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More Than Shovel-ware

More Than Shovel-ware. A Call for Layered Stories for Online Journalism. Yanjun Zhao, Ph.D. Cameron University. How users read on the web?. They don’t. Instead of reading, they scan pages.

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More Than Shovel-ware

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  1. More Than Shovel-ware A Call for Layered Stories for Online Journalism Yanjun Zhao, Ph.D. Cameron University

  2. How users read on the web? • They don’t. • Instead of reading, they scan pages. • Reading something from a screen is more tiring to the eyes than reading the same information from a hardcopy.

  3. Web usability • Visual design of pages and the logical presentation of information • Makes it easy for the user to find the desired info quickly and efficiently • This paper addresses the story page design in online journalism

  4. The focus of this study: Text information design • Visual design of online news text • Not the multimedia add on • This study studies the presentation of text body of online news articles • the limits of shovel ware • The potential of benefits of layered stories

  5. Literature review • Current status: shovel ware • Transferring content from newspaper to the webpage with little or no revision. • This approaches assumes that people would read an article online the same way as they would read a print version

  6. Wrong assumption • The assumption under shovelware ignored some crucial features of people’s online reading style. • Scan v. read • Less patient reading long text from screen • Resolution • 72 ppi on screen • 300 ppi in print

  7. Online Journalism’s capacity • Necessary to present the info in a “scanable” way. • When info presented well, users could have easy and fast access to additional info.

  8. Layering • Dividing text-based stories into several sections, and each section has a section heading, which represent the whole section • Advantage: structure • Layering is like a map • Provide a quick idea about the gist of the article

  9. RQ: How effective is layering? • Hypotheses: compared with shovelware, a layered story will be rated as: • Better organized • Easier to understand • Faster to read • More visually attractive • Less fatigue • Less boring

  10. Method: experiment • Three groups read the same articles in three versions. • Shovelware group • Layer group • Hard copy group (Control group)

  11. stimuli

  12. stimuli

  13. stimuli

  14. Results

  15. Discussion • The Internet, as a medium, offers huge potential for journalism. • Layering offers • Better organization of info • Less time to read • Visual attractiveness • Less fatigue • Less boring reading experience

  16. Discussion • Online journalism is still in its infancy. • It is important for online journalists to understand the visual principles that underlie online writing, even though these principles don’t jump into our eyes. • The layering approach, with its clean and efficient design, has strong potential to change the landscape of online journalism.

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