Where The Hell Am I On This Newspaper Website?

Ramblings

from the what-town?--what-sections? dept

This isn’t necessarily a new thing, but it seems that online newspapers still haven’t quite figured out that the people visiting them aren’t all local any more, and they may not know where they are. So, here’s another set of complaints about poorly designed newspaper websites that don’t tell people where the newspaper is talking about (the article mentions my personal favorite: sites that say “the Valley’s newspaper” or something like that without identifying which Valley). The other complaint is that online newspapers don’t clearly state what section something is in — so letters to the editor look exactly like regular articles. Reading through a paper newspaper at least gives some context — but those same newspapers’ websites should provide more context on each page for visitors from beyond the local area.