Critical evaluation of ESPN.com
ESPN (originally an acronym for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is a U.S.-based global sports television network. The purpose of ESPN.com is to provide up to date news covering a wide range of sports. A lot of the content is original and done by ESPN’s own writers. Each sport has its own homepage and branches with their own articles and videos in relation to that subject.
When evaluating the usability of the website it is key to analyse the presentation of information, a lack of ambiguity and the placement of important items in appropriate areas. The presentation across the website delivers an easy to use feel with specific sports pages listed down the left hand side of the screen which fit with the intended audience. ESPN has however come under critism with bias towards certain teams/players. This is most prominent with favouritsim to the Boston Red Sox and New York Baseball teams. This being said, when being compared to other sports new websites it is still considered a market leader.
A key feature that ESPN.com offers is the ability for users to comment on articles or post them to their facebook or twitter pages. This leads to an increase in user interaction on the site, usually with hundred of comments of users belittling other users and their favorite teams. There are also polls where users can voice their opinion on topics being discussed that day. Dependent on the level of belittling this can have a negative effect on the users on the website and reduce the number of return visits.
- Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar.
- Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar.
- Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eyetracking heatmap. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F’s stem.
The F pattern has implications, such as the following:
- Users won’t read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. Exhaustive reading is rare, especially when prospective customers are conducting their initial research to compile a shortlist of vendors. Yes, some people will read more, but most won’t.
- The first two paragraphs must state the most important information. There’s some hope that users will actually read this material, though they’ll probably read more of the first paragraph than the second.
- Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior. They’ll read the third word on a line much less often than the first two words.
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