Please evaluate and critiqueUSA Today's web site.
This week you should pay particular attention to the site's overall design and organization. Questions you might consider:
-What is my first impression of this site? Why did I have that impression? How does it impact my trust of the site's content?
-How easy is the site to navigate? Can I find things easily?
-What does USA Today put a value on? Breaking news? Feature stories? Multimedia? Blogs? How can I tell?
-As I am skimming the site, what catches my eye? Headlines? Decks? Photos? Videos? Ads?
-How organized are the sub-pages such as Travel, Money, Life?
-What about advertising? Did I even notice it? Is that a good thing?
-What is one thing I would do differently with USA Today's design?
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ReplyDeleteFirst impression: There is a lot on this site - maybe too much! I had to scroll down to see it all. Also - where is the color? The print edition is often criticized for its use of color - why isn't that heavily used here?
ReplyDeleteThe site is pretty easy to navigate - pages and sub categories are easy to work your way through.
I think USA Today puts a value on breaking news - the Steve Jobs story and photo got a larger space than even Obamamania.
Nothing really catches my eye while skimming this site - photos are small, and headlines aren't catchy.
I definitely noticed the ads- you had to click through them to get to the stories!
I would change USA Today by putting in more color and less ads.
I love USA Today (in print and online), so my critique is probably biased. However, scrutinizing these sites like we have been gives me a new perspective. I tried to critique pretending like I’d never seen it before. USA Today’s site stands out from the others we’ve looked at initially because of the color. Whereas the Times and the Tribune stuck with a (for the most part) black, blue and white color scheme, USA Today color-coded its various categories (which is also helpful for navigating the site). So for my first impression, I see color, which I like. I barely notice ads, and the home page seems organized. I like the ‘Top News’ heading at the very top; it ensures that someone could come to the site for breaking news (although CNN still beats any publication for that). This site has the navigation bar at the top, as opposed to the right-hand (where most other sites put it). That makes it easy to locate and navigate, especially because it is right there no matter what page the reader clicks into. I think that it is really important to keep a theme going throughout, and that is one of USA Today’s strong points: each page is laid out similarly and news topics stick with specific colors. There are a few videos available on each page, but it doesn’t seem like multimedia is USA Today’s biggest priority. (Although I do like the ‘photo galleries’ organized by topic, found on the homepage). I think USA Today caters to the read-and-go person; navigation is easy and the decks make it so someone could literally just scroll down, read each clip and have the day’s news. There are blogs also, but the site doesn’t really put them out there too blatantly. I like the organization a lot, so I would not change that aspect, but when I clicked into an actual story (not the sub-topics’ homepages), there were lots of distractions: a lot more advertisements than on the main pages, and multiple interruptions right in the story. Instead of having related stories at the end or off to the side they are right in the middle and it almost cuts the story off completely in some cases. The stories are definitely shorter, and while it does have some longer articles, this site isn’t really for people looking for big feature stories.
ReplyDeleteAbove the fold, USATODAY.com is visually appealing. There is a wide array of colors, but the colors aren’t harsh or distracting from the content itself. The main sections of the site are set up in button form across the top, which is the first thing that caught my eye when the page loaded. From a navigability perspective, this would be really helpful for someone who came to the site for an article in a specific section.
ReplyDeleteOn the right side of the banner, the pictures in rotation are eye-catching and crisp. There was only one small ad (designated as such) above the fold, which would be ideal from a reader’s perspective. The sub-pages also had relatively minimal offensive, distracting advertisements.
The news is obviously aimed at the national level, being that it is named USA Today. There is a ton of coverage on the inauguration on the home page: pictures, blogs, videos, and recaps. Considering the historic nature of Tuesday’s events (and those leading up to it), I think it’s appropriate to put front and center.
I like that in the left hand column there is a blogs section with a dropdown menu of the blogs available through USA Today. This is a good format to use that saves space and gives the user the ability to jump to all the content. The photo galleries are also set up for easy navigation by opening in new windows, but that might cause problems for some browsers’ pop-up blockers.
The sub-pages all have roughly the same layout of picture on the left side, headlines on the right, and scattered stories, pictures, blog and video links throughout the rest of the page.
The only thing I would do differently with the site is on the home page under the “More News” section. There’s a lot of white space that doesn’t really do the site any service. I think they could divide up the stories and their bylines to be a little more visually appealing.
My first impression of the USA Today website was good--it looks clean and professional with a big, attention-grabbing photograph and bold headlines. I like that the menus to navigate to different sections of the website are organized at the top of the page instead of to the side because they don't distract from the stories. Based on visual content, I would trust the website as a credible and reliable news source.
ReplyDeleteI think it is relatively easy to navigate the website. The menus at the top help the reader to find the section he or she might be looking for, and by scrolling down the page you can browse the headlines and click on what interests you. I wish that the decks were a little more fleshed out for a lot of the stories. I think that one of the main obstacles to navigating the website is the internal links within stories. In all the stories I read, the paragraphs were broken up with links to related topics or a whole list of hyperlink keywords related to the story. I found this to be more distracting than helpful. I wish that these links were all placed at the end of the story so that I could get through all of the information before I decided whether or not I would like to explore a certain detail more thoroughly.
USA Today does not appear to place a very big emphasis on breaking news, but it has good coverage of the important news stories that already broke. Maybe only because it is Sunday, but I feel like all of the main headlines are stories I already read about. Every section has very good coverage, though. You can scroll down long lists of stories in the Travel, Money, Life (entertainment) and Tech (science) sections and find a lot of information. A lot of the stories I read about election coverage were more featurized and had a lot of good quotes. The website also puts a lot of emphasis on interactive features, such as the photo map of Obama's cabinet, speeches, blogs, etc. There are a lot of good graphic elements.
The advertisements I found generally unoffensive. The main page has two advertisements toward the upper right corner, and the only thing I disliked about them was that they were moving, so they distracted me from the page. However, the advertisements stay to the sides and corners and don't distract from the website overall.
I think the main thing I would change about the USA Today website is the extremely distracting links that separate the paragraphs in the body of the stories. By moving them to the bottom, you would allow the reader to finish reading the story without interrupting, and then leave the choice up to the reader whether or not more information is necessary.
When I first took a look at usatoday.com, it was impressed by what I saw. “Above the fold” the site is very clean, organized and visually appealing. However, when I scroll down things begin to blend together and become a bit overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteI think that the site is pretty easy to navigate. I really like how, depending what category you choose (news, money, travel, etc,) the masthead becomes the color of the tab you clicked. For example, on the News page, the masthead is blue but on the money page it is green.
I would say that USA Today seems to put blogs up there as a big importance. I say this because on most other websites, blogs are towards the bottom or hidden away in some form or the other but on this website, you can see the News Blog even “above the fold.” That gives me the impression that USA Today is really interested in hearing what its readers think but also, it shows that maybe not all of the information the site is neutral and maybe they place more of an importance on one bias or another.
The thing that catches my eye as I move around through the site are the headlines, which I think it’s a good thing. Usually the advertisements on sites are overpowering but on this website they seem to be more subtle or hidden which may not make the advertisers happy but it makes me happy.
The one thing I would change about USAToday.com is to make the layout seem more formal. I think that it would make the reader more trusting of the information. Right now the layout and design seems a bit informal and while it still does its job, I think it could be changed up a little bit. Also, I would make it so that in the stories there are words that are hyperlinked so that I can click a word and get more information on it just like the New York Times website does.
Right away, I like this site better than Chicago Tribune’s or NY Times’. It’s just so much cleaner and less cluttered than either of those two. The advertisements definitely seemed to be kept to a minimum on USA Today’s front page site. In fact, I only saw four ads as I scrolled through that front page. I liked that the top of the page had news about Obama’s inauguration, but I wish that the headlines about it (which are clearly supposed to be the “main” headlines) were bigger or bolder, just anything that would draw the reader’s eye towards that.
ReplyDeleteThe site is easy to navigate, to an extent. The drop-down menus/ button display at the top of the page will help readers get what they are looking for quicker, but I see two problems with them: the fact that there are two separate sets of these (at the very top of the page in various colors, and a different set labeled as “essentials”) makes it confusing. Additionally, some of the labels for the buttons seem like odd choices (e.g. “games”). Further down the page, I like that each different section is clearly separated from the others.
USA Today’s site seems to focus on US news, as most of the top stories are about the inauguration and various economic issues. After that, the next most important issues seem to be health- or food-related ones (I don’t know how important “Guys: Are You As Fit As Obama?” really is…). The site also seems to have a fair amount of picture and video galleries, but doesn’t go overboard with it.
The one thing I think I would do differently about this site is to change the way the top news is organized. There seems to be no real organization with the way the sections are sequenced as the reader scrolls down the page… it goes Health & Science, Food, Politics Blog, Travel, Obama & the World’s Reaction, and International News. I understand that this may be the order in which the stories were filed chronologically, but it takes away from what’s otherwise a pretty clean-looking news site.
As I peruse the front page of USA Today’s website, the main thing that jumps out at me is the lack of clutter. Why? I believe a main reason is the distinct lack of ads. There are at most two that I can immediately discern to be ads, and the rest are relegated to the far bottom of the page. I also feel that the page is a bit easier to read. However, I wonder if the reason we feel overwhelmed by sites such as the Tribune or New York Times is that we don’t really read print newspaper anymore, which those sites emulate. Instead, we Twitter, we go on Facebook religiously, and those sites have a very minimalist design. Anyways, just a thought.
ReplyDeleteI think overall, the site was very clean, however, I did not feel a sense of urgency, of *breaking news now!* that I felt when viewing the other sites. I feel that this did not lessen my trust in the website, but it definitely did not make me want to look there for breaking news stories.
The site is relatively easy to navigate, with the colour-coded topics bar at the top, as well as a more specific bar beneath that, although I found the site to be quite sparse and wished that they had the sidebar, as that allowed the site to show all the sections covered.
In terms of what is important for them, the inauguration is messing me up, however, it seems that breaking news is the big-ticket item.
The first thing that catches your eye is the big picture above the fold. Other than that the headlines do jump out to some extent as they are in a bold typeface and they have a little blurb underneath.
The Travel, Money, and Life all seem well-organized, albeit bland. I do lie the colour-coding as it ties the page together.
One thing I would do differently is to put more on the pages. It seemed that this news site was not as serious as the other two we looked at.
Upon clicking the USAToday website, I was struck by its clean and digestible organization by my first blink. I came to the site admittedly unfamiliar with it, carrying only a prejudice I horde from a statistics course I took long ago. I remember that USA today is infamous for misrepresenting graphic data, and luckily, there is none to immediately rejoin me to that bias. In typical multimedia trend, there is a special Inauguration section of the page devoted entirely to Barack news. The links to photos and videos are microscopic and embedded in the title bar. One of the bolder links, to a citizen journalist’s blog, docks on the left, and one unobtrusive advertisement is fixed to the right side of the page (Sprint – nothing classist about it). Beside the link to the citizen’s blog, there is a link to a feature about “dressing the part” (i.e. inaugural fashion). It is difficult to judge whether or not USA Today is running with the sensationalism of the Inaugural news coverage or not, because the latest stories are of galas and parties.
ReplyDeleteThe top 3 stories within my pre-scroll view seem well rounded and diverse. Nothing alarms me upon first view, and the design/organization is very user friendly. I appreciate the deck is colorful, top, front and center, so that I can find my way without hunting, and that the remaining “essentials” trail beneath it. The two columns running down the page feature larger text and graphics moving at a visible pace. This is imperative to my critique of the page. Because this is a newspaper site, my expectation of “readability” is high, and this is directly based on the site’s design more than content. That I can navigate without confusion, misdirection, or anxiety expedites my scan of the top stories running down the page.
My second impression takes a drastic turn-around when one of the top headlines directs me to a full page milk ad, forcing me to wait it out until I notice the “Continue Reading” link located at the top of the page. It seems laborious to stop in between links for the ad, but I then reason that it’s better to notice it now than be distracted by a choppy ad-riddled layout. The “news” story I’m reading about Dr. Jill Biden “slipping” to Oprah that Joe Biden was offered a choice between office as SOS or VP. It’s written in a borderline-sleazy style.
The subsections are still available at the top of the story page, so I detour into the Life section, where the news is expectedly softer. The organization mirrors its home page, standing out in brilliant purple tone. The advertisement is streaming down the right margin. It is longer, but it is tucked away to the side, which is appreciated. What catches my eye is something surprising. Along the top deck of sections, beside Home is “News.” The breadth of news coverage is denser on the “News” page, in the same organization as before. The multimedia menu runs across the header to the stories, and the next access to a photo gallery is buried halfway down the page, beside story-specific links.
How the stories are organized lends to my perception of USA Today’s news judgment. Though the home page should be a sample of the top stories, it doesn’t strike me with as much prominence as the “News” page. There is more emphasis of science and studies, such as the stories about women’s brains weaker against hunger cravings than men, and a bee story from Australia nabbing top headlines. Though I trust the site’s content to be true, I don’t trust it to be the most important hard hitting news. Though the site is more manageably organized in streamlined columns, the content is lacking. I think the site could be improved by moving some of the top stories from the “News” page to the top of the home page, since the home page of a newspaper website should presumably tick the top, breaking stories.
Upon first glance, the USA Today website is very bold. There is more color on the front page than any other site we have looked at, and upon some exploring you quickly realize that every section is color coordinated. I really enjoyed this idea, as it allowed for a more comprehensive way of getting around. Follow the colors to find what you want.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I noticed early on was how segregated the content on the front page was. It was nice to see variety and actual organization from a site, but the farther you scrolled away from the top story, the more the site transformed into something very different. Below the fold, it reminded me of a tabloid. I feel like this could attract readers who may want to stay informed, but also would welcome something to grab their attention from just "straight" news. Conforming to this type of audience obviously may cause some to question your credibility and attention to solid news coverage, and readers familiar to say the NY Times may not enjoy the site at all.
As a younger reader, I definitely enjoyed all of the multimedia content, and think that the USA Today crew understands how to utilize their front page. Top story, follow up content, and then straight to pictures, blogs, and video. Anytime you produce original multimedia, I feel you should be pimping it on your site as much as possible, because everyone in the world will be covering the inauguration this week, but no one will have the same videos, pictures, and perspective that you can offer. Sites should focus on creating these things, and showing them off.
One of the things that bothered me while navigating around the site was most of the time when you click on a link, you are transported to an ad page and forced to click again before passing on. I can see this getting extremely annoying if I was a frequent visitor.
While I enjoy the layout and indefinitely enjoyed the content, I felt like i was reading a comics page and not an actual news site. It was almost too bright and colorful, and after ragging on the Times sit for being to drab, I can really understand why they do it that way now.
My first impression of the USA Today website is that it is organized in a clearer fashion compared to the "overwhelming" news websites we have analyzed (Chicago Tribune, New York Times). The headline story is presented in way that shows its precedence over the other issues, however one can easily navigate to other stories by scrolling down. Furthermore, the overall layout is spaced in a way that makes it "reader-friendly." There are not a vast amount of links which tend to be overwhelming for the reader.
ReplyDeleteClearly marked at the top of the homepage is a navigation bar which allows the reader to jump to a certain section (Travel, Money, Sports, etc.). This makes the navigation easily accessible. It appears the website puts value on feature stories because of what is shown on its homepage. There is a large amount of news based upon current issues and stories rather than "breaking news."
What catches my eye the most while skimming the site are the photos. There a fair amount of them, however, I feel as though they are the first things I look at rather then reading the headlines. In addition, the site has a photo gallery along with featured videos.
As I clicked on the Travel section I was presented with a full page advertisement which I was a little taken back by. I was about to discuss how the ads were not too overpowering throughout the site, however, this just caught me off guard. Nonetheless, the other sections follow the same pattern as the rest of the site which is a nice clean interface that is reader-friendly.
One think I would change about USA Today's design is offering visible links on the homepage to such sections as music and entertainment. Instead these areas are thrown into the "Life" section on other pages. Overall I was pleased with the organization of the site and would definitely visit it for more news in the future.
My first impression of USA Today’s website is how well organized and uncluttered the top page of the website is. The website focuses on the breaking news, feature stories and blogs. The website invites readers’ comments and opinions and a lot of readers answer to this invitation. The color coded menus at the top of the page caught my eyes as the home page opened up. This is really impressive because it allows the reader to go directly to any topic of interest without scrolling through the entire front page which on its own does not have the full stories being featured.
ReplyDeleteThe advertisements on the pages are barely visible, except at the bottom of the page where it is not blocking the news headlines. However, the special interests on the front page as the reader scrolls down the page are scattered across the page which requires the reader to pay attention and not get the headlines mixed up. The comments on some of the headlines also makes the reader wonder about the headlines that are blogs and the ones that are not blogs. This distinction between the actual news headlines and commentaries from the blogs is really difficult and requires careful sorting through by the reader to determine which headlines are blogs.
USA Today should put title headlines on the pages to help guide the reader through the page without confusing them since most readers do not have the time to navigate the entire website to figure it out. Simple and ease of navigation are the key important facts that draw readers to many websites and USA Today should strive to achieve that.
I would say that USA Today is an attractive website that requires a little more organization to help readers differentiate between actual journalism news and blogs.
My first impression USA today was how plain it seemed. There seemed to be a pretty small picture of President Obama and his wife for such an important and storied day in U.S history. I think I am so used to news sites that overwhelm viewers with lots of pictures and advertisements on the first page that my immediate reaction to this was very plain. I don’t think this has much impact on my trust for the site because I noticed right away how many sub-stories they included about Obama’s inauguration, which makes up for the lack of pictures. I did not find it too difficult to navigate this site. The first section I clicked on brought up an advertisement that covered the entire screen, but you can just click right out of it and get to your destination. I noticed that within minutes after I first visited the home page and then returned, the layout had changed. Judging by today’s edition of the USA Today, I would say that their main focus is breaking news and world news. But today is a special circumstance and there are tons of stories about Obama’s inauguration. When I was navigating through the site advertisements definitely caught my eye a lot, especially when they took up large portions of the screen. Photos caught my eye a lot. Also the amount of stories and different headlines definitely caught my eye. I guess it is a good thing that all the advertisements caught my eye because that is what they want, they want to be noticed every time you click from page to page. I don’t know if that is a good thing for USA Today because it distracts viewers from finding stories that they are looking for. I don’t know if there is much that I would change with the site. I felt overwhelmed by the amount of stories and headlines, but I don’t know if that is a bad thing. I like the availability of all these different stories, but if I was looking for something specific it might be a problem.
ReplyDeleteMy first impression of this site is that I can tell that one of the main goals when making this site was too make it simply for people to navigate. Out of all the websites we have critiqued thus far the USA Today website is the most simple. The main news sections are laid out at the top of the page in easily seen tabs that each has their own color. I looked at the blog section of the site which is easily found at the top of the page under “essentials.” The blogs were in depth especially the sports blogs that have been updated regularly and they even contain polls and videos regarding the various topics of discussion.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to see that the USA Today site caters to a younger crowd as opposed to the other sites we have seen. I can tell because for one the blogs are numerous and are updated regularly, there is an emphasis on breaking news for example the inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the incorporation of pictures and videos throughout the whole site. When skimming the site one thing struck me and that was that there are a very limited amount of advertisements on the top section of the page and the bottom section had much more advertisements. I liked that as soon as you got to the site you were not assaulted by ads but rather you had to scroll down to the bottom to get to the ads this is a very positive aspect of web design that I would like to see used more by websites.
Overall this is the most simplistic website we have critiqued when it comes to web design. Although this is a great quality it seems to lose some of its credibility when steers away from making the site look more professional especially in the news and journalism department. It was easier to navigate than the New York Times, it has less credibility, but it caters to my age bracket so I like it more than any other site we have looked at.
The USA Today Website, to me, is a lot better then the NY Times site. It is more visually appealing and is a lot easier to navigate. The first thing that caught my eye on the page was the multi-colored links to the others parts of the site at the top of the web page. These bright colors bring your eye to the spot on the page that allows you to navigate through the sites features. Upon clicking on one of the links it brought me straight to an advertisement to milk before it allowed me to go to the story. This feature i do not like. I clicked on the link to go to the page that i had in mind and not to an advertisement. With that aside, I was then taken to the page, which was very well organized and very easy to read. Each specific section was on blue letters and the titles under these sections were in bold black letters, which makes it very easy for the reader to look at the page and determine what exactly it is that they would like to read.
ReplyDeleteAnother feature that is key on this website is the quick links, which they call "Essentials". These look to be the things that people may check on a daily basis. These things include, the markets, lottery and games. Basically, this section is for the points of interest.
Another good aspect of this website is the use of pictures. There are a plethora of pictures on the opening page, which have been proven to catch the eyes of the readers. i know for myself, i am always drawn to the pictures that interest me, which then get me to read the article about it just so i can learn what the picture was.
One of the most important part of this website is the focus on thats days feature story, which today happens to be the inauguration of Obama. The very first story on the page is about the inauguration and most of the stories on the first page are some what related to the Obama or a political issue .
Overall, the USA Today website is more user friendly then the recent critique on the NY Times page. The NY Times used dark boring font, which visually bored the eyes and may even force the reader to stop reading the page. Whereas the USA Today page its very brightly colored and is more appealing to the eyes, which keeps the reader interested in reading the articles at hand. The Website is constructed very well and there is nothing that really needs to be changed other then how the advertisement pops up before it takes you to the link that you clicked on.
For one thing, I understand the appeal of USA Today. In the past four years, I have lived in Atlanta and Los Angeles. And as reputable the Los Angeles Times (LAT) and the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) may be, I could not stand them. But my reasoning is flawed. As a fellow classmate mentioned in class, New York Times (NYT) does not seem to be too interested in, well, New York. I am not a NYT apologist, but I would disagree- but that is besides the point. As for the LAT and the AJC, I got annoyed by their superfluous local coverage. I know that indiscriminate fires are rampant and a major issue in California, but don’t the writers and readers get tired about writing or reading about them? And AJC, I know that the past water drought was potentially life-threatening, but every day? Really?
ReplyDeleteIn my times of despair, USA Today saved the day. There is comfort in their ubiquitous circulation. I know any city I go to, if the NYT is not available, USA Today most likely will. I am not the biggest fan of the paper because their coverage, I feel, is a bit shallow. I feel it is a paper for people who want to know what is going on in the world, but not in depth.
Immediately, after I opened their website (my first visit), I got the vibe of their print version. Retaining the colored coded tabs, their logo prominently displayed to the left- I felt away from home, if you get what I am saying. Like every other news website today, pictures of President Obama flooded every corner of the page from top to bottom.
One thing I did like about the website is that is less cluttered. Whereas the NYT displayed a lifetime of reading material daily on their front page, USA Today neatly condensed it and gives you breathing room. Even their advertisements are innocuous, and I did not even notice one until the bottom of the page – how surreptitious!
I may have spoken too soon.
I clicked on their Life section and it directed me to a large advertisement with a tab to “continue reading.” After a few seconds, the advertisement faded and the Life section appeared, but nonetheless, not too bad concerning that newspapers (and my possible future employers) have to find new ways to generate revenue.
USA Today has a simple design compared to The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune's websites. The headlines are major stories from across the country, leading me to infer that the intended audience are people just skimming the headlines to find the basic top stories and are not interested in local news or features.
ReplyDeleteThe predominant colors are red, white, and blue; staying consistent to the theme of the publication. Above the fold, the video application is available for an easy, quick update on a new story.
The clean design makes it easier for the viewer to easily navigate the page, searching for their interests. The use of white space and subdued -gray text is very different from The Chicago Tribune's "flashier" approach.
Overall, I do not think the design is visually stimulating, but succeeds in it's goal to please the target audience with general country-wide top story news.