Design Is Important!

As reporters, I think we sometimes lose track of what constitutes good and bad design. At larger media outlets the design of a news page or website is typically handled by someone other than the person who actually produced the piece. On the other hand, smaller organizations are generally so strapped for resources that text and photos are quickly uploaded into a generic website and the reporter is already on to another story. For us, the “jack-of-all-trades” convergence reporters, thinking through the design elements will be an important part of our processes. Good design obviously makes the public much more receptive to the information we are providing. And design is not an impossibly hard concept to master either. The checklists we went over in class give really good hints at things to consider and they do make a big difference.