ProPublica - Assignment 3

ProPublica publishes in-depth news stories, most of which, if not all, are the kinds of stories we normally see in newspapers. I'd say the stories, in general, tend to be very text-heavy for online publishing.

Length of text
- The stories, in general, are about the same length as stories we read in newspapers. They range from 500 to more than 1,000 words in length - which is not good for online publishing. One example is a story on the California Board of Registered Nurses, which is probably easy to read for an expert, but not for an average user.

Scanability
- Because the stories are text-heavy, it's more difficult for users to just scan the story for keywords and important details. The Web site doesn't use bullet points or outlines that Nielsen talked about, but instead uses long sentences and paragraphs that would probably bore the average user.

Chunking
- Some of the stories are separated in sections based on what's important and logically relevant. One example is an article about civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, which contains hypertext anchors that lead to more detailed explanations, stories and documents. This saves users the time of having to read more details that may not interest them in the first place. However, I think the article itself could've been shorter and easier to read.

Headlines
- I think the headlines clearly tell what the stories are about. However, I think some are a bit longer than necessary, like this one: "With Labor Leader on California Pension Boards, Financial Firms Fattened Union Campaign Fund." I think this headline should start with the words "financial firms" since they're the main subject of the story, and the supporting words should be in a subhead.

Copy editing
- I didn't see any AP style or grammatical errors. However, most stories have long sentences that could've been separated into two, clearer sentences.

Use of inverted pyramid
- The stories use the inverted pyramid. On the main page, for instance, the first or first two paragraphs of the stories are shown, followed by a link that says "Read more." The first two paragraphs give the most important details and tell the users right away what the stories are about.

Page titles
- I think in this case, the titles of the page are the headlines. And again, they do a good job of telling the users what the content of the page is all about.

Legibility
- The content of the Web site is very legible. It uses black font color against a white background. The text is in sans serif typeface, which is simple and legible.

The top item is a story about civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the headline "Civilian Contractor Toll in Iraq and Afghanistan Ignored by Defense Dept." The story gives the numbers of civilian contractors who've died and been injured right away because these figures are important details in the story. The writer/editor also chunks the story by using hypertext anchors that lead to more details. However, the paragraphs are really long and could've been separated into shorter, more concise paragraphs. For online reading, I think this story is a bit difficult to read.