The headlines are divided up into different sections such as ‘UK News’, ‘World News’, ‘Strange News’, ‘Technology’, etc so it covers a broad range of stories. The ‘UK News’ and ‘World News’ headlines are the ones which are updated most and feature most heavily on the homepage as these are obviously considered more important than the other topics and more relevant than some of the more obscure features. For example if something big was happening (such as reportings of a terrorist attack somewhere) and people looked at the Sky News website, they could expect to find breaking news from these sorts of stories on the homepage rather than ‘Israeli Police Hunt Chocoholic Thieves’ which is featured in the ‘Strange News’ section. I tend to find their hierarchy of stories is generally fair and there tends to be a good choice/variety of top stories chosen to ensure people want to click on and read.
The website is striking and sophisticated, even though there is a lot of information, it’s all clear and our eyes are still drawn to the top stories.
The company’s corporate identity is clear and reflects the colour scheme and fonts, etc of the television channel. This is very important so that our brains can associate one with the other and make the connection whether it’s a subconscious one or not.
The background is white which looks professional and neutral as white is not going to exclude any part of society. The dominant colours are white, red and black. These 3 work well with eachother and everything can be read clearly. The hyperlinks along the left hand corner have a grey background, which just emphasises them slightly and makes us aware they’re not part of the main page and they will be there no matter which story we click on. So basically, this left hand side bar is our main way of navigation. Navigation toolbars are often found at the top of a webpage, but I think it works well at the side as even when you scroll down you can still see it and are therefore reminded that you have choices, but also if we keep clicking and get ‘lost’ in a sense, we know by clicking on this we will be brought back to a more main, ‘central’ part of the site. What does anyone else think about the importance of navigation tools?
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2 comments:
Alyson,
I'm glad that when you've described the website, you have stretched beyond the description into analysis, considering why they have chosen to design the website in this way. I agree with the comments you make about the importance of maintaining a corporate image. Is there anything on the site which allows users to change the colours....as for people with dyslexia, this can be a useful feature of website design?
All the best
Emma
I had not thought of looking for this, I actually can't find anything on the website that enables to user to alter the colours or the size of the text. I do find this rather surprising on something as famous and worldwide as Sky News.
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