It would have been quicker and cheaper for the Sun to have translated its content to the web by simply scanning the paper in. Little would have been lost in design from its current status.
The home page is a cluttered, confusing mess. In an attempt to give instant access to all of their ’stellar’ content, nearly every story has been placed on the home page. I despair for the soul of anyone who has the time or patience to scroll all the way down to find out that Britain’s drinkers are the most generous in Europe when buying their rounds.
There seems to be so little appreciation of the contrasting demands of web and print design that headlines and ‘Sun Spots’ N.I.B.s from the print version are simply recreated on the website.
But even an attempt at direct replication onto the web leaves the website trailing behind the print version. Humorous and eye-catching headlines, the hallmark of Sun coverage and a major factor in its identity, have been greatly reduced in a sop to web rules. Stories are now giving more detailed headlines but this only seems to highlight the banality and vacuous nature of the stories the Sun prioritises.
Even the distinctive Sun masthead loses its teeth in web form. The distinctive sharp red box has been converted to a chubby pill for the navigation tools for each one of the Sun’s famed specialised sections; Dear Deidre, Mystic Meg, Page 3 Virals and Woman.
The ability of Sun readers to comment on articles is freely available and easily accessible. Unfortunately this is slightly undermined by the fact that comment pages do not give priority to the most recent posts, which stifles debate.Even more preposterous is that the paper censors many of the words most common in the Sun readers vocabrulary. Using ’sl@pper’ and ’sh@gged’ goes no distance to improving taste and decency and merely makes the reader comments seem ridiculous. The Sun should be less authoritarian towards their reader’s sensitivities. It seems patronising that they would be mortally offended to read these euphemisms in full.
The Sun has always prided itself as being a little more in touch than its stuffy and old-fashioned opponents. Their web format leaves them as the establishment dinosaur.
