The Website of USA Today

I have never been to the USA Today website before the re-conceptualized site come out. I read some people’s comments about the renovation of the site and found most of them are negative. I disagree with most of them. Having read through the site, I think in general, it looks informative and easy to use. However, I think the layout is not appealing and it does not look like a traditional newspaper’s site.

I found the site easy to navigate. Basically, I can see a summary of the whole site on the front page and am able to go everywhere I want from there. When I move my mouse on some photos, I am able to read their stories, and this function is convenient for me. And links to different sections of the paper are in obvious location of the front page, which makes you almost impossible to get lose. However, one thing I do not like is I think the headlines on the right hand side of the front page are not presented in a clear way. I think USA Today should locate headlines according to the sections they belong, but not the time they come out. It confuses me when I want to search a particular kind of news articles.

Though I believe the site is easy to navigate, I dislike its layout. I think it is unwise to use black-and-white color as its main tone. That will bore its readers and make them want to close the site. In addition, the site should consider enlarging the size of the words and changing the fonts because the size-eight black Arial is boring. I look at the New York Times and Washington Post websites, and both of them are using Times New Roman, which are easier to read. Moreover, I believe the multiple advertisements located on the front page randomly are awkward. Readers will feel being disturbed while they are going through the site. Advertisement can be placed on the side of the page, but should never locate in the middle of the text.

Moreover, I think traditional reporting no more dominant the USA Today website. The website contains videos, photo galleries and blogs, which all aim to assist its readers to better understand the news. In addition, in contrast to traditional reporting, in which information flow is usually one-way, which is from the news corporation to the readers, now the website allows its readers and the editors to interact with each other? Readers can leave comments on the site to reflect what they are thinking. Multi-media journalism has replaced traditional reporting now.

After reading through the website, I in general disagree with the negative points mentioned by other readers. I think it is informative, updated, and easy to navigate. Though the layout still has some problems, it can be easily fixed. And though now the website diverges from traditional journalism, we should gladly accept this change because multi-media can really help readers to get their news more effectively.