Shonell in TCR Land

As a user of visual media online, what aspects of interactivity and visual presentation have you come to expect in online publications and Web sites?

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I have to say that I think I’m pretty old school when it comes to what I expect from online publications and Web sites. What does that mean?

Well, for one, I’m not necessarily interested in a flooding of audio and visuals on a site. There are plenty of sites that–because they are online–find the need to use every possible component from podcasts to videos to images to the latest sharing tools, and some of these things are necessarily needed to convey the story. They do it because it’s available. Like those who over use Flash. I might be the biggest anti-Flash person on the planet, and I can’t stand when I go to a Web site and the first page is just a longwinded Flash “moment” that welcomes you to the site. I KNOW I’m going to the site, so I don’t need a welcome; I need the information I came for.

I AM interested in sites, in publications that know how to use these components well. Just as magazines, newspapers (especially papers like USA Today who moved more toward visual appeal) have to think about how to structure text and images in order to tell a seamless story, selecting the appropriate images and headlines and sub headers to go with that story, online publications and sites must also determine what it is they are trying to convey and then select the appropriate contents and structure them to be appealing to viewers…and to keep them on the page.

As stated before, I’m about less is more. I like clutter-free sites, consistency in pages and design, and the use of multimedia components to tell the story.

I also expect these sites to have functions that allow me to find material and search the space free of confusion. I shouldn’t have to search the whole site just to find simple, necessary pages like About or Contact. I like sites with “site maps” so if the complexity of their design keeps me from finding information, I can go to the site map and find what I need. However, usually, if I get to the point where I need the site map, then I’m probably too irritated with the site and those who designed it to continue further.

I also like interactivity on Web sites. Every once in a while, I get an urge to respond to material on these spaces, and I like having that option if a piece sparks me to think and respond. In addition to responding, I like having the option to share material. In my paper on mommy bloggers of color, we talked about the importance of receiving comments on blogs, and one thing that was reiterated amongst the bloggers is that the conversation beyond the blog post is very important but what was more important that a response on the blog was the need for a conversation–anywhere–on the Web. In order to do this, these sites used the sharing tools and found that most of their biggest conversations occurred off the site — on Facebook, on Twitter, on repurposing the blog content and generating an Internet radio segment on it, to name a few.

As long as I get the information I need–in a clear, concise way that allows me to search, find, and share the information, I’m a happy camper.