Producing multimedia information in any situation is challenging but add the need to meet a pressing deadline and get your work up fast, basic usability principles can fall by the wayside. According to Robert Niles, editor of Online Journalism Review, in such situations there is no time for usability testing so “editors, reporters and designers need to develop a reliable, subconscious sense for the reader’s perspective, and apply that constantly in their work”.
His comment are added to some useful research into how four leading news sites nytimes.com, bbc.co.uk, Spanish elmundo.es and German zdf.de, produced multimedia features on the tsunami disaster in Asia. In an article based on the research, “User feedback drives five principles for multimedia news on the Web”, Peter Schumacher list five principles for multimedia news:
- Avoid an information overload
- Have users’ expectations concerning interaction functionality in mind
- Be careful using animation
- Let users fully control the interaction
- Involve users in testing your graphics.
The article has some useful lessons for anyone producing multimedia news.
