Designing Effective Online Press Rooms

Corporate resources available to journalists today are increasingly Web-based. Though most corporations still have human press contacts, journalists are relying more and more on corporations' "online press rooms" for background information, quotes, photos, and other information. That same information is just as easily accessible to investors and consumers as well. With journalists' increasing reliance on online press rooms, however, come usability issues. Unless sites are kept current, press releases and other information easy to find, and contact names and numbers easily accessible, journalists are apt to simply give up seeking information on a corporation's site and look elsewhere. The following discussion will note the most common problems with online press rooms and will review relevant literature and the problems and suggestions it presents. It will also attempt to offer some prioritized guidelines of its own-involving, among other things, the use of more advanced technology such as customization using server-side includes-for information designers wishing to make their corporations' online press rooms more effective for journalists and others.

The usability of online press rooms is currently a popular topic with information designers and public relations professionals alike. Two recent high-profile publications have attempted to highlight the problems with many corporations' online press rooms and offer suggestions for improvement. Kara Pernice Coyne and Jakob Nielsen's "Designing Websites to Maximize Press Relations: Guidelines from Usability Studies with Journalists" is a summary of the findings of a usability study conducted with journalists on several corporations' PR sites, as well as a collection of guidelines for improved usability. "A Blueprint for Media Relations: Building Effective Online Press Rooms," by David Hubler et al. and published in PR News, aims to do the same, but from the perspective of public relations professionals.

Despite their differing perspectives, the publications come to many of the same conclusions: For one, poorly designed corporate PR sites easily alienate journalists, as well as potential or current investors and consumers. The more difficult a site is to use, the less likely a journalist is to spend time on that site. In some cases, especially when deadlines are involved, journalists may simply choose not to write about a corporation if its online press room does not quickly provide the information they need.

Coyne and Nielsen cite the five most common reasons journalists in their study gave for visiting a company's website:

finding a PR contact
checking basic facts about the company
discovering the company's own spin on events
checking financial information
downloading images to use as illustrations in stories

Making these five reasons usability goals should be the aim of every corporation when designing its online press room. To gauge how well corporations are fulfilling journalists' needs today, the online press rooms of three very visible firms are examined next, using these five goals as guides. Included among them is one (the press room of Philip Morris) that was also examined in the Coyne and Nielsen study. A brief evaluation of the press rooms of these three companies provides an eye-opening look at the differences between--and lack of any usability standards among--corporate press rooms today.

Figure 1. Philip Morris' "Press Room" (click to view live site)

As one of the corporations most closely examined by both the public and media today, Philip Morris must ensure its online press room is both accessible and usable by not only journalists but concerned consumers as well. Upon visiting the Philip Morris site, one notes that "Press Room" is one of the first links on the page, after "About Philip Morris" and "Philanthropy." Interestingly, "Investor Relations" is listed completely separately from "Press Room." On the main press room page (Figure 1), "Contacts" is again one of the first available links, thus fulfilling journalists' number one goal. Provided on both the left and right sides of the page are "Spotlights" on current Philip Morris news items. In this case, both spotlights concern current legal proceedings, and present the company's own "spin" mixed with basic facts about the cases. Also on the first page are links to recent press releases, with descriptive titles as well as dates of release. Also on the PR page, as is the case with all Philip Morris pages, links to the corporate pages of each member of its family of companies is provided.

All in all, the Philip Morris online press room fulfills journalists' basic content requirements, but provides nothing of note beyond those requirements. While the site is simple and its information easily accessible, Philip Morris provides nothing in the way of outside opinions or media coverage, and instead focuses on hard facts and its own corporate spin on issues. Minimal "spin" is a good idea for Philip Morris, since many of the issues it deals with are quite delicate, and deal with major societal concerns.

Bank of America's corporate site would presumably be geared toward financial reporters and investors-perhaps even more so than to mainstream reporters.

Figure 2. Bank of America "Newsroom" left nav bar (click to view live site)

Though the "Newsroom" is not as immediately obvious as on the Philip Morris site, it is located in a logical place: on the left edge of the page, under the "Inside Bank of America" popup menu. Once there, the wealth of information available easily outshines that of Philip Morris. Most of the page is taken up by the obligatory latest press releases, but an easily-navigable left bar lists the options available to people perusing the site (see Figure 2). Those options include archived press releases, speeches by executives, executive profiles, media contacts, press kits, media archive searches, and corporate "fast facts." Also on the Newsroom page is the latest Bank of America stock price, as well as links to detailed corporate financial information.

The information provided on the Bank of America corporate "Newsroom" page fulfills the basic five needs of journalists as stated above, and then some. The information provided is also helpful to investors and consumers, and its completeness helps add to customer-and community-confidence in the corporation by bolstering its corporate image.

Finally, Apple Computer is one of the most scrutinized companies in the technology world today. Customer, investor, and technology analyst opinions of the company are constantly shifting, which would presumably make the company very sensitive to press coverage. Providing accurate and complete information about major product announcements and corporate developments should be key. A look at the "Apple Press Info" page (Figure 3) of the Apple website is a bit discouraging, then, in the page's lack of focus.

Figure 3. Apple's "Press Info" page (click to view live site)

The page is shared equally in space by product announcement information and links to recent press releases. Though each product announcement (and, in the case of Figure 3, major retail announcement) has its own contact information immediately following it, a link to a full contact list is relegated to the very bottom of the page, almost four entire pages down and past product announcements from almost one year ago. Also at the bottom of the page are links to the Apple press release archive as well as "Investor Relations" and profiles of Apple executives.

Though the Apple press room fulfills most of the basic goals of journalists as stated previously, its organization and layout may prove frustrating for some. In addition, most of the information on the site seems to be happy marketing "fluff." For example, in the press release for its new portable computer, the following quote is included: "The new iBook is wonderfully small and light, and packs in all the amazing features you'd expect from Apple." This quote, by Apple's CEO Steve Jobs, is noticeably canned and contains little information beyond what is already stated elsewhere in the press release and online specification sheets.

More intelligent placement of links to company background information, investor information, contacts, and press releases-plus more substantial content-is recommended for easiest access by journalists and investors. One has to wonder if at least part of the press' ambivalence toward Apple is due to the poor collection and organization of its PR material.

From the evaluation of just three different corporations' online press rooms and the inconsistencies in organization, content, and layout among them, one can see why members of the press become easily frustrated with many corporate PR sites. For these sites and others, suggestions from both the Coyne and Nielsen study and Hubler et al.'s PR News article might help create a better experience for journalists, investors, and consumers: First, corporations must create simple, streamlined experiences for visitors to their PR sites. Flashy animations and graphics must be avoided since they are both unnecessary and can take up bandwidth. Designers must design for speedy information retrieval by creating easy and accurate search capabilities, providing contact information up front, and by writing short but descriptive titles for press releases. Content creators must go beyond the simple corporate-backgrounder-and-press-releases format and provide links to external sources, downloadable artwork and photos, and more detailed content such as white papers and archived webcasts. Finally as with all Web content, corporations must realize that it truly is the World-Wide Web and plan for international journalists: account for differing date formats, low-bandwidth connections, different languages, etc.

The previous recommendations could apply to most any web design task. Quick access to useful information is a universal need for all web users. One might wonder, though, what role evolving web technologies should play in the creation of effective online press rooms. Below are a few suggestions:

Use server-side includes to offer online press room visitors a choice of the type of information they are given. For example, visitors to Bank of America's Newsroom could select from a menu whether they are mainstream journalists, potential investors, technology reporters, or consumers. Press releases and other information could then be tailored to their interests and/or occupations. At all times, however, the link to the full press release list and other corporate resources should be obvious and easily accessible to prevent frustration

Use cookies to remember who the user is, so information is tailored to that user every time he or she visits the site. This would prevent the user having to choose what area in which he or she is interested each time

Corporations should also constantly look for ways to make improvements to their online press rooms. End-of-page surveys (i.e., "Did you find this page helpful?") are one way to measure whether the content the corporation thinks the press wants is actually being read and is useful

In the end, it is up to corporate information designers to design sites that fulfill the needs of the press. As with all information design, continual and careful evaluation and consideration of an online press room's audience and purpose will ultimately be key in determining what works and what doesn't. It is up to corporations to realize that design of content geared toward press is as important-if not, in some cases, more important-than the design of content oriented toward consumers. Conscientious planning, implementation, feedback, and revision are all key components of the successful design of online press rooms.

1. Coyne, Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen. Designing Websites to Maximize Press Relations: Guidelines from Usability Studies with Journalists (Executive Summary). 2001. Nielsen Norman Group. http://www.nngroup.com/reports/pr/summary.html (May 15, 2001).

2. Hubler, David, Suzanne Turner, Kay Bransford, and Mitch Betts. 2000. A Blueprint for Media Relations: Building Effective Online Press Rooms. PR News 56 (49): 1-5.