Every Company Needs a Good Map

At the risk of being a sample of one - Hugh has a great observation about that on his blog: A Politically Incorrect Entrepreneur - I noticed something about news outlets that has started to make me wonder: How much can they stuff in the first webpage, on top of page one, or on the TV screen?

Both online and offline news and information outlets seem to try to cram as much as they can into the first thing you see. At what point will one of the thousands of journalism schools conduct a study on this? When will the finest design students take a crack at coming up with a layout that works? The only changes I seem to see are an ever-shrinking paper, but not the price. There was no 4th section to the Wall Street Journal today. My local paper, the OC Register, has reduced the business section from 20 pages to 8. At least one of those was a full-page ad. I guess that at least 50% of the Sunday paper is the classified section. I toss that every week.

I decided to make some maps of the front pages of a few newspapers, websites, and TV news shows... (F,or those using a RSS feed reader you have to visit the site to see them - sorry they are too large. After wading through Guy's post about Trek bikes in my Google reader I think they need to fix that.)

For each of these maps the sections represent Pictures or text blocks. In some cases there is even greater subdivision but for the sake of this concept it is not important to go to that depth.

Here is my local newspaper:

Their website is even more crowed. I chose to stay with this for now. But you are welcome to find a news webpage that is not crowded and bring it to my attention.
 

Then there's the Wall Street Journal:

 Their website is as or more crowed as well.

CNBC during their Market Watch period:

 There are also times where the large area is split into as many as 5 subscreens, with 1 on the left and 4 on the right.

Google Search Results:

 The light lines indicate the individual search results.

In most cases, except for the Google search, there is no, or almost no white space. It has been a while since I took a marketing class but I was certain that it was as important to have content as it was to have white space. Something to do with balance and ease on the eyes.  It would appear that the website method of cramming as much material in the space has become everpresent.

If you have ever traveled outside of an area where all of the signs are in your native language you can appreciate how hard it is to find the little bit of English that is probably on there. This happened to me my first time alone in the Tokyo subway in Japan. There are English versions of most instructions and many electronic signs rotate between kanji, katakana, and English. Yet, when you are a bit panicked it is hard to see the English at all.

Contrast the overcrowded pages with the fact that one of the primary design requirements for the iPhone was - NO BUTTONS (See Business Week Story - Look Ma, No Buttons" January 2007). I do not own an iPhone, but I am getting a bit envious. They are very clean and tidy.

Take a look at your website, blog, or publication. Have you crowded out all semblance of background?

If you have, or know of a great news presentation format, I would love to see it. I have an idea for one but it's probably too amateurish for display right now.