The biggest problem I see with news or other high-content websites is clutter. Clutter is never good anywhere, let alone a website that is supposed to be engaging readers and passing along information, especially in this day and age when users are scanning for the elements that are relevant to them or offer value.
The truth is that in the course of the day, there’s a ton of information coming our way – emails, text messages, phone calls, TV, radio, magazines, regular mail, newspapers etc. So there’s already a clutter of information in our daily lives. The last thing your audience needs is a visual reminder of that. Yet, you look at most newspaper sites and that’s exactly what they get.
WHY?
Here is why clutter happens to news sites. News outlets are large organizations and their business is content. And there’s lots of it! Every time a news site redesigns they want to reduce clutter and offer a great user experience. And that works initially after a redesign, but then what happens is that the site gradually starts retreating to it’s roots as a print product, where every space on the page was valuable and needed to be filled. And before you know it….clutter…again.
Additionally — and this is a good thing — newsrooms are constantly trying to evolve to keep up with user demand. That means they are constantly evolving the site, adding new elements that they hope engage more readers for longer periods. But doing this on the fly without having the opportunity to visit the overall site content architecture makes it haphazard and more of an “add-on” than a part of the overall experience. So scalability is another problem with current news sites.
Finally, those pesky ads that are counted on to help support the website. Animated, popping up, taking over the entire background, sometime even the entire homepage – these ads are a reality that we must deal with because of the pressures of making the sites profitable. And when inventory is full, most news sites are simply going to carve out space somewhere to accommodate a new advertiser.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Well, the best way to deal with clutter is to get better organized. This means taking a look at your site content structure and streamlining as much as possible. Last week I wrote about a “mobile first” approach to news sites, where we work to strip it down to the essential elements that users would want. I believe just engaging in this exercise will help remove many elements from your homepage that are doing nothing but taking up space and adding to the clutter.
Right now, too many news sites are overly segmented – a main space for the top headlines, a video module, modules for the headlines of each section, breaking news, traffic, teaser to inside, tools, etc. Already I’ve named too many. The real challenge is narrowing the focus of your homepage and making it engaging enough that the rest of the features of the site are discovered within the experience, more serendipitously. For example, at any given moment, on any given day I will go to MSNBC.com or ESPN.com. The only thing I am interested in are the most interesting headlines at that moment. I know there are other things on those homepages but I NEVER look at them. The headlines have a function. They keeps me updated. Count up the elements on your site and chances are you’re in the 20s. What if you had to get that number to 3 or to the most essential needs of your users?
What about all the thought pieces and longer form storytelling? The good news is I’m still reading that stuff. The bad news is I’m not finding it through homepages. Someone else is doing that work for me and posting a link on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter and directing me to that story. And I’ll share it myself if I think my friends would like it. This is key, because it changes the way that we should plan our news website strategy, especially how to make that story page an entry point to the rest of the website.
Notice all these words into this post and I haven’t even mentioned design yet. Well, that’s the easy part. When you have a good plan and strategy for the site, the design will reflect the organization of that strategy. Navigation will be simpler and easier to use. With less segmentation, the page will have more space and offer a better scanning experience. So ironically, users will see more headlines with much less of them on the page.
As far as the advertising, simplifying the rest of the page minimizes any damage to the overall design and layout that ad placements could cause. More so, the advertising becomes even more effective, keeping advertisers happy.
THE REWARDS
I suggested a simpler approach to a client a few years ago and when I presented the prototype I was told that it “doesn’t look busy enough.” I had heard that before. The thinking was that if you’re seen as a news and information source that it should look like you have a lot of news and information. Maybe that was true several years ago, when the thickness of a newspaper was an indicator of how much there was to know. But that was before there were so many other places to get that news and information. Your readers already trust your brand, but they also watch TV, go on social media, listen to radio and download apps. You’re not going to impress and keep them with depth of knowledge. You’re going to do that with an experience that’s relevant and convenient. That’s how you get their loyalty. I know editors hate hearing that…but it’s true.
A cleaner, simpler site means better engagement by readers and more loyalty, but what hasn’t changed is that ultimately the content must be great.That should make those editors feel better.
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