Roanoke.com, the news site for The Roanoke Times, one the Online News Association’s award for general excellence on a medium site in 2006.
The site has an attractive appearance as well as a navigable design. The tops stories are listed to next to the main story for the day, and more stories in specific areas are listed further down the page. One questionable aspect is the story in the upper left corner, which had been listed by the Eyetrack study as not ideal.
The site has a high level of interactivity. The site lists “Latest blog entries” and “Latest blog comments,” although those lists could be higher on the page. The current feature on child obesity also has an interactive quiz. The site also has an on-demand aspect with the stories listed under politics, health, business, etc. and an ability to sign up for an RSS feed. The site also has many multimedia aspects, from a slideshow featured in the top story to a top video listed for the day. Further down the page, the site lists stories through their pictures.
Most interestingly, the site has a tab for About Roanoke, which includes important local data for residents. After working at a sister paper of The Roanoke Times this summer, I know Landmark is trying to incorporate this type of aspect into its Web sites to draw more people to the news site away from typical local directory sites.
Overall, the site has a good and easy-to-use design.
Hello Karin. Here is a test comment.
Who does a test comment?