Evaluating Web Writing: A Case Study of Three Online Music Magazines

Study 1: Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a music magazine that also covers politics, film, social issues, news and popular culture. It has a diverse audience who are interested in music (especially rock and roll) and popular culture; readers span all ages, from teenagers to 60+.

The homepage successfully produces the ‘alternative rock and roll’ feel of the Rolling Stone brand using bold red headlines and a white background. Research has shown that a particular typeface has a powerful effect on meaningful brand names and subsequent profit potential. Doyle and Bottomley noted that a product “with a congruent font…was more likely to be chosen for further investigation and for purchase than one that was presented in an incongruent font” (cited in Shaikh, Chapparo and Fox 2009, 1).

The homepage adopts an online newspaper format by using a vertical flow of text with information grouped by subject or idea into boxed portlets. News stories are presented prominently with bold headlines and kickers; each headline is a link to a separate page containing the full story. Good website design and information layout adds to Rolling Stones’ credibility. Morkes and Nielsen explained that “a website conveys an image, too. If it’s tastefully done, it can add a lot of credibility to the site” (1997, 5).

The homepage has many links to other news stories, photo galleries, blog archives and RSS feeds. Excluding advertisements, all links on the homepage are internal, except for links to Listen.com, a premium business partner that lists Rolling Stone as a recommended website, and Rhapsody, a subscription media player owned by Rolling Stone’s parent company All Media Guide.

The homepage prominently promotes the news story ‘Rivers Cuomo: We Ripped Off “The Sweater Song” From Metallica’ by using a bold headline, striking picture and brief kicker that are links to the storypage. The storypage can also be found by clicking on the ‘news’ tab on the top horizontal navigation bar and scrolling through an archive of recent articles. The storypage is easy to find and navigate to; the homepage successfully promotes the story through ease of user access.

Navigation around the storypage is easy as information is grouped into logical and manageable sections. All links contained within the news story lead internally to stories with related content and are used to provide readers with a background context for the story and additional information on the subject. Nielsen noted that “true hypertext should also make users feel that they can move freely through the information, according to their own needs” (1997, 4). These links encourage readers to explore the website and spend more time following threads of information according to their own needs and interest.

The news story and other content use a readable sans-serif typeface consistent with a newspaper style and use wide kerning and space between lines. Though the text alignment is un-justified, the lines of text are all of a similar length within the portlet; this increases the story’s readability.

The story is written in an ‘inverted pyramid’ format that presents important information first. Jakob Nielsen noted several user studies confirmed the effectiveness of the inverted pyramid style, as users tended to read only the first part of an article and did not enjoy scrolling through long texts (cited in Pack 2000). The story is ‘chunked’ into short paragraphs with clear topic sentences. This logical division of information aids reader retention and ease of scanning the article for key points. The story is written using simple language that is credible in its professionalism.

The headline stands out from other text on the storypage and picks up all the keywords in the article. While these keywords are successfully integrated in the story through repeated use and hyperlinks, they are not utilised for ‘tags’.

The large action photograph of Rivers Cuomo is striking and relevant to the news story. The picture is aesthetically effective as it mirrors the red colour scheme of Rolling Stone and adds to the overall harmony and credibility of the storypage.

A commentary/feedback section invites reader discussion and increases user-activity and interest in the website. This aids in a sense of community and shared values for the Rolling Stone brand and makes the story seem in the ‘public interest’. However, it is noted that Rolling Stone often deletes, revises and omits the commentary section from the website (Wikipedia 2009)

Study 2: Mojo (The Music Magazine)

Mojo was founded in 1993 and is printed monthly in the UK. Mojo has been noted for its in-depth knowledge of classic rock and coverage of lesser-known ‘left-field’ bands (Wikipedia 2009). Mojo primarily targets a British audience and is aimed at a younger demographic than Rolling Stone: an estimated reader age-span between 13-30 years.

Mojo online has chosen similar token colours to Rolling Stone, with a nominal black, white, and red scheme to give a modern ‘edgy rock’ feel. The homepage has a roughly vertical text-flow with portlets of content. It is graphic intensive, with colour-heavy banner links to articles and flashing text. The homepage is crammed with content and uses a small font which is difficult to read. News stories are presented most prominently in the top left-hand corner of the page, with each story containing a headline, kicker and picture linked to a separate storypage. The busy design and clustered organisation of content makes the homepage less readable and more frustrating to navigate than Rolling Stone.

The homepage has links to news stories, feature articles, internal blogs, and actively promotes merchandise and magazine subscription. The website features links to Aloud.com, an affiliated ticketing company owned by Mojo’s parent company, Bauer Media.

The homepage displays the news story ‘Ralfe Band Get In On The Abbey Road Act’ prominently, but readers are easily distracted by the larger graphics and flashing text of other content. The storypage can be easily found using the ‘news’ tab on the top horizontal navigation bar and scrolling down an archive list.

The storypage contains less content and fewer distracting graphics than the homepage, which aids navigation and emphasises use of the top navigation bar. Two links within the news story are used to promote the Ralfe Band and their singer Oly Ralfe: one link to the Ralfe Band’s MySpace page and another to Oly Ralfe’s personal project. The links are incorporated clumsily into the text, using the words ‘right here’ as the hypertext link and ambiguously using ‘AJ Webermen’ as the hypertext for Oly Ralfe’s documentary. An imbedded YouTube video further promotes the band and provides background context for the story. The use of external links to YouTube, MySpace and an external website signifies Mojo is willing to use free content as well as internal content that will promote the Mojo brand and products. Prominent links to RSS feeds to Digg, Reddit, Facebook and Delicious are successful in promoting Mojo brand and products.

The news story uses a legible sans-serif typeface, but lacks space between letters, lines and paragraphs. The story is written in a ‘hip’ style and is full of music jargon and pop-culture references that disrupt the flow of the story and makes text-scanning impossible. Kissane (2008) wrote, “there’s a time for professional jargon: when you know you’re speaking to an audience that understands you, and you need the extra specificity and precision that jargon can provide. If you’re using it outside of that situation, you’re probably not communicating clearly, honestly, or effectively.”

Logical idea progression and topic sentences are missing from the story and make it frustrating and annoying to read. Pack (2000) noted that “Web users are busy; they want to get the straight facts… credibility suffers when users clearly see that the site exaggerates.” The story loses credibility using unnecessary jargon.

Keywords are used ineffectively in the story or throughout the storypage. The headline uses only two key phrases ‘Ralfe Band’ and ‘Abbey Road’, which are not emphasised during the story. The tagged word ‘Beatles’ links to a search engine that draws up a good selection of related stories, but a ‘Ralfe Band’ search produces no other content.

Study 3: Mess+Noise

Mess+Noise is an Australian music community website that produces a print magazine. The target audience of Mess+Noise is young adults interested in local (Melbourne-focused) music and artists.

The homepage is simply designed and uses a vertical, column format. White space and an uncomplicated colour scheme make the homepage easily navigable. Information is logically represented under well-defined categories; the homepage displays boxed graphics and content grouped by bullet points under subheadings. The simplicity of design and colour scheme make the homepage seem ‘empty’ and gives the impression Mess+Noise is more amateur than Rolling Stone and Mojo.

The homepage promotes links to internal stories, reviews, event schedules, film clips, discussion boards and ticketing and does not emphasise Mess+Noise products as powerfully as Rolling Stone or Mojo. The homepage actively promotes the news story ‘Songs On The Road’ by using a large picture and headline. The story is easily found within ‘music news’ under the ‘features’ tab in the top navigation bar.

The storypage reiterates the simple design and ease of navigation evident on the homepage. The storypage is light on content – it contains only the story, a comments section and a side-bar of similar news stories and updates. The story contains only one internal link to ‘Spring Tones’, a music festival organised by Mess+Noise.

The tag ‘songs’ is too ambiguous and the linked search engine pulls up pages of unrelated material. Promotion of Mess+Noise is successfully integrated in the ‘share’ tab on the top of the storypage: it links to over 50 social networking websites, email and news websites, which encourages readers to share Mess+Noise information.

The news story and other content use a serif typeface that is easy to read. The story is written in a conversational tone that builds a sense of casual acquaintance and reinforces Mess+Noise’s community-based values. The story is logically chunked, but the subheading ‘Songs On The Road’ (the same as the headline) is confusing and disconnected from the following event schedule. The content of the story is easily readable, but is spoiled by too many hyphens in the first paragraph.

The story headline could be better worded to avoid ambiguity and could stand out more from other text. The headlines does not pick up the keywords ‘travel’, ‘tour’ or ‘new album’ from the story. Keywords are not used to full potential to link readers to relevant information. The unattractive photograph of band ‘Songs’ is not effective in promoting the story and the red/pink curtain background draws the eye away from story content.

The comments section lends Mess+Noise a credibility that is lacking from the absence of links and related content. The commentators seem casually familiar with each other and follow discussion threads. Wardrip-Fruin said “the ability to interact with a text seems much greater on the part of those who have written-and those, of course, who have some of its subject and tools for analysis” (1996, 357). This interactivity is especially important considering Mess+Noise’s audience and aim to create an online community.

Conclusion

Rolling Stone produced the most positive response in optimisation of content to the online environment. The homepage and storypage design are effective and navigable, the writing style professional and the story format easily readable. Rolling Stone is most effective in promoting a brand-name and a ‘feel’ for readers, encouraging readers to spend more time on the website, and cross-promoting related content through links.