Structure of the Site

 
The homepage of USA Today is very easy to navigate. On the top center, there is a search tool that will link you immediately to any news information you request. Directly below the USA Today title, there is a large picture on the left with a caption that allows you to see updated pictures of the day.

On the right side, working with the flow of your eye, there is a short bullet-point list of the headlines. USA Today gives you just enough information to know basic points, but you must click into the story to get the details. The USA Today homepage then breaks down the major news stories and categories to give you more information about specific topics such as health, technology, wellness and sports. This is very beneficial for people who may only be interested in a certain topic so they can move directly to their area of interest.

USA Today is very interactive and offers pictures of the day, videos and blogs so their users can be interactively connected from the homepage. This creates a habitual use of USA Today because users need to come back to read and update blogs.

Advertisements are kept to a minium on the homepage and are found only at the very bottom of the page. You have to scroll all the way down the page to see them which is very beneficial because they do not distract from the news content.

The website also has an application to personalize your city's weather so you can check it each day. This is great for people to check the weather and national headlines at the same time.

The homepage has an ample amount of white space which makes it easy for the reader to see the content. It does contain a lot of content, but by using black and white type, it is easy for the eye to navigate.

Navigation is very easy on the website. You simply type in the name of what you are looking for and a list of results appears with links for other websites. For example, I typed ‘Britney Spears ' in the search box and more than 400 results appeared without any interruptions from ads or clarifications.

Searching the site is also very simple. Almost every word or phrase you scroll over is a hyperlink that takes you to another part of the website immediately. It is very efficient.

Characteristics of the Web

The characteristics of the web are capacity, flexibility, immediacy, interactivity and permanence. USA Today does a great job of using each one of these characteristics.

First, USA Today has used its capacity to cover journalism around the world. There are reports from Iraq, Cuba and the United States that were updated in the last 20 minutes of my use.

It has the capacity to store unlimited information, therefore, the editor can allow some news stories that are not necessarily vital for readers, but could help others understand stories. For example, there are biographies about Castro on the site that would not necessarily be in a newspaper.

The website is able to put information on their site immediately because they have the flexibility to change the information as new news comes in. In the past hour, there have been more than 45 updates to the homepage of USA Today. This is a great example of the immediacy of the source. For example, one of the top headlines changed from Atlantis will return to earth to Atlantis returns safely to Earth today.

The website is very interactive. After reading a story, there is a place for reader comments. You can also participate in blogs or daily quizzes such as today's topic, "would workplace romance jeopardize your job?" This is very entertaining for readers and keeps them on your website.

USA Today contains stories as far back as 1997. Every story that is written is saved and archived. The website is also trying to upload stories that were in their newspapers before the internet was invented.

The website falls short of the permanence characteristic of web journalism. They do not have as many stories archived and easily accessible as they could. For example, when I typed in the search word 2000 presidential election, the stories only went back to 2007 that contained the words 2000 presidential election.

Writing

The writing is very good on the USA Today website. It contains short, concise paragraphs and informative quotes. The longest paragraph I found was five lines in length and the shortest was one line. I was very disappointed in the lack of hyperlinks and interactivity within the stories. There are no hypertext links, but there are a few key words in a center paragraph that you can look through to try to find more information.

Most headline stories contains either a picture or picture and video that directly enhances the reader's comprehension and curiosity about a specific topic.

The stories are very concise and to the point. They are written in the inverted pyramid style, so the reader does not have to scroll down to finish the main points of the story. Also, when possible, the stories are broken up into several different stories so the reader does not have to scroll down at all to read a story. For example, the story about a Kentucky school on lockdown was broken up into segments.

Linking

This site links handles links in several different ways. First, in each story there is a list of links under the headline, ‘Find more stories in' that allow you to search the particular geographic region of the story you are reading about. USA Today only links the user to stories or information that is on their website. They do not do hypertext links in their stories. However, they do a great job of linking headlines when you search particular topics.

Reader Services

USA Today offers every reader service imaginable. They offer e-mail updates, e-mail updates about specific topics, blogs, weather updates, RSS services , comment posting, reader quizzes, and weather personalization. The website also offers you the ability to personalize the homepage to reflect information you are interested in. The site does not require registration, but to receive e-mails or any advanced subscriptions, you must register to use the site.

Improvements

The website is very visual and contains numerous pictures, video and audio links. However, on a lot of the straight news stories, USA Today does not provide pictures with captions that would make the stories more interesting.

USA Today should also tap into Facebook and other social networking sites to attract more people in the 18-22 age demographic. The site should provide a link to these sites that have a high number of young users.