Converting Science News for the Web

Navigation elements

The two sites differ in their navigation strategies. Science News provides a navigation bar leading to the homepage, searchable archives, a help page, and a search engine at both the top and the bottom of every page. From pages featuring stories, there is a list of links on the left that provide access only to the special, online features not available in the printed version.

New Scientist, on the other hand, provides a navigation bar only at the top of each page, leading to home, a job search function for scientists, subscription information, and a site search engine. Links to all feature stories of the week are available from every page.

The structure of New Scientist is more web-like, with freedom to navigate between pages readily available from every story, while Science News relies on a more traditional hierarchical structure, where access to many features is only available from the homepage, although this is mitigated somewhat by the presence of the search engine function.

In addition to these differences, New Scientist has chosen to use a closed site, with links only connecting to other areas of the site, while Science News provides access to outside links. New Scientist's strategy may be more effective in holding an audience to their site, but Science News's strategy provides users with a way to easily access additional information on topics, which may appeal to many users.

Abstract, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Works Cited

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