Navigating the news net: How news consumers read the electronic version ofa daily newspaper

More and more news outlets are opening up on the World Wide Web. As newspap ers in the UK and around the world join broadcasters such as CNN and the BB C, and news agencies (e.g. AP, Reuters), there is much discussion about the particular features of an online news service that set it apart from its p rint equivalent. This concentration on the migration of the news content fr om one medium to another has not, however, been accompanied by the same con cern for the migration of the reader. This paper describes one small-scale experiment observing users both freely negotiating The Times Web site and e ngaged in specified tasks that examined navigational and other access/retri eval issues. Findings indicate that the much trumpeted "value-added" elemen t of newspaper Web editions - such as reference and archive services - were not expected or particularly admired by readers, who simply required a com prehensive hard news service. Navigational difficulties, occasioned by poor signposting, multiple menu bars, unstructured contents lists and complicat ed organisation and layout, proved to be issues shaping user opinion far mo re than actual site content.