Jon DeNunzio on site usability

Summary: The Washington Post’s usability editor gives tips on increasing the usability of a Web site and how it impacts news organizations.

Online journalists need to create a package when publishing stories because consumers of news are no longer satisfied by having a one-way conversation with news providers.

Highlights:

• The user engagement team at the Washington Posts consists of nine people.
• Presentation has become a daunting task.
• Online journalism is an art, not a science.
• Use third-party services in creating news presentations; Blackbird Pie, Storify, Intersect.
• Mashable and Tech Crunch are best places to learn about new internet tools.
• Social media allows for immediacy and interactivity, allows us to build relationships with our users. The media suffers from a trust issue with the public, social media will help build it back.
• Verifying a story and immediacy are big issues with internet journalism today. See reports immediately after the Gabby Gifford’s shooting as an example.
• How to be social with your journalism; run a poll, pay attention to comments and respond, ask for ideas, host a poll, ask for photos.
• Actively seek experts, “you may be talented and smart, but there is always someone smarter.”
• There is no formula to measure user engagement, but the amount of user generated content and the time users stay on a page are a good start.

You can follow Jon DeNunzio on Twitter.