What about lists (unordered and definition)? I’d like to hear some reader thoughts on when to use (and how to style) lists in content. I think lists are easier to read through quickly, as content can often be consolidated and abbreviated while still getting the entire message across.

However, your comparison with newspaper articles is a contentious one and I’m sure many newspaper editors would disagree with your point about headers.

Layout on the web and layout in the printed press (especially newspapers) are two entirely different sciences. Even the writing style is different.

I agree sub-headings on the web are a good thing. In print, there’s just not enough precious column inches to waste the space!

The three articles you link to are not written for the web, they’re written for print.

Ted, thanks for the list suggestion. I agree - a list can be used to present information in bite-size chunks to the reader.

Aaron, I don’t want to dwell too much on the header issue but here’s my view:

I agree that (sub)headers may not be fit for newspaper print, but the sites in the examples were all web versions of national newspapers. I didn’t aim to compare web and print.

The three articles you link to are not written for the web, they’re written for print.

Whether they are written for print or not (I think these are web only stories), surely it would take minimal effort to put headers into the online version? When putting print material onto the web, the material should use the web to its strengths not simply copy the story online. But that’s a different article. ;)

Regarding your points about quotes, you might want to check out my pull-quote design showcase, which provides some examples of creative pull-quote styling.

In times of css its pretty easy to make anythink look like a header. What you talk about, especially on headers, is more a question of web standards.

I would find it interesting how to “design” your h1-h6 and your p tags and so forth, so that your content becomes more readible.

I for example have trouble scanning through your article because I have the feeling its visually not well structured. You have main-headers which have sub-headers which differ only in font-size, which makes them a bit hard to differentiate. It all looks kind of the same…

Anyone up for it?

Cheers guys.

@ Ted: constantly working on it and trying hard ;)

We are starting over with a new CMS, but now although our legacy systems are being upgraded to allow subheads to be noted in the XML, the programmers on the web development side are loathe to style tag anything other than headline, byline, caption and text.

This leaves web producers the only option of manually scanning a large quantity of stories daily in order to catch these things. Visually helpful? Absolutely. Workflow efficient? Not really.

Your suggestions are fantastic and I agree with all you have said, but unfortunately are backburnered when handling large loads of content.

Thanks for the honest insights into some of the issues for news editors. This article wasn’t meant to be a complete criticism of online newspapers in general, more of a suggestion of ideas for those lacking in visual sparkle.

We are starting over with a new CMS, but now although our legacy systems are being upgraded to allow subheads to be noted in the XML, the programmers on the web development side are loathe to style tag anything other than headline, byline, caption and text.

This leaves web producers the only option of manually scanning a large quantity of stories daily in order to catch these things. Visually helpful? Absolutely. Workflow efficient? Not really.

This boils down to technology, I know. I agree that if it takes, let’s say, an hour just to style the headers, it isn’t efficient enough to warrant the effort. And the story will probably not get out onto the web faster than competitors’ stories.

With XML delivering the different aspects of your articles, it surely isn’t a large step to control the style of what it outputs. Unless I’m misunderstanding you, you could develop a set of CSS rules that style every single article automatically as required with minimal effort?