Sky News
Design
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Initial Reaction
The first thing you notice is the main headline in the center of the page. Also, the advertisements are very noticeable. There is at least one that moves quite a bit and distracts you from the content.
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Aesthetics
The web site is attractive. It uses different tones of blue with highlights of red, which works well.
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Legibility
The text is easy to read, but maybe legibility could be improved if some of the smaller sized text is made a bit bigger.
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Layout
The layout works well with the main headline and image taking up the most space. Other main stories are below with smaller images, then lot's of text links to other stories.
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Presentation
The web site looks professional and presents information effectively.
Navigation
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Mouse Clicks
You can get to most articles within three clicks.
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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 only indication as to where you are on the site, is that the category you are in is made bold within the navigation.
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Search
The search box is present on every category page. It returns accurate results sorted by relevance.
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Consistency
The navigation is consistent throughout the site, with the exception of the showbiz section which is like a mini site within the main web site.
Content
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Home Page
The home page displays the main stories and lot's of links to other stories.
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Updates
The clock and scrolling news headlines give the impression that the web site is updated quite often. The stories on the front page seem to change regularly too.
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Quality
Sky is a large company and is trusted by many people, therefore it is a trusted news resource.
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Images
All the images I found within news articles where related to the article they were placed in.
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Syndication
The web site provides SMS and Desktop news alerts, RSS feeds and a podcast.
Functionality
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Interactivity
There is a poll on the home page and a feedback page only. There is a link to a Sky News Panel, but the link did not work.
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Browser Compatibility
The web site looks and behaves the same in the two of the three major browsers; Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. In Opera, there were a few layout problems, but the web site was still usable.
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Resolution Compatibility
The web site's main content width is around 800 pixels, but still causes horizontal scroll bar when viewed at 800 x 600 pixels due to a wide background image and the scrolling news headline. It is fixed width, therefore has lot's of empty space on the right when viewed in larger screen resolutions.
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Errors
I did not encounter any major errors whilst using the web site, only a broken link to the Sky News Panel.
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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.
Conclusion
The web site is attractive and the layout works well. Navigation is consistent and you can easily find what you're looking for. It is updated regularly and has many ways to syndicate it's news articles. The web site works well in all major browsers in a variety of screen resolutions, but it isn't very accessible.
The Sky News web site achieved an overall rating of 72%
