Among my online-news industry pet peeves is the unfortunate fact that most news websites run photography too small. Yeah, I know that many site editors feel compelled not to go overboard on image size because many visitors still access the Web on slow dial-up connections. Frankly, I don't buy it, and I think it's time to treat online photography better in this age when broadband penetration is so significant, even if not yet universal.
So, I'm heartened to see the newspaper
Dagbladet of Norway institute a redesign for its website that significantly expands the amount of space given to photos. (Actually, even before the redesign it handled photos better than most.)
Dagbladet.no managing editor
Helge Ogrim reports that the site's homepage has been redesigned, as well as news sections and article pages, where wholly new formats have been implemented.
Here's an example of an article page with compelling and full-sized photography.
On the photo-size issue, Dagbladet.no can afford to take some chances; the Scandinavian countries have some of the highest broadband penetration rates in the world.
I'm reminded of Poynter's recent
Eyetrack III study, which briefly touched on
photography. In that research, we noticed that photos get the quickest of glances, and typically aren't looked at first (both on homepages and article-level pages). Of course, the Eyetrack test pages didn't use great photography, nor image size anywhere near what we now see on Dagbladet.no. I can't help but think that we'd see a different result if we tested that site's new design.
