Well Designed, Yahoo!

Yahoo! is a popular search engine, web portal and other related services such as Yahoo Directory, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Answers, advertising, online mapping and many more. The Yahoo! interface smartly uses spatial arrangement of written text together with visual graphics, to make reading and browsing a more pleasurable experience. Linguistic alone is no longer the structure of written text. A captivating visual connection must be established with readers via layout, spatial arrangement of blocks of text, pictures and other graphic elements printed on the page (Kress and Leeuwen 1998).

An interplay of words, pictures as well as videos can be found on their homepage. These are some of the fundamentals of multimodality that help create more effective messages. Schriver (2003) mentioned that integration of texts and pictures are both equally essential to deliver meaning. There is also an excellent usage of framing on the Yahoo! homepage ensuring that the written text and page layout are not cluttered. The more important and latest news updates have bigger pictures and more prominent wordings to capture the audience’s attention. This will aid the reading process as it provides a sense of direction and connection for the reader. Makes the written text & layout look more presentable and comprehendible as well as highlights different sections of the page layout. It also determines what is meant to be read separately or together as a whole. Framing devices determine whether the elements of a layout may either be disconnected, marked off from each other, or connected, joined together (Kress and Leeuwen 1998).

References

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, 'Front pages: The critical analysis of newspaper layout'.

Schriver, A 2003, 'Dynamics in document design : creating texts for readers', The Interplay of Words and Pictures'.