Times_of_india_adsilva

The news website under review is timesofindia.indiatimes.com. I chose to review this website based on below mentioned aspects.
 * Assignment 1: Online news site review**
 * Introduction:**

1) Font: The font size used in this website differs a great deal. Some of the news headlines are made bold and have larger font size compared to other news headlines. Fonts which are made bold always catches the eye, however its unsure why these headlines are made bold.

2) Layout: The layout of the website is a little cluttered with information, being a news site. A new user could be overwhelmed with the information overload; however most of the web pages are maximum of two clicks away. All the web pages link back to the home page.

3) Consistency: Overall the website is consistent with its layout, colors, fonts etc. However the menu links such as “Women” and “Auto” takes the user to a different site which does not have the same consistency when compared to the home page. The small widget on the right hand side of the home page which shows the latest news, most read news etc disappears when you click on the above two mentioned menu links. This could irate the user as he would like to browse a site with little confusion.

4) Menu design: The website has a unique menu design with no left navigational bar. All the categories are grouped appropriately and acts like a drop down menu when the user clicks on the any one of the main menu links. They also have highlighted the parent menu bar to distinguish it with other sub menu bars. The top menu bar is consistent throughout the website and does not change with each page. This makes it easier for the user to jump from one section to another.

5) Audience appeal: The website is easy to navigate and the user will not get lost while browsing. The site has made use of breadcrumbs which effectively tells the user which is the current page. Site has included features to increase font size of the text which could help users who do not have good eyesight. The website has video icons next to the headlines to help users know that video streaming is available for this particular news.

Suggestions: 1) Users once signed in could customize the home page according to their taste. In this way user does not have to search for relevant news. 2) To help users locate the latest news, the website can include a marquee style headlines with “Breaking News” as the name tag. 3) The website could include text to speech converter to help visually impaired users to listen to the headlines. 4) The website is inundated with advertisements each time a user clicks on a news article, an advertisement pop up window opens. This could frustrate the user and he might not visit the site again. Website can lower the content of advertisements on the home page.