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Improving and Critiquing ESPN

According to Writing and Editing for Digital Media by Brian Carroll communication is the dynamic, co-created practice of shared meaning. Today I will be critiquing the popular website ESPN's effectiveness when communicating to their viewers. When observing a websites communicative strategies you must first look at the tone and voice of the website. The website's tone helps attract viewers towards excitement happening in the world of sports, but the voice lacks to attribute with the tone. The website guides the direction of an emotional feeling towards viewers with the sports pictures and scores at the top of the website, but misses including a specific outlined voice for the website. I believe the tone is appropriate because it adds to the exciting things that are constantly occurring in sports. In my opinion the greatest feature of the website is the drop down menu at the very top. It promotes use by giving the viewers options to view more personalized content based on the sports you like. This drop down menu attributes to the great navigation of the website. 

(photo by NBA.com)

    ESPN is a visually pleasing website offering a massive picture with every headline going down the page. These graphics, like the drop down menu, make it quick to view highlights, propaganda, and news. However, sometimes when viewed this can seem like too much all at one time. With so many colors and numbers it can sometimes be too much to handle. That's why I believe that there needs to be more spacing between photos and text. Another thing, is that the photos with video embedded links, take away from the Top Headlines section on the right side of the screen. The glory of sports media is being able to write and give facts in a detailed paper about whatever it is that interests you. Another weakness in the website is their headlines. Brian Carroll states that to write good headlines, you must first find your keywords. I feel that ESPN doesn't do a good job of using their key words and sometimes can go off the rails with their headlines.

    As far as organization and sequencing goes, I feel that ESPN does a good job of keeping the massive overload of content that they have organized. Many different types of individuals visit their site and they categorically sort the data well enough to make it swift and user friendly. Maybe the most important part of critiquing and improving a website is the websites writing quality. Sadly I think this website discounts the writers. The "Top Headlines" section of the website is much smaller and much quieter than many other parts of the website. The actual writing being done on this website is highly discredited by the massive clips and pictures that cover your screen.

    Overall I believe that ESPN as a website does a great job displaying their content and creating an easily accessible website that people can enjoy their favorite sports, stay up to date on recent events, and connect as a community.