Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the news website and blog website. Blog websites have traditional blogs while news websites have commercialized news blogs. News Website Company not only covers the news but also have to face the challenges of displaying a huge amount of content on the homepage. For this, a designer has to face challenges in creating layouts, usability, and navigation. Monetization is the main factor for news websites and how designers integrate advertisements in the design is such an interesting thing. Sometimes the ads are intrusive or excessive but in some cases, news websites are able to use ads without turning readers away. The term “newspaper website” is related to news websites that have the editorial focus of an online periodical.
Here are some common design elements of News Website Company.
1. Color Schemes
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There are lots of news websites that use dark text on a white background. Such types of websites have a huge volume of content and for any news website, readability is an important factor. A few websites use a darker color for headers or for the body of the page outside the content. Many news websites also use blue and red colors for text instead of black or dark gray. The blue color is mostly used for headlines, links, and article titles while red is often used as an accent color. There are some news websites that also use other colors for other places like navigation. For example, The L.A. Times website has a common color scheme.
2. Top Navigation
In most news websites, the primary navigation menu is just below the header and above the content. But there are a few exceptions related to this like The New York Times and MSNBC, they both have the main navigation in the left sidebar. Some news websites use a two-level navigation menu such as The Times Online. Some companies work with others while some use their own multiple brands and add universal navigation for their news site. There are lots of websites that are adopting the vertical navigation trend which works really well. To create vertical navigation from scratch is not an easy task.
3. Content Hierarchy
During the designing of news websites, it is important to ensure that the content of the site is discoverable. The content you are presenting to the users can easily be interpreted by them or not is a big factor in discoverability. If you have a bad experience with a news site then a lack of content hierarchy is one of the reasons for this. The news sites’ main motive is to gain the attention of the users to important information and a good layout of the content can make it easy for them to digest that information. Content hierarchy plays an important role in the design of webpages and when users find it attractive they focus more attention. For example, The Atlantic’s homepage has a clear content hierarchy with bold titles, bylines, and readable blurbs that is available in the magazine’s hallmark red accent color.
4. Header and Sidebar Banners
All news websites’ main motive is to produce revenue and banner ads in headers are good for this. Banners ads are the main source of income. Some mew sites use banner ads on all pages while others use banner ads only on the homepage and display them above the header on other pages. Blogs websites use banners of 125 by 125 pixels in sidebars while news sites use banners of 300 by 250 pixels or also use tall skyscrapers. Many of the websites add some AdSense or other text links for banner ads. For example, The Telegraph uses a 730 by 90 pixel banner in its header.
5. Grid-Based Layouts
The grid system helps in align page elements that are based on sequential columns and rows. Once we’ve prepared the structured framework then we can place text, images, and any design element in a consistent. Grids help to split the pages horizontally and vertically using rows and columns. In designing news websites, designers use grid-based designs. The grid is a popular choice for news sites because it not only gives a sharp look to the site but also an effective way to manage and organize a huge amount of content. For example, The New York Times is based on one of the more well-known grid layouts.
6. Stickiness
Stickiness indicates the ability of visitors to your site to visit frequently. Sometimes it is measured in terms of page views. Social media sites are very sticky because people constantly post new images, videos, and content and because of this, people feel the need to return again and again to check the new things. News sites are also sticky like social media sites as they post new content or news all day. News organizations enhance the stickiness of their sites through design. For example, the BBC and CNN update their homepages frequently. They also have a banner at the top of the site that shows breaking news.
7. Tabbed Content Areas
Tabs are used to divide content into meaningful sections that occupy less screen space which means users can easily access the content according to their interest without checking all the content in paragraphs. Tabbed content areas are part of the news sites that has articles. It allows visitors to see popular articles, most commented articles, and recent articles. Some sites have tabbed area in the sidebar and other has in the main content area such as on Wired. Through this, users have more control over the content and links that they see. It also helps to save space in the design as it makes more content accessible in a specific area.
You can learn a lot from the way News website companies choose to present their content. The main goal of news sites is to present the content in such a way that makes the content easy and enjoyable to read and to make the content easy in finding for users according to their interests. Looking to design a news website, get in touch!
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