Online news design

Online news delivers like no other news has before. It is interactive, immediate and a brilliant resource for the time poor. As online news is written to be scanned and consumed quickly, the layout and design of the page has become fundamental. Bolded words, bullet points and simple headings all accommodate the online consumer's tendancy to skip over content. In keeping with this 'need for speed', I have come up with a clever little online news page inclusion which breaks away from the common web news model.


Most breaking news pages include the news story itself and a 'Related Coverage' menu or similar (as seen in the image below), providing links to older or related reports. There are usually a number of links in this menu, each with a detailed heading. If a reader wants to gather background on the story, it is rather time consuming when compared to the hurtling speed of other web actions: they must read each of the link's headline, open the new window then read the additional article. Phew!

My idea is to include a 'news timeline' documenting each update to the story in a simple, concise format. Each brief  'update' marked on the timeline will be hyperlinked, so readers can quickly access the full report if necessary. This addition will support news organisations' needs to keep the audience constantly updated throughout a breaking story, yet will remove the various messy headlines and simplify the task of sorting through past reports. If the news organisation wants to take the graphic one step further and be extra edgy, they could include a small pop-up photograph of the event to appear when a reader hovers their rmouse over an update on the timeline - a novel addition which will create some visual interest.


I believe this would be a valuable addition to any news website. It would support online news consumers' scanning habits and encourage readers to visit other pages within the site, whilst also providing a valuable summary of events. Furthermore, a graphic such as a news timeline would break up sometimes large amounts of text and provide interaction and a visual point of interest on the news page. This interactive graphic would add value to any news webpage - the audience is engaged, informed and is able to navigate through the website's content with ease. Winners all round.


A simple 'news timeline' example I whipped up myself -