"define modules where the information is going to be displayed and link them to the database…"

Insert information into databases through a content management system, then define modules where the information is going to be displayed and link them to the database. This way users know where to expect the information they want as the general look and feel will be more organized.

A web design example could be Sky Sports, the online version of the TV channel. They have a loot of content that is organized in boxes and modules that are connected to a special part of the database. This also help journalists to know exactly where their articles and pictures will be displayed. Read here more  Design vs Art articles about Content Management. 

"A common problem is that users do not understand where the link could go…"

It’s important to pay attention on the way these links are done. A common problem is that users do not understand where the link could go. On the example below, taken from News.com, it’s clear for most users that clicking on "struck licensing agreements" would link to an article about that. On the other hand, clicking on "Imeem", would take the user to the company’s website or to other news about it?

The New York Times goes one step forward making embedded links more understandable, predictable and user friendly. As the user hover over the candidates’ names in this politics article, the link label appears telling users that they would be taken to more articles about that candidate. Using proper link labeling improves usability and avoid confusion. (Mouse arrow is not displayed).

In order to make reading more enjoyable The New York Times, as well as other newspaper websites, use a fixed-width screen size. It doesn’t matter how big the browser window is, the site width stays the same:

If they were not using a fixed screen size users could make their browsers too big and the text lines would be too long to easily read them.

This web design and usability pattern help users read the information you are offering them, having as a result better chances of them finishing reading the text and staying longer in your website.

It’s an extremely important usability issue to choose the right color contrast. A lot of people have color disabilities and the combination of red on white could really become a problem.

In my opinion, the new ReadWriteWeb design is too shiny, it bothers my eyes, I just don’t feel comfortable looking at it. Actually, the red on white and the green on white are the most common trouble contrast options.

Designing for the people with color disabilities is actually designing to everybody, better color contrast will be preferred by all your users.

I read about NORG.com, a kind of local Digg, at TechCrunch and wanted to check out this site. I’ve found two usability flaws, the one that drove my attention first was that each story title has a number next to it but it is difficult to guess what that number is for if you don’t know what the site is about.

Second usability problem is that it’s not totally clear the way they rate news. How this happens? No information at the About page. Also, users looking at the Top Stories ranking could be a bit confused, logically the story with more votes is at the top, but it is not clear to me that the number next to the title is the number of votes. Maybe their interface could be improved.

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Disclaimer: with this kind of article I want to point out usability and interface problems some sites could have. Please do not take this as an attack, take it as a free advice. I would like to make clear that this design problems could happen for many reasons, including lack of time or money.

But sometimes some content like pictures and video don’t have a proper text description to fish users. Of course, the image itself is a hook but if you add some descriptions to your media content in you web interface users will feel more attractive to click and go farther into your website. Here a bad design example, Yahoo! is missing the hook.

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The New York Times organizes and presents the most popular articles in a neat way. They also add a small description below each title (e.g. “Articles most frequently linked to by bloggers on the Web”). What it’s important but missing at nyt.com is the time range, it might be not very clear for many users that this page is presenting the most populars for this day.

Digg, knows better the importance of the time range settings:

This time the BBC News site messed up, giving users to many choices and making a simple feature something complicated to understand. Here, the BBC shows a traffic monitor that tells users how busy the site is. Does anyone care? Also, the mos popular list moves all the time, it gets automatically updated on every minute. Is that necessary?

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Disclaimer: with this kind of article I want to point out usability and interface problems some sites could have. Please do not take this as an attack, take it as a free advice. I would like to make clear that this design problems could happen for many reasons, including lack of time or money.

A trail of links is the 21st century usability version of Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs trail. They are not difficult to understand but there are a few things to keep in mind. For example, make clear what they are, use the words “You are here” like Wal-Mart does in it’s site.

Wal-Mart also makes the last words to look different making the user to notice that she is there. On the other hand, Shopping.com uses the words “Back to”, which is not that bad but why would you use something that might confuse users when the “You are here” works so good?

Another mistake of Shopping.com is not to make the last words to look different. Their design is just fine, it could be better though.

Breadcrumbs could be a little bit confusing if they are not implemented properly. For example, msnbc is not making a 100% good job in their already messy site. If you click on the left side menu item “Travel”, then “News”, the breadcrumbs show you as last selection “Travel News”, a selection that actually does not exist. This word-game is unnecessary and could confuse users.

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Disclaimer: with this kind of article I want to point out usability and interface problems some sites could have. Please do not take this as an attack, take it as a free advice . I would like to make clear that this design problems could happen for many reasons, including lack of time or money.