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Online Journalism in the Web Design Process

by Doug Millison

No matter how pretty a web site is, no matter how impressive the interactive technology might be, if the editorial environment doesn't give the customer what she needs, if it doesn't make her feel good about being there, she won't explore your site or use its features. Applying proven online journalism techniques to the web design and development process is the key to building web sites that get the results you want.

Click on the section headings or just scroll down to read more.

What's so important about words?
Words are your web site's primary interface element.

Why hire an online journalist?
Online journalists know how to gather information then weave a web of words and visual images to communicate compelling stories.

How it works
How to integrate an online journalist into your web design and development team.

What's so important about words?

When it comes to attracting, satisfying, and keeping your Internet audience coming back for more, words make all the difference.

Once you get serious about hiring a team to design and develop your web site, you'll probably learn more than you ever thought you wanted to know about project timelines, visual design, navigation, page- and site-level schematics, and web technology. And that's all very important, no doubt.

But, the single most important element is the editorial environment you create to attract the customers you need to make your web site a success. Words remain a web site's primary interface element.

Words engage the audience, guide them, pull them deeper into a site, and keep them coming back for more. Graphics -- photos, illustrations, charts, plus the basic graphical interface and navigation elements -- are also important but because of resolution limitations, they take second place to the words.

No matter how pretty a site is, no matter how impressive the interactive technology might be, if the editorial environment doesn't give the customer what she needs, if it doesn't make her feel good about being there, she won't explore your site or use its features.

Few visual designers or programmers have the depth of understanding or experience necessary to create editorial environments that keep customers coming back for more and recommending it to their friends and colleagues. Which is not to minimize the great importance of visual design and the programming it takes to make web sites work -- it's only to say that the editorial design should be part of the web design process from the beginning.

Why hire an online journalist?

I always encourage web design teams to include an editor/writer with journalism experience in creating editorial environments that successfully attract their target audiences.

Good journalists have mastered the art of gathering information then weaving a web of words and visual images to communicate an unforgettable story.

Good journalists also know that even the best researched, best written story will fail if it's written without an intimate knowledge of the target audience. A New Yorker feature story probably won't work for a National Enquirer reader.

What journalists have learned to do is to use words, supported by illustrations, to create environments that immediately engage a given audience, suck them in, touch them, motivate them, satisfy them, and leave them wanting to come back and do it all over again. . . . editorial environments that make a customer want to click to the next page or scroll down to the bottom of this one, that make them eager to return to the site for the next editorial update.

How it works

Before planning or writing a single word of copy I work with clients to achieve a deep understanding of the customers they want to attract to their site. Who are they? What do they need? What do they want? What do they like? What do they dislike?

Next, I spend the time necessary to understand how the client's products and services offer unique ways to solve the target customer's problems. Using this knowledge, I work with clients -- and the site's visual design and technical team -- to develop stories that will engage their target audiences.

I use these stories to design an editorial environment that will attract, motivate, and satisfy the target customers, keep them coming back for more, and prompt them to recommend the site to their friends and colleagues. The editorial environment consists of a series of pages containing text narratives of various lengths (including headlines, sub-headlines, paragraphs, articles, captions, interface instructional copy) plus graphics, that will give the target audience all that it expects and more, from the site's home page all the way through to its deepest levels.

Once we've agreed on the editorial environment design, we agree on a set of deliverables. After each draft, I incorporate client feedback, and test it in the context of the site's evolving visual and interactive design.

The result? An editorial environment that is designed from the start to appeal to the site's target audience, and to work as an integral part of the overall visual and navigation design.

I also work with clients to establish an ongoing editorial management process, including the creation of a site style manual and detailed editorial calendar. I consult on the hiring of site editorial personnel, and am available to recruit, hire, train editorial staff, and to manage a site's editorial process.

If you're interested in talking more about your project, please send me an email at millison@online-journalist.com with your contact information and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.