Gestalt Principles
1. Rules for the system of the home screen.
The newspaper title is on the very top and covers the whole width, followed by a category bar. The rest of the image is basically divided into 2 columns. The right column will be divided into 2 or 3 or 4 according to the articles.
2. Gestalt principles:
a. Contrast: There is contrast between title and content. Title is big and content is small. When the mouse passes something with a link, the words will turn blue, which is different from normal black color.
b. Emphasis: The titles are emphasized naturally because of the contrasts.
c. Balance: The page is balanced as there are lines to make sure the articles in one sector are both laterally and longitudinally aligned. There is also enough white space. The right column seems to be a white space when you scroll down, which give the page a balance.
d. Harmony: About 30%-50% of the website is images, which attains a harmony of images and words.
e. Rhythm/Movement: Some articles are lower than the articles next to it, which attracts people to scroll down.
3. The overall composition work in harmony. The colors are clean and comfortable. Although there are lots of articles, it doesn’t looks messy as they are separated by lines. Also, the contrast between title and content help me to get the information. It’s both balanced and with certain level of hierarchy.
4. Designs are popular today are with big photos/pictures. It seems that people are more willing to “read” images rather than words today. Not only the title picture, but also pictures for other articles are used to convey the information. In another word, the use of image is generally increased. Also, column design is still popular among digital newspaper design, like it’s in paper ones. The difference is that the number of columns has been decreased to 2-3.