Web sites would not be nearly as attractive and alluring without pictures like the one shown above. The bright, rich colors seem to pop as the light of the computer screen spotlights the photos. News Web sites like Yahoo! News and Reuters use this to their advantage, displaying numerous pictures each day.
Comparing Yahoo! News and Reuters
Yahoo! News exhibits “The Week in Photos,” demonstrating the alluring quality of colorful images. On the other hand, Reuters devotes a whole Web page to pictures.
The Reuters page includes:
· Editor’s Choice gallery
· Story slideshows
· Pictures of the Month
· Pictures of the Year
· Portfolios of various photographers
Despite the vast amount of pictures available on Reuters, the site makes some mistakes that Yahoo! News does not.
· The Reuters pictures are simply too small. Usually when users click on a photo for a gallery, they expect to see larger images. The pictures on Reuters’ slideshows got smaller than they were on the front page of the site. Worse still, the ads in the slideshow are almost as large as the pictures. It is extremely distracting.
· While it is true that the Internet allows for a seemingly endless capacity to exhibit pictures, that does not mean we should try to use it all. A slideshow of 24 photos is too much. People do not have the patience to click through that many, and it is easy to get lost in the whole thing.
· Yahoo! News and Reuters both show the thumbnails of the pictures in the photogallery, but Reuters has the pictures going vertically across the side of the page. This is a minor issue, but our eyes naturally scan from left to right and perhaps Yahoo! News’ horizontal method is more pleasing to the eye.
Some of my favorite pictures:
REUTERS/Mick Tsikas
REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
REUTERS/Darren Whiteside
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