Huffington Post new subject tabs

The Huffington Post recently reformatted the top of its website. It made the search feature top and center as well as condensed its subject tabs into main topics with drop-down menus. I think this is a step in the right direction for the website to be more user-friendly and less cluttered.

Website design is quickly becoming one of the most important newsroom topics. Even if media outlets are producing great news and content, if there website is messy or difficult to navigate through, users simply won't spend time there. Last week in my News Editing class, we looked at an eye-tracking study conducted by Nielsen that showed how important layout is when trying to convey a specific message through a website. The study showed how white space is a necessary part of a website so that the reader is not confused or overwhelmed when looking at the presentation of the site. To help organize important items, bullets, tight writing and subheads are important.

Also, here is a blogger that I found who gave some pretty good layout tips using the New York Times website as an example — Design O'blog

AOL is buying Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington says this is "a merger of visions" in her latest post today. What does this mean for independent media? In class, we've been discussing the HuffPost as a prime example of independent media done right. Now, the HuffPost cannot be considered independent with AOL peering over it's shoulder. I think it will be a test of the site's integrity to see if or how the news changes on huffingtonpost.com.


Fun fact: Arianna says in her post the merger was signed at the Superbowl.