The Blogging Phenomenon: Online versus Print

Dear readers,

Designing for print media and designing for online media are two very different challenges. Visual appearance and the arrangement of writing with other visual representations “contributes to meaning” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1998). Colours, layouts, voices, pathways, spatial positioning – these and other elements contribute to an overall meaning.

When designing for print, it is important to make sure your text has a voice and can appeal different reading habits. This article from Vogue magazine has been designed according to the Gutenberg diagram, which theorises that writing in a Z-shape for print is more appealing. It is two-dimensional, with much attention paid to layout.

(Vogue, 2007.)

According to Nielsen (1997b), writing for the Internet requires succinctness and scannability. Because reading from a computer screen is up to twenty-five per cent slower than from paper (supra), there should be less text present on a page. Eyetracking visualisations have shown that we read online content in an F-shape (Nielsen, 1997a), meaning “two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe”. Because readers won’t read text thoroughly, subheadings, bullet points and emphasising information-carrying words is used. The plus point of a website is that it is more reflexively intertextual. This article from Vogue Online is done according to these theories: an F-shaped layout, headings and subheadings; as well as hyperlinks and large text are used.

(Vogue, 2007.)

References

• Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (1998). Approaches to Media Discourse. Ch. 7, Front Pages: (the Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout. Hodder Headline Group: Great Britain. Blackwell: Oxford. UniSA Electronic Library.
• Nielsen, J. (1997a). F-shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content. Accessed 13 November 2008 from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
• Nielsen, J. (1997b). Writing for the Web. Accessed 13 November 2008 from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html