I’d rather be in San Fran…but not for the news
September 10, 2009
Though I am a Texas girl at heart, I am also a huge fan of the state of California. I have quite a bit of family who has lived or still lives in various parts of the Golden State. That being said, several of my favorite vacations have included frolicking in the clear, blue waters of Coronado, strawberry picking in Oxnard (I’m also obligated to like Oxnard as the home of our Boys’ training camp, but I digress) and devouring hot, fresh clam chowder out of a fresh sourdough bowl on the Fisherman’s Wharf. However, I distinctly remember watching the nightly news in each of my favorite California cities and being highly disappointed at the level of quality in both news reporting and stacking of the show. In spotting my beloved San Fran on AssignmentEditor.com, I knew I had to check out their local TV news websites.
I can’t say I was much more pleased with the local TV news sites. I chose to focus on KGO-TV / Channel 7, San Francisco’s ABC affiliate. The first and most obvious thing to notice on the layout is that they are running on a more modern “Web 1.0″ layout as all of the main links and components–including the link back to the homepage–are aligned on the left hand side of the page. Though it is far from the ancient two-toned, single font, image in the header style of 1990s websites, I definitely prefer the “Web 2.0″ layout that includes verticals and a navigation located at the top of the page.
I was also not a fan of the the way the aligned their “headlines” underneath the overpowering video slideshow (that also includes advertisements…what?). They had 17+ so-called “headlines” stacked up underneath the videos. Are there really 17 super-important stories that need to go front and center on the webpage? You’d think that “most popular” or a more condensed version of the important headlines would do it, but the “most popular” and other categories of news were located on the outdated left-aligned navigation bar.
Next up: advertisements. I actually felt as though KGO-TV did a fairly good job in not making their advertisements too blatant and in-your-face; a single banner ran at the bottom of the page with a 1.5″ column on the right that included one or two advertisements. After navigating for a few minutes, there appeared to be no sign of pop-ups, pop-unders, or those crazy full-page ads that include a microscopic “x” in the middle of the ad that causes panic and confusion for the more unexperienced web user just expecting to check their daily weather forecast. Larger ads did, however, pop up when navigating in between pages and in the main video slideshow, as mentioned above.
As is the case (fault) with many news sites, the reporter’s email was not linked on the story. I searched briefly for a way to contact the reporters directly, but couldn’t get to it in several clicks and decided it wouldn’t be worth my time.
Weather was included on each story page, a feature that seems to be popular on many sites as we all know that “the number one reason people watch news is for the weather” (thank you, Professor Goplerud). I felt like it was effective and fairly unobtrusive, so no real complaints in that department.
Lastly, I felt as though the website did a fairly good job in making use of the “whitespace,” or in this case, the “black-and-blue-gradient-space.” There wasn’t too much at the bottom, thanks to box placement, and the space along the sides were well-used.
The site had some definite pros and cons, but I am kind of a snob about good web design, and I was just plainly not a fan of most facets of their layout. Maybe these news organizations should think about hiring us Generation-Y-internet experts to redo their outdated websites.
