1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

Design your web resource 173
designer on a web site can be like being a lion tamer for a day, with
the same messy consequences.
Usability experts
Usability is now a big issue in the web world. The current thinking
goes something like: ‘The novelty has worn off. It’s no big deal to
go online any more. Expectations have risen and choice has been
extended. Sites must deliver.’
A good way to test whether a site is delivering the goods is
constantly to check with your users and consult a usability expert
if you wish. But don’t restrict usability to information-based
content. If an entertainment site is not entertaining, it’s got a
usability problem.
So, returning to the ten key stages, depending on who you read,
2–7 fall within the field of information architecture, 7 is also
navigation, 8 is graphic design and layout, 9 is user interface and
10 is user testing.
And 1 is just a question – but it is well worth asking.
Is online the right medium for my message?
‘Scuse me, while I kiss the sky . . .’ Jimi Hendrix, ‘Purple
Haze’
Everything starts with an idea and lots of big ‘blue sky’ questions.
But the most important question is often forgotten – ‘is online the
right medium for my message’?
Everyone who has written a book about the Internet has felt
compelled to address what Nicholas Negroponte (1996) called ‘the
paradox of a book’. The question being ‘Why commit your thoughts
on the power of the Internet to thin wafers of dead tree?’
The arguments are well rehearsed. Books, magazines and
newspapers are more portable, more tactile and more intimate,
and they are usually easier to read. By contrast, the computer
interface is ‘primitive – clumsy at best and hardly something with
which you might wish to curl up in bed’ (Negroponte, 1996).