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What Do You Want on a News Website?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the information-that-matters dept.

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)?"

9 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Break it down by Siberwulf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  2. Portal by Baricom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. What would I want? by grogdamighty · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "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'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.
  4. Someone will say it.... by XBL · · Score: 5, Funny

    Porn! It would fit well into the BBC website main page. Please no British chicks...

    1. Re:Someone will say it.... by booch · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think a Page 3 Girl would be more appropriate. And British women would be fine. There are plenty of hot British women; see the list in the Wikipedia article. Or go to Page3.com.

      --
      Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
  5. Less bloat by iriefrank · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. I want news by Johnso · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I want news, not sensationalism. Drop the misleading headlines and transparent opinion pieces.

    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.
    1. Re:I want news by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 3, Funny

      I want news, not sensationalism. Drop the misleading headlines and transparent opinion pieces.

      If you don't like slashdot, why not just come out and say it?

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  7. Re:800x600 still relatively popular. by great+throwdini · · Score: 4, Informative
    For a website that is aimed at non-technical users, it's probably too early to ignore 800x600 usability.

    ...or those who are running at higher resolutions, but prefer not to full-screen browser sessions. Those types always seem to be overlooked when people start to throw about statistics of this sort.