It’s elegant, easy to use and not too cluttered. It really looks and works well.
They just need to add some more features, like talk back, and they will be well on their way. But it’s a good start. Now they need to open things up a bit.