Behaviors

As we learned in class last week, behaviors are an important part of any Website. Not only do they look cool, they're extremely helpful.

For example, a journalistic site could use a jump menu to organize links and archives. I used to jump menu on my website to organize my links. I linked to some pages I frequently visit, such as CNN.com, the Entertainment Weekly site, and Pop Candy, a pop culture blog from USA Today. The jump menu can be found at the bottom left of my site.

Also helpful is the pop up window. These windows are useful in journalistic sites because they can show new information that is important to a story. However, this new information will be in a new window, so readers will be able to stay on the page they are currently looking at. I used my pop up window to send a message to readers that they are leaving my site when clicking on a link. the link reads "Click here for news" and takes readers to the New York Times Website. This behavior is located under the photo credit on my site.

Sound is also important to journalistic website. By hearing something, certain readers may be able to remember it better. Sound also lets readers know they are hearing something important. For example, a reader could click on a link and hear a quote from a story. My sound clip is just for fun, however. When a user clicks on "Contact" on my site, a sound clip of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" is played.

Finally, swap images can be used on journalistic sites. By having a swap image, a user could see a mini photo gallery of a subject. On my site, when a user rolls the mouse over the picture of me, the picture changes.

I plan on tweaking these behaviors a little, but users should be able to get the idea of the potential of these behaviors and how they could be uses in a journalistic manner.