Slashdot Mirror
What Do You Want on a News Website?
SomethingBig asks: "The BBC is asking people to redesign their homepage, with the best design winning an Apple laptop. With news websites becoming ever more crowded and cluttered, what is really the most important information for a news organization's homepage? Should it contain local news? Traffic? Weather? What type of information would you want on the BBC's homepage (or CNN's if you're in America)?"
I want the ability to drag and drop various parts of the site how I want it to look (similar to google custom homepage, which I love).
I also want to add custom feeds and have a lot of options to choose from.
Did I mention let me customize it how i want?
""The BBC is asking people to redesign their homepage [CC] [MD], with the best design winning an Apple laptop. "
:)
Dammit Taco! Look what you started.
When I sent in the story yesterday the BBC link worked.. here's a good discussion of the article (in comment form, sorry)... Here. I'm not sure why the site is down. Perhaps the BBC took it down, but that seems unlikely. I hope it's back up soon though! Quick breakdown: the BBC wants people to totally rework their website. The winner gets a "high end Apple laptop", the runners up get an "MP3 Player". They will put the winning design live on their homepage for one day, giving the winner a lot of free publicity. I thought that the contest was a great opportunity for people to demonstrate what they really wanted on a news site, and I'm really not sure how I'd go about doing it. The thing is, local & national news, traffic, weather, etc - I want them all. But I want them in a way that's not cluttered. Not over loaded with information. Perhaps some nice AJAX dropdowns would be nice - click the heading and the section unfolds. I'd also like the choice to disable certain sections if I didn't like them - something like Google's homepage is for Google's account holders.
...so it isn't cn blocked anymore.
Max.
The ideal news site for me would have the following four features:
1. Unobtrusive advertising.
1a. No "free registration" nag.
2. Higher quality pictures and videos (in terms of size and resolution, not necessarily content).
3. Open ended syndication - let your visitors set up your home page to show not only your news, but those of your competitors, if they choose to do so. Let them drag boxes around the page, and provide an API to get modules on your page. (RSS or Atom with support for headline images as enclosures would fit the bill nicely.)
I currently get my news from three places: My Yahoo!, Netvibes (when I get comfortable enough about their privacy practices, it'll be my new home page), and Google News. The thing they have in common is the ability to do massive customization of their home page.
I'm not a coder or in web design, so I can't tell you how to make a simple but elegant interface. I can tell you what should be readily apparent to anyone asked these questions: I want exactly what I want, when I want it. That's what I like about Google News - if I want sports news on top, that's where I put it; if I want a custom search for all new pharmaceuticals, I can do it. Major news websites should take note that people want to be able to decide what news they see.
There's a reason why most people flip directly to a specific section of the newspaper. It's time the newspaper flipped for us.
My other sig is funny.
A redirect to this would probably do it!
News that I haven't already read yesterday ;-)
Porn! It would fit well into the BBC website main page. Please no British chicks...
Stuff That Matters
Duh
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Log in.
1) Start with news.google.com, don't leave out the search and editability.
2) Strip out all the links that require subscriptions.
3) Add 'slashdot' style comments to all the articles, either at the bottom or separately.
4) Add linkbacks and such for more depth to particular articles.
5) ???
6) OMG Ponies!!!
you know, page 3.
Why even use a browser? Browsers are so passe,* when one can script something in Python or Javascript and run it on their desktop.
*Except for XUL.
Man: How many of you kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with
real-life problems, like the ones you face every day?
Kids: [clamoring] Oh, yeah! I would! Great idea! Yeah, that's it!
Man: And who would like to see them do just the opposite -- getting
into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers?
Kids: [clamoring] Me! Yeah! Oh, cool! Yeah, that's what I want!
Man: So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's
completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?
Kids: [all agreeing, quieter this time] That's right. Oh yeah,
good.
Myers: You kids don't know what you want! That's why you're still kids;
'cause you're stupid!
[sticks his face to the window, difforming his nose]
Just tell me what's wrong with the freakin' show!
[turns the lights out]
Ralph: [starts crying, turns the knob left] Mommy!
Maybe you had to be there.
I load and reload news sites hundreds of times a day. Strip the bloat out, and let me do it quickly. The new NYT layout is fine as layout goes (though I still like the old site better) but all the Flash and proliferation of tables upon tables makes the site load at a crawl.
In short: strip Flash out. Video in links only. Make it snappy.
I have noticed the BBC site is set to cover the full screen only when you are using the highly antiquated 800x600 (Famous for use on Flickery 15" CRTs). They could at least make a preference for resolution change, or go up to a 2006 Web Standard of 1024x768, since not many of us use 800x600 these days unless we are completely nuts, or are stuck with an ancient screen. And looking at there low graphics version of the site, I think they can just abolish that considering it looks like a PDA Site/Site Made for use for IE2/Netscape 3.
Unforunately, the only reason flash is still around is because users like us are increasingly blocking ads through various means on the various web browsers we use. However, many of these adblockers (Like Firefoxes AdBlock Extension) no longer block Flash Advertising due to various issues. This makes the advertisement more viewable by even a smaller sample of the public reading it. There doesn't seem to be much more explanation for using flash on news websites, however.
I read the news to make my decisions, not to have them made for me.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
I want lots of them. screw the news, it's all bombs, killings, etc. i want boobies. oh yeah, and hot lesbian sex action.
Didn't I read about this yesterday? Oh, wait.. We're redesigning BBC this time!
Funny how I'd prefer to get the mp3 player... Well, one could always sell the laptop, but it's useless to me anyways, I wouldn't want one - even for free. I'm sure there's lots more people who truly don't care for that prize either.
Unfortunately, a lot of folks are still stuck on 800x600. I found some stats a month or two ago when I was reworking a website and wanted to know what was safe to target. According to that page, about 16% of people are still on 800x600 -- I have no idea how they gather the data or how accurate it is. For a website that is aimed at non-technical users, it's probably too early to ignore 800x600 usability.
Simply stretching the article content area isn't necessarily that great either, IMHO, the relatively short articles that are common on news sites don't read that well when they are very wide and only a few lines long.... and there aren't any good solutions (other than Javascript or I guess Flash) for doing newspaper like columns.
doh! 15th comment and already two other people have had the same idea.
depending on where you draw the line as SFW...
I want RSS so I never have to actually see the web design...
I want to get the "first psot"! :P
I am what I am and thats what I am -Popeye
You see, it's "News for Nerds". If he is, in fact, not a nerd, then it wouldn't be news for him, and therefore he couldn't possibly get his news here now could he?
When I go on CNN, it drives me nuts that the stories I really want to see are usually in video format only. Normally I cannot watch them, usually due to video player problems (in Linux or OS X). Not to mention that there is still a significant number of people on dial-up. Ideally, both video and text would be offered, even if text is verbatim of the video.
Also, it would be cool if there was some kind of "stories you may like" feature made, that pulls together some keywords. So if you tend to read stories about gas prices, and there is a story about record breaking oil costs, it would go on some kind of separate personalized list. Just a thought.
I just want impartial unbiased honest factual relevant interesting up to date reporting to empower me to make my own decisions and take any relevant action I deem necessary....
/. :) )
But occasionally I want opinionated sensationalist one sided reporting with a large dose of tongue in cheek humour and honest to god trolling (then I go to
Oh and when I want to know what's happening in United States of America and need a good laugh I check out FOX.
CowboyNeal
With the added feature of the article synopsis if you hover over the link - Yahoo sort of does this, but they dont give enough room for the article summary
--
Didn't I read somewhere that headlines are drifting to more descriptive/non-misleading so that they would get a better pagerank on google on searchs that are applicable?
Do you think they'd notice if I submitted their old design as my own and claimed that laptop? xD
By the time they realised I could be half way through the BootCamp installation to spyware town.
When I read news, I don't care that 300 people and 20 kids died. First of all, kids are people. Second, it doesn't get worse just because kids die. That's got nothing to do with the news, that's about creating a hype of sensation around it. OMG, think of the children! Who cares? They die just as fast or slow as other human beings, it needn't be stressed to get the point across.
...
When I read news, I want to know what happened. Not what could have happened or what might have happened. When a police car rams a bank robber's car, I want to hear they arrested him. Not that he was about to drive into a suburb where he might have caused thousands of deaths (and of course that of a few children). If I want speculation, I flip over to the horoscope.
When a politician holds a speech, I want to know what he said and what his intentions were. Not some snippets ripped out of context to make him look bad or smart. Out of context, JFK said "I'm a donut" when he was in Berlin.
I want to hear BOTH sides. Yes, that's hard, but that's what I expect from a quality paper. I do accept that I get a biased view from a propaganda tabloid. I do expect INFORMATION from a quality newsmedium, not an OPINION. I'll make up my own opinion, thank you very much.
I want sources. I want to know WHO said WHAT. Just writing "experts agree that.." makes me drop the article. Especially in the 'net there's nothing easier than citing a source by simply linking to it. I don't care that experts agree. I want to know WHAT expert said WHAT.
I want headlines that sum up the article. Not headlines that reek of cheap sensationalism. Remember when Castro slipped and broke his hip while he was walking to the podium for a speech? The headline was "Castro toppled". Yes, not quite wrong, but it kinda gave the wrong idea, just to make you read the article.
I want statistics that don't make me scream. I'm a statistician. Ever so often you get to read elaborate lists of percentages of something or other that are based on some statistics. And NEVER, not in a single instance, I found enough material to actually tell whether it's something I should take serious or brush away as reading tea leaves. How many did you ask? How relevant are your samples? You get VERY different results when asking different groups.
Oh, you mean the design? Don't care. When I read news, I care about content. Not design.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If someone could bolt on a /.-style moderation system for audience discussions, well that would have to be a winner wouldn't it? Then a small clique of self-important social retards could take ownership of the site, moderating anything they disagree with as 'offtopic'. That would keep the riff-raff and the hoi-polloi out. We could make it so that anyone not registered with the site is called - arbitrarily - 'Anonymous Coward'. I fail to see how that couldn't make the site more popular. We could also look forward to the tempting prospect of a superior, common language being formed amongst the participants, which would be helpful in divining who is worthy vs. who is new. A rich language, replete with prepositions such 'I for one' and special acronyms such as 'STFU' and 'RTFM'. Truly we live in exciting times.
Visually, I believe the look has to be set in stone once the site is live, and while new mark-up standards may appear, the site will update only its mark-up and not it's appearance, because that is clever-rer.
And there could be some news as well, sometimes, once in a while. Exceptionally it could be current news even.
BBC 2.0!
Coincidentally, I did this spoof over the weekend. Guess what was on TV all the time...
BBC 2.0
Needs more rounded corners though...
Add a section with users comments. I hate those big mainstream media where only the opinion of the company matters.
From the post: "(or CNN's if you're in America)"
Some of us in America would actually prefer news from the BBC. At least for world news coverage, the Beeb does a far better job than American news. Most of what I read in the US tends to be inane political posturing. If you're a leftie, read CNN. If you're a rightie, read Fox. If you have two working brain cells, you see that it's all crap.
On topic: I'll echo what other posters said about customization. Let me have the (not required) option of creating an account and customizing the homepage as I like it. Also, restrict the ads. Don't give me moving images. Don't give me pop-ups, pop-unders, hover ads, or anything like it. Just give me text or a static image.
Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
What I would like, but I know I won't get, is, first, perfect separation between a news piece data from its interpretation, with the data receiving uniform representation.
For example, instead of a biased news such as "Rep. X said blah, while the very, very conservative rep. Y said blah, showing he doesn't care for Z", the "data" part would simply say "In regards to Z, rep. X said blah, while rep. Y said blah", or, better yet, "In regards to Z, rep. X (x% liberal according to institute A's 2005 research in the representatives' voting patterns), said blah, while rep. Y (y% conservative), said blah."
Second, multiple interpretations for the same data. This way, one might click "Liberal Opinion" and read "This shows the very strong conservatism of rep. Y, and how he doesn't care for Z, which any progressive knows is absolutely needed because of blah". Or click "Conservative Opinion" and read "As expected, rep. X shows his strong liberal commitment for Z, which goes against our decades old traditions in blah". Or even click "Libertarian Opinion" and read "Both rep. X and Y show, in regards to Z, that they don't care for freedom, since both support strong governmental intervention where the free market blah".
Now, back to the real world...
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
There is one thing I want more than anything else in a news site. If a news article is about a legislative action, then I want bill numbers, amendment numbers and a sidebar that shows me who voted how. That way, I can pick up the phone as soon as I have read the article, without spending two hours trawling through the house/senate web sites looking for the info, and call my elected representatives to either thank them or to tell them they are sons of bitches.
Project Vote-smart is a good step in the right direction, but the database is indexed the wrong way and doesn't touch committees at all. Besides, it isn't a news site. I want it integrated into a news site.
That alone will probably get my undying loyalty.
www.wavefront-av.com
What you're describing does exist. It's called the CBC.
The coverage is of a very high quality, and unbiased for the most part. Being publically funded (note that that does not mean government-run), it does not have the obvious corporate concerns of the American news media.
Watch an hour of news on FOX or CBS, and then watch an hour of CBS News. The difference is a matter of night and day. Soon enough you see how twisted most of the American news media truly is.
Good news.
Since the BBC does music shows, if they give away a free Apple, then Apple Records will sue them on behalf of the Beatles, both living and dead!
Video is simultaneously the lowest- and highest-bandwidth way to communicate information on the Web. I wish CNN would get that through their heads. If I wanted to watch video, I'd turn on my TV.
....a link to http://slashdot.org/
Why waste time elsewhere?
Where the key words are: "news" and "matters"...
" What type of information would you want on the BBC's homepage (or CNN's if you're in America)?"
Whenever I go to CNN's website, I can feel myself losing IQ points. And that's before I see the inevitable: "Woman dismembers own child: WATCH NOW!" which makes it sound like they have video of the act, but also is an example of their preference for sensational-but-relatively-unimportant stories like killings and missing white girls.
(Actually, it looks like they finally got rid of that kind of headline, at last.)
But really, America would be far better served if everyone who gets their news at CNN.com switched to the BBC's news site. For the most part, CNN follows the American media tendency of treating the rest of the world as a freakshow to be ignored except when it provides a "News of the Weird"-style story or a vehicle crash that kills a lot of people - that is, unless Americans are involved.
What I like about the BBC is that they're so engaged with people from all over the world. American media's treatment of the rest of the world is a bit like talking about someone behind their back.
It would also be nice if more Americans got their news from organizations who are not beholden to Washington for their ongoing existence (NPR), nor are part of the whole US corporate/lobbying/government structure.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA