Google News UK
Design
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Initial Reaction
The web site looks attractive and there looks to be lot's of content.
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Aesthetics
The web site looks good and matches the style of other Google products. The design is simple and works well.
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Legibility
The text is clear and legible throughout the web site
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Layout
The layout is split in two columns with the main stories from each category featured down the page. It is a simple layout and fits it's purpose.
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Presentation
The web site looks attractive and matches the style of other Google products.
Navigation
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Mouse Clicks
You can get to most articles in two clicks or less.
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Scrolling
The main headlines and navigation are above the fold, so not much scrolling is required.
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Where are you?
The category you are in is highlighted in the navigation on the left and is also displayed in the title bar. However, when you click an article it takes you to another web site where there is no navigation related to Google News UK.
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Search
The search box is displayed at the top of every page. It returns the results expected, sorted by relevance.
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Consistency
The navigation is consistent on the home and category pages. The article pages have no navigation related to Google News UK.
Content
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Home Page
The home page displays lots of news articles from all the categories. It also highlights top stories.
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Updates
The web site is updated regularly and shows the time of the last update at the top of the home page.
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Quality
News articles are gathered from over 4,500 news sources, so the quality depends on the quality of the news sources which will vary.
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Images
Most the images I found placed next to news articles were related, however some were unrelated.
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Syndication
The web site provides e-mail news alerts, RSS and Atom feeds.
Functionality
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Interactivity
There is some interactive content on the site, however the home page can be customised to show different categories and amounts of stories.
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Browser Compatibility
The web site looks and behaves the same in the three major browsers; Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera
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Resolution Compatibility
The web site is designed for a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels and expands to fit the entire width of the page in larger screen resolutions.
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Errors
I did not encounter any errors whilst using the web site.
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Accessibility
The web site failed validation of CSS, HTML, and an automated accessibility test. However, the site is still usable for the three types of colour blindness I checked for. They also offer a text version of the web site.
Conclusion
The design is simple, the text is clear and matches the style of other Google products. Navigation is good on the home and category pages, but there are no links back to Google on the article pages as the web site just links to various other new sites. There is a lot of content because of the wide array of news sources it uses, however the quality may vary due to this large amount. There is no interactive content, but the home page can be customised.
The Google News UK web site achieved an overall rating of 76%
