the scoop on politico

When Looking at Politico.com the first thing that I noticed was how efficiently the website was laid out. The website greets the reader with a large headline for their front page article of the day along with a picture used to draw your attention. There is a menu bar as well at the top which leads the viewer to different portions of the site such as headlines, policy, video, click, and arena. I think that this bar is effective; however, they could make their titles for some of the areas more clear. Areas such as, “click,” and “arena,” are confusing to someone who is unfamiliar with the site. I wonder though if they purposely did this to draw viewer intrigue to click on the selections and further explore the website. I noticed that at the top there are thee very subtle search bars where it states, “search by author, date, or keyword.” I think that this is a great addition to the site because it allows for a reader to easily access articles by their favorite author, and makes it easier to find a specific article that they wanted to show to others. A missed opportunity that I noticed was that when the viewer clicks on one of the above tabs that it takes them to a page that literally is only the title of an article and then annotated portion of it and then the reader can choose to click on the title to view the whole article. (http://www.politico.com/arena/) I think that this is poorly laid out because and definitely does not appeal to my generation. I feel that unfortunately websites and articles really have to draw their reader’s attention now for them to even consider reading and this does not cut it. There is nothing that makes the articles look appealing and I am not drawn to read it. It almost feels as if they spent their entire time making the front page great and then just thought that that would be good enough. The creators of this site should spend more time with the actual substance of their site than just the front page, “glamour,” portion