60 Minutes- Page Design

The page layout of the 60 Minutes site is accommodating if not a little messy. The page as you first see it is organized well. It features a title banner going across the top middle of the page, the section tabs beneath that, and in the center of the page is the top story. The left of center holds a large picture that changes from one top story to another. This area area also contains a headline lede sentence to inform the reader as to what the story is about. To the right of the center is the three smaller picture of the top stories.

As you scroll down through the page, though, the page just becomes row after row of pictures leading you to other stories. Sure, they are organized into specific categories such as entertainment or politics, but the same format all the way down the length page is a bit monotonous. Each of these pictures is a link to a CBS video, so it's worth it to go through them and maybe that balances out the monotony with the excitement of moving pictures.

My favorite aspect of the site is the fact that it doesn't clutter everything up but still offers plenty of information. As Nielsen puts it, "As with all layout, whitespace is not necessarily useless, and it would be a mistake to design overly compact pages." For instance, even with all the videos and picutres 60 Minutes offers, it has wide margins of empty space on both sides. This helps the page look clean and adds to the ease of navigating the site.

It should also be noted that the web page loads up quickly. I have a 1.5 mbps internet connection, which is the internet speed of some phones nowadays, and the page loads right up. On the down side, though, I don't get much use out of the abundance of videos due to me having to wait for them to load.