June 19th, 2006, 2:37 pm

10 Minute Website Remake

Susan West and Michael Gold, Friday, June 16, 2006 at the Peabody Hotel, Little Rock, Arkansas, 2006 AAN Annual Convention (Association of Alternative Newsweeklies)

Unlike most consultants paid to give presentations at conferences, WestGoldEditorial does not suck. Nope - they don’t regale us with irrelevant or outdated examples drawn from daily newspaper websites, or make sweeping generalizations that have little to do with us alt kids. These folks throughly examined the AAN world - they know our market, our audiences, and our core competencies. So when they critique the websites of seven AAN papers, the advice is targeted, spot on, and extremely valuable. Read on. Links: del.icio.us/susanw/aanmakeovers

Memphis Flyer

Became serious this year; shifted to producing daily content on St. Patty’s Day; publish 5-10 web stories a day; trying to keep listings prominent; The Buzz is Memphis-related material that is not necessarily their content

Critique

• Very clean design
• Cover image is small; appreciated
• Sensible to put “calendar” in nav
• In left rail, news/entertainment broken down into subcategories
• 3rd rail: events today, music events today (although not above the fold)
• 4th rail: Blogs We Like, local blogs, not related
• Likes: Short subheads
• Dislikes: Navigation is mixed with promotional aspects; it makes it harder for a user to know which part is which. Keep those things consistent
• Dislikes: FlyerMarket is an obscure name. Choose words that clearly explain what a thing is. Good to use a different color on this tab so it is clear it’s a subsite.
• Move the “events” search up above the fold
• Advanced search doesn’t make sense under News & Opinion
• Don’t use the literal names of the department online. It’s definitely true that you have print readers looking for “The Fly By,” but most of the readers won’t. Allow them to navigate by the category. Metropolis could be called City News. Any name that makes someone have to stop and think about it isn’t going to work online. Read “Don’t Make Me Think” … great usability book
• Don’t use “cover story” online
• Some of the navigation should be organized into general content bins
• LauraFries.com’s take: I like the gradient on the section TOCs

ArtVoice

Dave has been at the paper less than a year; tried to refocus nav to focus on core competencies, while promoting new material. Audience is mostly current ArtVoice readers and expatriates. Hope to give them more than they do in print.

Critique

• Most of the content is hidden; some of it could work better from user point of view.
• If listening to bands and getting to restaurant guides are hot buttons, then create better access to them on the homepage
• Too much white space; not enough content available at a glance
• Calendar isn’t immediately accessible; clicking on “calendar makes you continue to have to search. Once it’s there, you have calendar/day nav. Can’t sort by music styles or venues.
• Would be nice to see “samplings” of events on the homepage. “What’s happening” right now …
• Using pdfs online is not that useful for users - give them ‘departure information’ for the link
• Don’t use icons without explaining what they mean, be conventional and self-explanatory
• Give tutorials when you do something 2.0 to explain what’s going on for users - how can you explain this to your mother
• LauraFries.com’s question: Why isn’t there any ad space here? Later, Dave answered this question for me, explaining that the online advertising strategy had not yet been worked out.

Philadelphia Weekly

The paper have a lot of older readers, web viewership is probably younger. Have been working on classifieds and listings improvements.

Critique

• If classifieds and listings are the focus, they should be present on the homepage
• Vertical space sucked up by large images that are ill explained
• Subheads are very informative; lots could fit above the fold.
• Not necessary to have an image with each story. Folks don’t look at images without information in it; and if they are looking for info, they want them larger
• Text is too wide and small
• Listings are simple but nicely done. Can’t search them, but you can browse
• LauraFries.com’s take: The ad space is given a different color treatment than the navigation, making it easy to distinguish

Santa Fe Reporter

Website had been up, but most of the content wasn’t on it. Audience is intended to be readers outside print distribution area; tourists, and regular readers of print edition looking for archived materials. Tried to make it simple and easy to navigate.

Critique

• Site is simple. Nice amount of white sapce
• Left nav is simple; grouping of choices makes sense
• Waste of vertical space with the center well; only one bit of content visible on homepage
• Does the cover need to be the biggest thing, asks an audience member. Response: use editorial judgement to decide what should be featured, pick the stuff that will be the most compelling to your users, which might not even be in the actual paper
• “Guides” sound like print
• Best Of pages are too long
• Good: The site tells you where you are at within the site
• Blurbs should be more specific and talk about the content within the article, should be real bait on the hook
• LauraFries.com’s take: Nice prominent navigation to the RSS feeds

The Coast (Halifax)

Site is for a college audience, we think we can have the best local website and create a community for our users; get a lot of traffic from expatirates

Critique

• Lots of stuff above the fold
• Left nav features bolder headings that have subheadings
• Mixing content and utilities together in nav is confusing to users
• Some light content gets separated
• Have nice article tools and related articles, but that should be higher
• Food/restaurant info shouldn’t be segregated
• Music homepage isn’t clear
• ‘Live’ is confusing
• Missed opportunity … calendar is at the bottom of the pages, should be at the top

Oklahoma Gazette

Recently redesigned, think audience is looking for entertainment information, creating web exclusive content recently

Critique

• Not a lot of content above the fold
• Animated billboard rotating 3 stories; takes up an awful lot of real estate
• Usability studies suggest that moving things appear like ads to most ads, and most folks look away. “You’re forcing people not to look at that.” “Catch the content if you can… Asking users to jump through a lot of hoops. Much better to do headlines with straight blurbs, helps people to find what they are interested in.
• The two visible blurbs are too lengthy for the real estate
• “Chicken Fried News” should be more descriptive to help folks
• Where are the tools? Restaurant and Events searches
• Don’t hide Calendar under Life
• Don’t call out “Restaurant Menus available” if they are not currently
• LauraFries.com’s take: Ooh, me likey the search bar aesthetically