Assignment 3

Being a person who doesn’t look at the news very often, I will typically hear about some big issue and go and google it. Naturally, I gravitate to Google because it is what I typically use and because it is easy.

On a closer inspection on what I think is ‘better,’ after a perusal of both sites, I still felt Google won. Just looking at their ‘home’ pages, Google doesn’t have the aesthetic appeal that Huffington Post does, but it is more organized. Topics are grouped on Google, whereas there is just a jumble on Huffington Post (ignoring the navigation bar) and I found myself getting lost in all the pictures and headlines on The Huffington Post.

Google:

Huffington Post:

However, one on this same issue, Huffington Post does have a clear navigation bar with categories that drop down to give you even more specific choices. Google’s navigation is on the side and it isn’t as user friendly. People want the navigation bar to be in the same place on every site. If it isn’t on the top (or near it), they don’t see it.

Huffington Nav:

Google Nav:

I get most of my news by typing it into Google and searching. On the Huffington Post site, they have a tiny search bar below their logo, which takes more time than I want to spend to look for it. With Google, it’s all about searching, so it takes no time at all for me to navigate to the information I want.

Huff Search:

The search bar is so tiny and hard to see crowded by all the other things around it.

Based solely on aesthetics, Huffington Post is better than Google. Huffington Post focuses more on images and placement than Google does. The Huffington Post is more creative with showcasing the popular news and not having all the stories in a perfect grid (as the first Huffington Post image shows). Google’s layout feels very crowded and they fill every inch of space with something. If I didn’t just type in news to search on Google all the time, I think I would get more overwhelmed with how it is presented on Google. It would be almost like information overload, but at the same time, Huffington Post can feel like that too with the over-emphasis on images.

Since they both are trying to get the news across, I think Google is more effective because they don’t overwhelm you with images, which people typically look at more than text. Sure the images on Huffington Post grab viewer’s attention, but I find myself just looking at the pictures, getting bored eventually, and leaving the site because my attention span for news isn’t very long. If I’m looking to get news, I don’t want to get too distracted with pictures, but I want to read the blurbs that are provided, so Google comes out on top.

Talking about the blurbs, Google rises above once again because the Huffington Post mostly just utilizes catchy headlines, but doesn’t give any more information about the article. I only have so much time to get updated on the news, so I want to know that the article I am going to read will be relevant. Headlines can often be misleading and I rarely want to trust them.

Overall, I prefer Google because I like to utilize the search bar in finding news. The site may not look as pretty as the Huffington Post site, but I feel like they get you more information faster. There’s less navigation involved with Google (mostly because Google’s purpose is to be a search engine that gets people the information they want, faster). The Huffington Post is just a little too focused on being pretty.