Online news rooms: how journalists read online media releases

Following up on our earlier post about Jakob Nielsen's findings into how journos use the web, here's an insight into how journalists read online media releases.

As part of Nielsen's study, he used eyetracking technology to see what journalists look at when they're reading online.

It is common knowledge that people don't 'read' when online, they 'scan'. As Nielsen points out, journalists are busy and work under tight deadlines, so PR pages should be designed to cater for their needs.

Below is an example from the eyetracking research showing a journalist reviewing a list of financial statements for American Airlines' parent corporation. The journos eyes skipped the "blah-blah text" at the top and went straight for the list of items. And most headings got only 1 or 2 fixations.

Eyetracking plot of how a journalist read a website's list of releases
Each blue dot represents one fixation of the user's eyes.
(Bigger dots indicate longer dwell times.)

The following gazeplot shows a journalist reading a press release on TNT's website. The journalist focused on the facts in the initial bulleted list and the second table. The journalist hardly read the concluding paragraphs and mostly ignored the first table.


Takeaway 1: headlines for press releases and other statements must be written so that journalists can grasp the gist by reading only a few words, because that's how they scan such lists;

Takeaway 2: provide interesting lists and bullet point facts - they'll get a lot more attention than paragraphs of text.

Again, here's Nielsen's findings: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/pr.html

Media monitoring

Online news rooms: usability recommedations

Usablity guru Jakob Neilsen has just published his results on how journalists use the web and specifically, online rooms.

The summary:

"As 3 studies of journalists show, they use the Web as a major research tool, exhibit high search dominance, and are impatient with bloated sites that don't serve their needs or list a PR contact."

As the report notes:

"If journalists can't find what they're looking for on a website, they might not include that company in their story. Journalists repeatedly said that poor website usability could reduce or completely eliminate their press coverage of a company. For example, after having a difficult time using a site, one journalist said:

"… I would be reluctant to go back to the site. If I had a choice to write about something else, then I would write about something else."

Another journalist described what he'd do if he couldn't find a press contact or the facts he needed for his story:

"Better not to write it than to get it wrong. I might avoid the subject altogether." "

Recommendations to keep websites usable for journos include:

- ensure that all your press materials work on low-end home computers running software that's 2 versions behind the latest release (journos tend not to be too high-tech, and often work from home)

- present all press information as simple, standard HTML, not PDFs

- clean corporate website with a clearly labeled Press or PR section

- PR areas include links to external sources, including press coverage; journalists often consider articles from independent newspapers and magazines to be much more credible than a company's own press releases

- pages must present information in well-organized chunks that are easy to scan; distracting animations and irrelevant stock photography don't help journalists who are in a hurry to find the facts

- headlines for press releases and other statements must be written so that journalists can grasp the gist by reading only a few words, because that's how they scan such lists

- sites also must offer a simple way to contact a live human being in the PR department


The top 5 reasons journalists gave for visiting a company's website are:

- Locate a PR contact (name and telephone number)

- Find basic facts about the company (spelling of an executive's name, his/her age, headquarters location, and so on)

- Discern the company's spin on events

- Check financial information

- Download images to use as illustrations in stories

For the full summary visit: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/pr.html

Thanks to Sally Falkow for bring this to our attention!

Media monitoring

Change.gov

Have you visited Obama's transition website yet? Change.gov was live within 24 hours of the election result, and is a beautiful blog style website which continues Obama's dialogue with America, and indeed the rest of the world.

Watch a video of the transition team at work, apply for a job with the new government, subcribe to the website for updates, read a plain English summary of a topical agenda item, submit your vision for the country or simply follow the countdown to the inauguration - it's all there in an easy to access, engaging format. This is website that you can easily spend time exploring for it's content, design and usablity. And who ever thought we'd be saying that about a political website?!



Change.gov does exactly what its name implies.

Tracking the media, monitoring the message