Related Sites In Online Journalism Sectionals

These Related Sites In Online Journalism Sectionals links will open in a separate window while his site remains on your screen so you can return to it at will.

• Star Tribune

• American Journalism Review

• CNN

• MSNBC

• Think Quest $1 million contest winners

• Jon Katz's Hotwired columns

• Conclusion

Online newspapers are much maligned by media critics, but many of them are producing excellent packages for the Web. However, on a daily basis with limited online staffs, Web newspapers are merely duplicating their print news stories with little regard to online readability. By employing minor adjustments suggested in usability studies cited in this report, online news sites could make the text more readable for users, who are still primarily scanners on the Web.

The major recommendations from this study are:

Provide interesting, useful content.

Keep online news stories short.

Use subheads to break up type.

Keep subheads on main pages short and informative to entice readers.

Use bulleted lists when applicable to the story.

Avoid embedded links in stories.

Use teaser or summary headlines that don't repeat the lead, especially when the news story features an

anecdotal lead. Use nonlinear formats when they enhance the story. For a long, scrollable story, consider internal links targeted to topics on the same page. If the story has logical breaks that might be presented as a short series or sidebars, consider screen-size chunks. Explore new writing styles such as the serial narrative. Train reporters to gather full text on disks, audio and searchable databases for online stories.

Multimedia will soon become a regular feature of online all news sites. Consider alternative forms of

presenting information such as question-answer format or timelines for background. Confine text to tables of 350 to 450 pixels for ease of eye movement instead of spanning the entire screen. Add interactive elements -- feedback questions, quizzes, calculators and search capabilities -- that let readers figure how a budget story will affect them.

• Experiment.

• Resources

Story Forms I

American Journalism Review www.ajr.org

CNN www.cnn.com

MSNBC www.msnbc.com

Think Quest $1 million contest winners

http://www.advanced.org/ThinkQuest/

Jon Katz's Hotwired columns

http://www.hotwired.com/synapse/archive/index/blue?/Katz

Star Tribune www.startribune.co

Story Forms II