An arts and culture website aimed at a young age bracket requires a particular balance of usability, aesthetic appeal and quality content. A web-native audience is likely to possess all the features of typical web users, who according to Steve Krug “glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for.”[1] As an audience interested in the arts, they are also likely to seek dynamic and interesting design.
Perhaps most importantly, a website focused on art and culture needs to contain quality content, in-depth enough to impress cynical readers but also written accessibly and engagingly. This analysis looks at two Australian arts and culture sites, The Enthusiast and threethousand, and US arts and culture site Slate.com. Using an article from each, the success of their web content is assessed, based on both the quality and style of the writing, and in terms of web writing and usability principles.
The Enthusiast homepage
The Enthusiast, an ‘online magazine of culture and the popular arts’, was started this year and is run by three young Melbourne-based journalists. The tone of the site reflects their age; it is aimed at the 25-34 year old age bracket, and is likely to appeal to followers of indie culture.
The journalistic background and obvious web savvy of the Enthusiast editors are reflected in the site’s content. Cash for Cockheads, an opinion piece by editor Mel Campbell on the Kyle and Jackie O affair, immediately catches the eye. It is a well-argued analysis of the incident, pointing to the broader culture of commercial radio, rather than that particularly typical event, as being the core issue of the controversy.
The article reflects the style of the website as a whole – it is written a fairly simple format without too many extras – it has one image and no multimedia additions or break-out quotes. The writing style is concise and informal which makes it accessible, especially for the young audience at which the site is aimed.
The article’s simplicity complements rather than detracts from its strength as web content. It is clearly categorised and dated, and the reader is immediately aware of the style (through the title and the introduction) and the argument (through the introduction) – broadly reflecting an inverted pyramid style, [2] though the article is strictly written as opinion. The sub-heading ‘The Economics of Taste in Commercial Radio’ more explicitly describes the central argument of the article and tells the reader what to expect.
Particularly strong is the frequency and quality of the article’s links. Links are an important rhetorical tool when used properly as they provide corroborating evidence or tangential information to support a writer’s work.[3] However, they can be distracting when over-used and, as Lynch and Horton have pointed out, should not replace narrative.[4]
In this Enthusiast article links are used sparingly and effectively, with an astoundingly well-rounded list of mainstream and independent news stories being cited as well as a couple of links to their own site. The hypertext also serves the purpose of highlighting keywords, supporting the article’s scannability.
Nielsen has found that among web users, “scanning is the norm, that text should be short (or at least broken up), that users like summaries and the inverted pyramid writing style, that hypertext structure can be helpful, that graphical elements are liked if they complement the text, and that users suggest there is a role for playfulness and humor in work-related websites.” [5]As an article typical of the Enthusiast’s style, ‘Cash for Cockheads’ ticks all these boxes.
Overall, the site employs a very simple format, with eight logical categories forming the basis of the site’s structure. The homepage is therefore easy to navigate, however the space devoted to graphics leaves only enough room for the main story above the fold. This does the site a disservice as it obscures the amount and diversity of material available at first glance. On article pages, the side menu does provide ‘related links’, however these are not in a prominent position and may be easily missed.
While Jonathan Dube encourages journalists to “look for stories that lend themselves to the Web” and use multimedia tools to enhance their work,[7] the Enthusiast seems to have consciously chosen simplicity over new-fangled technological feel-goodery. On the other hand, they have a strong social media presence. The fun images also complement the writing,[8] and for these reasons the site gets away with its avoidance of moving image and sound. Its strength, for now, is its simplicity.
threethousand.com.au
Simplicity is not a description that could be used for ‘the weekly snapshot of Melbourne’s subculture’, threethousand.com.au. It is aimed at a similar age bracket as the Enthusiast, however has a different approach as a review site consisting of short-form pieces rather than analysis. The ultra-hip site is loud and colourful, reminiscent of a MySpace page or photo-gallery.
The site offers various options for navigation including an events calendar. The main menu is catchy but mysterious, inviting the user to decide whether they’d like to ‘shop’ ‘look’ ‘read’ ‘watch’ etc. To find Rachel Eliot-Jones’ review of the Happy River Café, for example, the user must click through to ‘eat’ to see what is available under that category.
Threethousand’s articles are kept short and snappy, which is appropriate for a review website. The site delivers on its promise of being a collaboration of creatives, as the text seems to be almost an equally important part to the other elements on the page including the graphics. Each piece uses a left hand column to convey the basic information about the subject of the review.
Links are used sparingly throughout the site, mainly to provide context or information about a related person or place. The style of writing is particularly informal and appropriate for the age-group. To this end, there is no acknowledgement of the inverted pyramid, or any other shape for that matter, in style of the articles. While this suits the ultra-informal style, the text does not rate highly in terms of scannability. However, the short length of the articles, the images, the basic information on the left hand side and a short summary including keywords ensure that the text is not relied upon for the essential information.
Nielsen has found that “promotional writing, which is the style most commonly found on the Web today, had much lower scores on virtually all usability measures.”[9] While threethousand doesn’t use promotional language, its eagerness to sound hip at times obscures the message of articles in the same way. Towards the end of her review of Happy River Café, we learn that Eliot-Jones likes it. “If you roll with a pint-sized crew come weekendtimes, I hear there’s a pretty rad brunch setup with shelves of toys to choose from.” A rating system would work well as an additional visual cue for scanners who are bamboozled by the lingo (do the kids say bamboozled?).
The site prides itself on its editorial independence, stating that the “editorial you read is featured because it’s worth it – not because it’s paid for.” Their eagerness to state their interests, or lack thereof, are well advised. A 2005 Consumer Watch report found that the perceived credibility of a site is increasingly important for web users. [10] However the description of site references their publisher, RightAngle Studio, without explaining their relationship with the site or its history. While this most definitely doesn’t spell conspiracy, they would do themselves a favour to provide a bit more context to put their users’ minds at ease.
US site Slate.com
U.S online magazine of arts, culture and politics Slate.com is recognised as a leading site in its genre. Their experience, reputation (and budget, most likely) are reflected in the site’s appeal and usability.
The site’s homepage offers the user several paths to access information. These include a rotating feature story and image, a list of latest stories, a graphical sub-menu of other featured stories, and lists of the day’s articles. There are also 8 categories on the top navigation bar.
These various point of entry advertise the range of stories on the site. The images work well to space the text lists and advertise stories. The top navigation bar also produces roll-over menus of each category’s content, which makes the stories accessible with very little effort by the user.
The Dud in the Mud is review of Ang Lee’s new film, Taking Woodstock. While the title may be in danger of being “catchy but meaningless,”[11] the article is advertised under the Arts category on the homepage as ‘Ang Lee’s slight and gentle-spirited Taking Woodstock’ and is clearly categorised under movies. This leaves the reader in little doubt about the type and subject of the article. This is further clarified by the article’s summary lead.
Links are used extremely sparingly in the review. As a site with a solid reputation, Slate’s writers may not feel the need to use hypertext as a rhetorical tool in quite the same way as lesser known sites, and links are less useful in the context of a review which is in a large part the author’s opinion. In this case, Dana Stevens uses links to contextualise the film. In general she links to external sites, though her references to literature take the reader to their Amazon entries which are uncomfortably commercial and do little to inform them about the book.
The author links only once to another Slate article, however the piece is framed by lists of related topics on the site – including a list of articles ‘you might also like’- which serve the purpose of cross-promoting the site.
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Amber Simmons from A List Apart has defended the cause of good writing on the web, saying “I challenge the idea that web writing, which increasingly is becoming the soul of literature and media in our world, shouldn’t be beautiful and meaty, even lengthy where appropriate.”[12] The strength of sites such as The Enthusiast and Slate.com can be in a large part attributed to the skill of their writers, who use concise and persuasive writing to retain the attention of their readers. In the case of Slate, good writing is complemented by a well designed and very accessible and usable site. The style of threethousand differs slightly to the others as the content is kept short and catchy – which is ultimately very appropriate for their audience.
All three sites appear to have a comprehensive social media strategy, acknowledging the fundamental point that web publishing is networked, and that “on the web PEOPLE and LINKS control distribution.”[13] They use very different but ultimately appealing designs, and particularly through linking and easy navigation, have used the non-linear nature of web-publishing to good effect.
Skeleton picture: Flickr, perpetualplum
[1] Krug, Steve,
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2
nd Edition (New Riders Press, 2005)
[2] A Nielsen study found that users often prefer the pyramid style as it allows them to understand the purpose of the content without reading too far into the article. Nielsen, Jakob and John Morkes, ‘Concise, Scannable and Objective: How to write for the web’ (1997) at http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html, accessed 26/8/09.
[3] Nielsen and Morkes, ‘Concise, Scannable and Objective: How to write for the web’ (1997).
[4] Lynch, Patrick J., and Sarah Horton, ‘Editorial Style’, in Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (2009), at http://www.webstyleguide.com/wsg3/9-editorial-style/index.html, accessed 26/7/09.
[5] Nielsen and Morkes, ‘Concise, Scannable and Objective: How to write for the web’ (1997).
[6] ‘Valentines to the Web’, A List Apart (14 February 2006) at http://www.alistapart.com/articles/valentines/, Accessed 27/8/09.
[7] Dube, Jonathan, ‘Writing News Online’ (2001) at http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=41309, accessed 25/8/09.
[8] “Words and pictures can be a powerful combination, but they must work together.” Nielsen and Morkes, ‘Concise, Scannable and Objective: How to write for the web’ (1997).
[9] Nielsen and Morkes, ‘Concise, Scannable and Objective: How to write for the web’ (1997).
[10] Consumer Watch, “Leap of faith: using the internet despite the dangers”, Consumerwatch.org (2005)
[11] “Avoid catchy but meaningless headings. Don’t force readers to read a text segment to determine its topic. Highlighting or linking meaningless or ambiguous phrases will not help you with optimizing your content for search engines and may even harm the overall search visibility of your page by adding confusing keywords into the mix.” Lynch and Horton, ‘Editorial Style’, in Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (2009).
[12] Amber Simmons, ‘Reviving Anorexic Web Writing’, A list apart, (July 30, 2007) at http://www.alistapart.com/articles/revivinganorexicwebwriting/, accessed 28/8/09.
[13] Karp, Scott. ‘The only way for Journalists to understand the web is to use it’ (21/1/2008), at http://publishing2.com/2008/01/21/the-only-way-for-journalists-to-understand-the-web-is-to-use-it/#ixzz0PGxV4XvI, accessed 22/8/09.
Just because the first time was so much fun, I thought I’d throw in a review of another arts and culture website.
Posted by bowerbirdblue 
