france 24 provides refreshing news site design
December 13, 2006with news channel sites dominated by moving pictures and as many text links as can possibly be fit on a page, i have to say that the web site of the new french 24 hour news channel france 24 is a refreshing alternative.
the front page is not cluttered, there isn’t much else on the home page to scroll to. it is easy to read thanks to the large bold font. navigation is easy and simple. ok not everything is working yet, there are still some bugs on the site, but from a pure layout and design perspective i can see myself making this my new news home. let’s see how usable it is going to be on a day to day basis.
January 12, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I’m happy that France 24 is accessible online now. But I have to disagree with the commentary above on the site design. For a new news site that will be viewed on an international level, it should be clearer. It is confusing and the navigation is not so clear. Feels like an exploratory site. The link to the live newsfeed is sandwiched in the middle of the page and easy to miss. I only found it because they had to include an animation on the right column with instructions on where to find it. If it were easier, no animation would have been necessary and the space used could be dedicated to actual news. It would have been better to have the link placed somewhere top level near the navigation or where it makes sense. I’m hoping they’ll improve it with viewer feedback. For now, it’s a slightly frustrating experience. - g