Laura Ruel and Nora Paul
Laura Ruel is an assistant professor in visual communication and multimedia production in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Before coming to UNC, Laura was the inaugural executive director of the Edward W. Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media at the University of Denver. She also taught journalism classes in the department of Mass Communications and Journalism Studies at DU.
Prior to joining the academic world in Fall of 2000, she worked for more than 15 years in the journalism industry as a reporter, editor, designer and manager at a number of newspapers and magazines including the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Omaha World-Herald and the Denver Rocky Mountain News.
Nora Paul is Director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota since 2000. She used to work at the Poynter Institute, holding programs in news research, computer assisted reporting, and online news leadership and also did time at the Miami Herald, running the editorial research department.
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These articles are the work of their author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of nor an assignment by OJR.
February 4, 2009
Are rotating displays of Web content an effective way to promote news stories? This is the second in a series of articles about findings from the studies conducted for the member of the DiSEL's Eyetracking Research Consortium.One challenge that faces all of us who have a wealth of content on our Web sites is how to best promote it. Unlike a print magazine or newspaper there is no big stack of paper to provide a clear physical indicator that there is much to read and experience beyond the front page.
Although we can debate the effectiveness of using a Web site’s front page when it comes to promoting content1, our industry is trying a variety of methods to tackle this challenge. One method is the “carousel” – or a rotating display of a site’s content that appears in a dominant spot on the front of the page.
You can see a variety of carousel styles on sites such as MarthaStewart.com, aol.com, msn.com and even the newly redesigned whitehouse.gov. This past October, the Yahoo! Developer network launched the “carousel control” in their user interface library. They describe it as a widget that provides a means for “browsing among a set of like objects arrayed vertically or horizontally in an overloaded page region.”
So, the obvious question from the DiSEL research consortium was: Do carousels work on news sites? Also, is there is a preferred design style that is most effective? With the help of page prototypes created by USAToday.com2 we put some carousels to the test. Here’s an overview of some of our findings. More...
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December 10, 2008
In January 2008 a group of interactive producers from news websites gathered at the University of Minnesota for the first Eyetracking Research Consortium, part of the Digital Story Effects Lab project run by Nora Paul and Laura Ruel. Following is the first in a series of articles about findings from the studies conducted for the Consortium members.
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September 24, 2008
This is one in a series of reports on DiSEL (Digital Story Effects Lab) Research projects conducted in 2007 through a research grant from the University of Minnesota. First in the series was on
Navigation through Slide ShowsWhy we did the study
One of the great strengths of the web is the ability to keep news updated and to alert readers immediately to stories they need to know about. This is also one of the biggest organizational changes the web has brought to newsrooms. Shifting from daily to constant deadlines has caused a rethinking of work flow, editing, and reporting responsibilities.
But questions remain about the best way to ensure that these updated or breaking news items are presented on the page for greatest visibility. Judging from the wide variety of design techniques newsrooms use to designate breaking news, there is no consensus on the best approach.
In May 2007 the top 102 US newspapers' websites were analyzed to catalog the different ways "breaking" news was being displayed. We looked at labels used to indicate news was updated or new and the design techniques for differentiating "breaking" news from other news items on the homepage. More...
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