Layout: The layout of a regional newspaper incorporates similar choices from the newspaper itself: there is a ‘main story’ which takes up a larger share of the screen than other articles on the page, and a multitude of links to other articles, there is a masthead of the newspaper name, that either uses the logo of the paper or simple text, however there are some differences: there is a dropdown on each index page to go to multiple categories of story type, and there is a live news ticker bulletin that would obviously be impossible when dealing with a printed medium.

The dropdowns are an important implementation of selection theory as the viewer can easily navigate to any category that interests them specifically, rather than.

Design: Each website uses the colours of it’s paper as part of the colour choices, such as blue for the Star and red for the Birmingham Mail, the effect of this is that the reader will immediately know they are in the right place. Fonts seem to be less coherent: The Birmingham Mail uses similar style fonts for its headlines , a horizontally compressed serif however with the other two papers the font choices bare no resemblance to their paper. This is a good thing , because print and screen based type are entirely different situations and require different fonts for the job.Content: Content such as articles and images seems to be very similar, or in places completely identical to print based media.My thoughts: Of the three websites I believe that the Birmingham Mail does everything better: the layout is much more professional , tighter and clean looking than the other two, even if functionally they are all identical, and design wise I think the same is true, for example the fonts are closer to the newspaper than others, as well as better use of colour being employed with more page elements than the other two. The only thing I don’t like is the category dropdowns are less useful and much more ‘tabloid' than the other pages, so I will likely use categories similar to the Manchester Journal or Shropshire Star

Index page

Another important piece of design that I was not able to mention in the previous slide is that minor stories below the upper area in the previous slide is often a grid like layout of minor articles, such as those shown on the left here although I have compacted them into a list so they would fit on this slide. Most of the time they use an image and headline with no strapline or other elements cluttering the already small text. This is something I will try and reflect in my designs.

Index page - pt2

Article PageLayout: The layout of each article page is based on the index page. Every site has the same header an categories dropdown on the top of the website as the index page does. Most sites also have the right-aligned 'social' bar, with videos and most popular stories advertised. Again I prefer the Birmingham Mail's layout, even though it is functionally identical to the other two websites simply due to aesthetics.There are also social buttons for the Manchester Journal and Birmingham Mail, allowing for the sharing of stories over Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. These sites follow the inverted triangle design layout the same as newspapers do, where a headline is followed by a strapline and usually an image, then body text, although in this case it is marginally less useful as the user cannot scan around a physical newspaper page to find the articles they want, but must first click a linkDesign: The designs of each page are similar to the index pages, such as the content bar along the top, font choices are also similar, as are the colours which are in keeping with the print based colour scheme, I.e red for Birmingham mail, blue for Shropshire Star as well as the Shropshire Star.My Thoughts: Due to the fact that the designs are so similar to the front page, I still prefer the Birmingham Mail. An important design choice I must follow when creating my pages are that the top bar with the categories and the sidebar which has a live news feed must be similar, giving a common design link between each page.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++tandard. and as such I still prefer the Birmingham Mail Design Wise, although the image is too large in my view.My Thoughts: