{"id":4268,"date":"2014-05-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/?p=4268"},"modified":"2024-05-09T17:01:26","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T17:01:26","slug":"design-cues-news-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/design-cues-news-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Design Cues from 3 Top News Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gone are the days of text-heavy, unorganized websites with little to no visuals, confusing navigation, and hard to read fonts.<\/p>\n<p>Building user-friendly, clean, and beautiful websites aren\u2019t just for top brands or graphic designers; these days, businesses from restaurants to realtors and newspapers to nonprofits are taking advantage of this trend to tell their story.<\/p>\n<h2>Traditional Media Catches Up With the Times<\/h2>\n<p>As print subscriptions continue to drop, publications are hiring design teams to come up with the best format for their mix of breaking news, long-form journalism, audio and visual media, and community building.<\/p>\n<p>Three major news outlets have redesigned their websites in the last several months, after comprehensive user surveying, internal testing, and analyzing massive amounts of data.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the changes from each, with takeaways for nonprofits looking to enhance their online presence and keep up with the times:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4269\" src=\"https:\/\/causevox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/NYTdesigncues.jpg\" alt=\"NYTimes website\" width=\"645\" height=\"284\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>New York Times: NYTimes.com<br \/>\n<\/strong>Focus: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/redesign\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cDesigned with you in mind.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>New features and updates:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Responsive interface so that it is optimized for any device<\/li>\n<li>An entire article on one scrolling page rather than split on multiple pages<\/li>\n<li>Richer storytelling with more photo and video-based interactive content (Ex. check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/projects\/2012\/snow-fall\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Snowfall<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2014\/01\/24\/opinion\/food-chains-extra-virgin-suicide.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Extra Virgin Suicide<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Cleaner fonts, more white space<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><em>Takeaways for nonprofits:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Interactive, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/nonprofit-storytelling-crowdfunding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">visual storytelling<\/a> is key: try it for both longer-termed campaigns with multiple elements, or for a short story or update from your team, or to recap an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/fundraising-events\/\">event<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Strive to keep <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/donation-page\/\">donation<\/a> and signup forms or longer stories and blog posts to one page each, and you\u2019ll see higher action and read rates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4270\" src=\"https:\/\/causevox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/NPRdesigncues.jpg\" alt=\"NPR website\" width=\"645\" height=\"280\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>NPR: NPR.org<br \/>\n<\/strong>Focus: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/thisisnpr\/2013\/08\/14\/211374863\/outside-the-box-welcome-to-the-new-npr-homepage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u201cWe have more to tell you.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>New features and updates:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>More prominent member station connection and location targeting<\/li>\n<li>The uniqueness about stories highlighted cuts through \u201cheadline haze\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Favorite programs and stories with enhanced audio and video<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Takeaways for nonprofits:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Look for ways to put a local spin on your content and actions for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/community-building-for-crowdfunding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deeper connection to your community<\/a>, i.e. a searchable list of volunteer activities, partner orgs, or hometown advocates and champions.<\/li>\n<li>Be inspired by NPR\u2019s integration of radio and web and think strategically about cross-channel storytelling. Ex: Photo story accompanied by a podcast, or a video that links to an eBook download.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4271\" src=\"https:\/\/causevox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/USATodaydesigncues.jpg\" alt=\"USAToday website\" width=\"645\" height=\"359\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>USA Today: USAToday.com<br \/>\n<\/strong>Focus: <a href=\"https:\/\/usatoday30.usatoday.com\/money\/business\/story\/2012\/09\/13\/usa-today-unveils-redesigned-newspaper-website-mobile-apps\/57776732\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u201cTo take visual storytelling to the next level.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>New features and updates:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Redesigned print and web for stronger visuals and voices<\/li>\n<li>Enhanced user control and customization for reading style<\/li>\n<li>Flip horizontally through articles and sections (inspiration from tablets)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Takeaways for nonprofits:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use layers of content through color, layout, and functionality to drive the narrative. Ex: Campaigns house a slideshow format blog\/story for an introduction, a video gives a behind the scenes look, and infographics are always in the blue box in the right margin of a campaign page.<\/li>\n<li>Study how your supporters consume content when creating new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/tips-from-a-website-guru\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">elements for your website.<\/a> What\u2019s on-trend (mobile) may not suit your audience. Perhaps they still prefer more text and less video. Or maybe they get all of their information from Twitter. Do your homework.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let&#8217;s take a step back&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2>The Big Picture<\/h2>\n<p>Just as newspapers are taking a cue from their magazine counterparts, nonprofits can follow the lead of those in the business of telling a good story.<\/p>\n<p>As with any major design changes, it\u2019s important to do audience testing to ensure your updates are in line with what your community wants and how they interact with your mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gone are the days of text-heavy, unorganized websites with little to no visuals, confusing navigation, and hard to read fonts. Building user-friendly, clean, and beautiful websites aren\u2019t just for top brands or graphic designers; these days, businesses from restaurants to realtors and newspapers to nonprofits are taking advantage of this trend to tell their story. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jenna Notarfrancesco","author_link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/author\/jenna\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}