Online News Pet Peeves are Revealed

Poynter Online has a post and several follow-up comments about pet peeves with online news sites. It’s a useful list that can also be applied to non-media sites. Among the offenses cited by readers:

• Failure to clearly indicate the media outlet’s geographic location
• Difficulties finding the media outlet’s contact information (phone number, address, fax number, etc.)
• Failure to clearly differentiate links to video files
• Too many ads placed within long stories
• No option to click a thumbnail image for a larger view
• No dates or times on stories
• Lack of printer-friendly layouts
• Headlines that are too clever
• Lack of links to related sites and stories

Read the full post here. It’s a solid list, but I’ll add a couple more:

• Headlines that work well in print (when supported by photos, graphics, subheads, etc.) but fail online. Our local newspaper’s site, for example, has links to “Newest Leader Resigns” and “Rhetoric Ramps Up,” which provides the user very little information about the story.
• News sites with partial RSS feeds that feature only a headline and a sentence or two. When scanning dozens of RSS feeds, I rarely take the time to click through to read the full story. And if I’m reading feeds while offline (in a car or airport, for instance), I don’t have the option of clicking to read the full feed.