Website critique: The Hindu

The Hindu was the first Indian newspaper to go online, way back in 1995. Sadly, the website hasn’t changed since.

The Hindu is one of India’s most widely read and reputable English dailies, known for its strict adherence to journalistic values of truth and objectivity.

But the website plays no role in representing or indeed creating public opinion as has come to be expected of the publication.

The site can be accessed as www.hindu.com, www.thehindu.com, or www.hinduonnet.com.

But any which way, the website is unappealing, confusing and detached.

Screenshot of The Hindu home page, Dec 14

First impression: Unattractive

At first click, the Hindu website is unattractive.

Nothing on the home page will capture a first-time visitor’s attention. Very little will bring on a second visit.

The site has white space, yet seems cluttered, disorganised and intimidating. A far cry from the neat, clean and understated style of the print edition.

In terms of readability, the site has some positives:

• Text is clearly visible.
• It is not hindered by mouse roll-overs or blinking text.
• Font size remains consistent.
• It does have satisfactory white space.

However, with standard monitor settings, the font size is too small. This makes skim-reading inconvenient.

With regards to design, the website has a simple, four column layout. This may be functional, but is no longer the conventional web design standard for news.

Other aspects of design are as weak.

Most strikingly, the colour is limited to blue. Dark blue text is used on light blue banners and for headlines. That’s surely a D on design 101.

This colour choice is hard to justify considering blue was never associated with The Hindu brand identity.

Further, the design does not draw attention to the most important aspects of the site. Indeed, there is no design aspect to indicate relative importance of items on the page.

Even the header or top banner of the webpage carrying the name of the publication is left-aligned and not made prominent.

Surprising humility for a media organisation or just ignorance of how web users read?

A ticker running across the top of the central column and carrying the headlines is the only attempt at making the site engaging and current.

Also, the site does not include audio or video, and the home page does not carry any multimedia features.

Instead, it is text heavy. Images when accompanying news stories are thumbnail sized. The only other elements are the distracting flash banners.

Some hope amid the clutter – the lack of graphics allows the site to download fast, and the site doesn’t demand endless scrolling down to read material.

Content: Detatched

The explorer who actually braved the home page to venture deeper into the site is immediately hit by another issue – the growing suspicion that they didn’t start off in the home page in the first place.

For The Hindu online has no clearly defined homepage.

News update page, Dec 14

While the 3 web addresses lead to the ‘Front page’ carrying the main news from the print edition, a prominently displayed link on the page (‘Breaking news and alerts’) takes the visitor to the ‘News updates‘ area of the website.

The two function independently, and it is the ‘News updates’ section that carries the topical, frequently updated news as expected of an online news site.

As mentioned earlier, the website does not carry video, audio or allow for extensive use of multimedia. Evidently The Hindu has chosen to ignore web 2.0.

Most significantly, the content is highly non-interactive. The “architecture of participation” that Tim O’Reilly considers essential for modern websites is completely absent.

The Hindu still only offers information, without any space for users to create information or at least participate in information exchange.

Pages carry no comments. Unlike most news websites today, The Hindu online does not allow for stories to be blogged, posted on social networking sites, or discussed in user forums. At most, there is a link to make emailing the article easier.

Standard convention today is to carry information on most emailed or most viewed articles. This is another way to acknowledge the user’s proactive role in news creation, but is lacking in this website.

However, in parts, the Hindu has embraced blogs. Special pages for certain issues and events use blog templates from wordpress and contain posts, comments and opinions from users.

Also, it appears that the Hindu does provide entertainment content for mobiles. News feeds have also been made available.

Writing: Saving grace?

The writing is the website’s greatest strength, in terms of the issues and extent of information covered. This is because the articles are the same ones printed in the paper, all of which follow high journalistic standards.

However, these have clearly not been written for the web. Instead, they are examples of print journalism reproduced with minor modifications, if at all, for a different medium.

Most articles do not follow the guidelines for web writing as set forth by Jakob Neilson.

• The titles do not always make the stories immediately clear and are not written for search engine optimisation.
• The introductory paragraphs are often too lengthy.
• The articles are composed of long paragraphs that make it inconvenient to skim read.
• The layout has not been modified to the F-shaped reading pattern of users.
• Many stories, especially the ones in the news update area are not broken down by sub-headings.

In some sections, the reporters have provided a short summary of the story in a couple of points, after the headline. However, the formatting of this, in italics and with a blue highlighted background, defeats its purpose.

Screenshot of an article on the website, Dec 10

None of the articles contain links within them. Further, they aren’t even linked to earlier stories from the Hindu on similar subjects. This results in a very linear, close ended method of information gathering.

The articles have not been written for search engine optimisation. Breaking stories from the Hindu rank comparatively lower on Google.

Navigation: Confused

Making this badly designed site worse is the confusing navigation.

The website is like being given a map with too many unmarked roads that all happen to be dead ends.

Little or no difference in text sizes between headers, titles and content, and lack of page names makes it hard for users to know where they are.

There is only a single navigation bar on the left column. There is no main horizontal navigation bar to identify the page.

The site also lacks a meta navigation tab with options for help, contacts or user account log-ins.

Such information remains hidden in the footer. However this section is duplicated to act as a header as well in some pages.

The home page of course remains a mystery.

It was only after many visits that one realises that ‘index’ links to the apparent home page. This link was hidden in the side navigation bar, between sections for agriculture, commodities and the photo gallery.

Significantly, the main head or logo does not link to the home page either.

The user quickly realises that the navigation is not consistent. In some inner sections of the website, the navigation bar shifts to the right.

The navigation hierarchy is disorganised. Although most pages will be available within three clicks, the sections are not clearly defined.

There are no dropdown menus. Subsections within sections are simply indicated by bullet points.

It is this inconsistency and disengagement that takes away the credibility so essential for any news website.

The Hindu online: the Verdict

When compared to award-winning news websites of The Guardian, New York Times and the BBC, or even other Indian news sites, the Hindu is a far way behind.

A simplistic design may be excused – after all The Hindu never needed glitz to attract readers.

But The Hindu online needs to be more relevant, readable and convenient if it wants to attract visitors at all.

With basic changes to the website, there is no reason why it can’t be an influential source of news online as well.

Sky is criticized over suicide documentary

TV broadcaster Sky has come under fire for planning to screen the last moments of a man who decided to put an end to his life in Dignitas, a Swiss euthanasia clinic.

On Wednesday, a documentary will show retired university professor and motor neurone disease sufferer Craig Ewert taking his final breath.

The documentary Right To Die marks the first time the audience will witness an assisted suicide.

Anti-euthanasia groups and Britain’s TV watchdog have condemned Sky’s Real Lives channel for having decided to put this documentary in front of the public eyes.

The head of Britain’s media watchdog John Beyer attacked Sky’s decision to broadcast the documentary.

“This subject is something that is quite an important political issue at the moment and my anxieties are that the program will influence public opinion,” he told The Times.

“Documentary makers produce all manner of programs and no one can stop that or intervene unless they fail to comply with the requirements of the Communication Act.” he added.

Barbara Gibbon the head of Sky Real Lives has defended the chanel and the documentary, saying that it shows Ewert’s “exceptional courage” and would stimulate debate about euthanasia.

Switzerland: only country allowing foreigners to get assisted suicide

Craig Ewert died with his wife Mary at his side in September 2006. He passed away 45 minutes after swallowing a lethal dose of sedatives and using a mouth-operated switch to turn off his ventilator.

“Can I give you a big kiss?” said his wife just before he stopped breathing, she added “ I love you sweetheart. Have a safe journey and see you some time.” That is what the retired professor heard just before getting in a deep sleep from which he would never wake up.

The right to die in Switzerland is not free. Ewert had to pay 3 000 pounds to the suicide clinic. Five month before his death, he had been diagnosed with . Doctors told him he had between two and five years left to live.

Two choices were left to him as he explained “By this point I have two choices, either actually go through with it or say: ‘You know what, I am too scared right now and I do not want to do it. If I do not go through with it then my choice is to suffer and to enforce suffering on my family and then die in a way that is considerably more stressful and painful. I have death or I have suffering and death.”

Switzerland is the only country that allows foreigners to die using assisted suicide methods.While many British people have travelled to Switzerland to end their lives, their friends and family risk prosecution if UK authorities believe they helped administer the lethal dose.

 Click here for background story

 

Background to Children encouraged to use ‘Facebook’

Millions of students use Facebook to connect with family and friends making the site an easy victim for abuse.

Everyday a new dangers appear.

In December hundreds of thousands of Facebook users were attacked by the “koobface” virus according to the Evening Standard.

The virus claims to show users a video of themselves and is sent through wall posts and messages.

If the user clicks on the link malicious software is automatically installed on their computer.

“Anyone falling for this trick is risking turning their computer into a spam-spewing bot, and opening themselves up to the danger of identity theft,” Graham Cluley of Sophos told the Evening Standard.

In addition to computer virus, a users entire identity is at risk.

Privacy is an illusion when it come to dealing with the online world.

Identity theft has a new face

Hackers have now starting stealing entire accounts.

Con artists are logging into social networking sites.

Facebook reportedly has over 8 million members in the UK according to the Telegraph.

Posing as an online friend make it easier to gain a victims trust. The first report incident happened in Australia to Karina Wells.

She received a message from a friend who said they were trapped in Nigeria.

Desperately in need of cash the her “so called friend” needed 500 dollars wired to him for a flight home.

The message was written in clear English but there were clues it was a fake. The scammer used word like “cell phone” instead of “mobile phone.”

Ms. Wells went along with the fraudster. She got all their information and turned it over to the authorities.

Friend or foe

The new cases concern Facebook users.

“I would believe it was my friend writing me” says Honey Kohan, a student at the University of Westminster.

She has had an account for almost two years now.

“I mean why wouldn’t you believe it’s your friend?”

If a scam is well written, it is hard to spot the hacker from the real deal.

Internet security experts say people should be careful about who they add as friends to reduce the risk of identity theft.

A spokesman for Facebook told reporters that they are working on improving their security measures.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL POST ON CHILDREN ENCOURAGED TO USE FACEBOOK

Background for Minister shifts goal posts

Personal background

According to the Wikipidea, William Samoei Ruto was born in December 21, 1966 in Kamagut, Uasin Gishu).

He is a Kenyan politician who has been Minister for Agriculture since April 2008.

He was Secretary General of the Kenya African National Union, the former ruling political party, and he has been MP for Eldoret North Constituency since the 1997 Kenyan election.

He became Minister of Home Affairs in August 2002 but lost the post after the December 2002 election, in which KANU lost to the NARC coalition.

William Ruto is currently on trial charged with defrauding the Kenya Pipeline Company of huge amounts of money through dubious land deals, but he has been out on bond.

After a violent political crisis over the results, H.E the President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga agreed to form a power-sharing government.

In the grand coalition Cabinet named on April 13, 2008 and sworn in on April 17, Mr. Ruto was appointed as Minister for Agriculture.

Ethnic cleansing controversy

William Ruto was the treasurer of Youth for KANU, an organization seen as responsible for the ethnic violence in Rift Valley during the 1992 and 1997 elections.

A leaked, and most likely forged, Orange Democratic Movement strategy paper for 2007 elections names William Ruto as responsible for leading a campaign for exclusion of the Kikuyus, Akambas and Indians from certain areas.

The strategy paper also contains plans for use of ethnic cleansing as a last resort.

William Ruto has been accused of fuelling the violence following the Kenyan 2007 elections with hate speech.[

Other sources accuse William Ruto of actually leading and financing the genocidal actions in Rift Valley during the 2007 election crisis.

In April 2007, on the floor of the Kenya Parliament, Mr Ruto was accused of financing the activities of Fredrick Chesebe Kapondi, that resulted in the killings and displacement of hundreds of people in the Mt Elgon district of Western Kenya.

He also accused Ruto of inciting people in Mt Elgon district to kill one another.

William Ruto and the other members of Parliament denied this.

Click here to go back to the main story

Background Story: Education of Sportsman in China

Sportsman with a University’s degree is common in European countries and US, while for a professional player from China, the situation is different.

Zou’s Misfortune

In 2006 Former national weight lifter Championship Zou Chunlan was found becoming a masseuse after she was laid off by Jilin Province Sports Team in 2000, According to the Beijing News.

Zou became a member of the sports team when she was 14. From that time on she was trained without proper education.

Table Tennis One of China's Top Sports Picture by Lei Yang

Zou’s educational degree is as low as a third-grade pupil.

One of reasons contributing to the condition is the state sports system of China, which puts emphasis on training athletes to get gold medals, while ignores the education of their culture studies.

In China promising young athletes are supported by the government.

Once they are chosen by the General Administration of Sports of China, they are granted fixed wages. The centre of their life is training and winning in the competitions.

Most of the sportsmen begin their professional careers from early age. The time they should have spent studying basic knowledge in middle school is devoted to the playing field.

When the athletes could not compete any more, they have to choose retirement. Some of them see unemployment due to lack of studying and working skills.

According to Soutern Weekend, an influential weekly newspaper in China, since 1949 the retired players amount to 279,000.

Call for Change

Zou was one of examples of players affected by the awkward training system.

Her experience gave rise to heated discussion about the state sports system.

A strong call rose for improvement of retired players’ living conditions.

Since 2003, Deng Yaping, a former table tennis championship has suggested that sportsmen should get nine-year compulsory education.

According to Xinhua News Agency, on 27^th Nov 2008, the school attached to Sichuan Institute of Sports Technology was set up.

The school is the first one in China to provide sportsmen with nine-year compulsory education.

When interviewed by the Xinhua News Agency, Luo Dongling, secretary of institute’s party committee said:

“We must shoulder the responsibility of training excellent players, at the same time providing them with qualified culture education.”

Website Critique- China Daily

Chinadaily.com.cn: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Chinadaily.com.cn is the online version of the China Daily newspaper.

The newspaper was established in 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China, which makes Chinadaily.com.cn the largest English portal in China.

First Impression

The China Daily website has the typical online news resource image brought about by the white background and a middle banner size logo at the top.

The user will immediately recognize that it is an online news resource website which is essential for branding.

The website looks decent with two main colors: blue and white, but the simplicity of the color also brings dullness to the website.

Home Page of Chinadaily.com.cn

In fact the color scheme could be more colorful to attract reader’s eyes. If the names of each category could be treated with different color, it would be better for readers to differentiate and distinguish them.

On the front page, there is a huge slide occupying 3/5 columns. It’s contradictory that the pictures are not related to the top story above. It brings confusion to the users and left little space for pictures of other news stories.

As user scroll down, colorful and flashing ad banners pop up.

They animation images distract users from scanning pages and the news contents on the front page are downplayed by the annoying advertisement.

Writing

The China Daily website does not obey F-style of writing.

The writings are also carried out in a way against Jakob Nielsen’s rules of web writing.

It seems the contents of the news are directly pasted from the print version of the newspaper.

Set the “Policymakers to set tone for next’ year’s economic work” for example.

Spelling Mistake In the First Paragraph

The text looks friendly, but it will be better to change from Font “Arial” to most accepted Font “Verdana”.

There are totally 18 paragraphs for this passage, while the contents run through the whole page with no sub- headings.

The first paragraph is not bold.

There are many passive tense sentences, which are not fit for online reading.

The paragraph is too long and wide. There are several paragraphs with almost 60 words. Online users will not be that patient to move head from left to right to read through the whole story.

Even in the first paragraph, editor made obvious spelling mistakes “policymarker” for “policymaker”.

It’s amazing to discover as the biggest English portal in China, there are no links and social bookmarks in all the news stories on the website.

In terms of interactivity the website does ensure users involvement that they could write comment on the news story.

Content

In terms of the use of multimedia, China Daily truly has video inputs, but all of the video used are works from Chinese Central Television.

Although the website realized the importance of multimedia, it dose not make a good combination of multimedia usage with the news stories.

On the front page chunk of news titles are put under the dominant slide. They are crowded together and not spaced out.

There are no mini pictures beside to show what kind of stories it is to attract readers’ attention. There are no obvious signals to indicate whether there are videos included.

Only after you click the title and enter the page, can you discover what’s in it.

When readers are scanning the whole page, they are easy to discover that they are submerged in the desert of texts.

The website does set a column for videos, however achieves and news stories are mixed together without fine distinction between each other. Titles of stories are piled up in one page.

Titles Piled Up In One Page

Also as the biggest English portal in China, the China Daily website does not have RSS feeds on its website.

Navigation

It’s easy to discover that main navigation is at the top of the front page, there are sub-navigations on the both sides of the page.

Under the fold, there are navigations for each category of news. It’s a little annoying and confusing to have so many sub-navigations on one page. For a first time visitor, it would be a puzzle to find where to start searching for news.

It took me ages to open the child pages, sometimes you have to accept that you could not go back to the home page even with fast broadband connectivity.

The biggest problem occurs when you click into the child page, the navigation is not consistent. The main navigation changes the position from top to the left side.

Under the navigation, there are “Ads by Google” located at the left hand of the news story, the position could lead online users mistakenly go to the ads’ websites, but there’s no link back to the original page.