Biz readers want stock data, not big pictures

Derek Donovan, the reader’s representative at the Kansas City Star, writes about the response the paper got to its Thursday business section front.

Donovan writes, “I had to laugh to myself at this morning’s news meeting during the critique of the day’s paper. While reviewing pages from the print edition, a few editors noted the Business centerpiece, which was made from a table of regional stock listings instead of the photo or graphic usually seen there. This is the kind of thing newspaper people generally consider bad design.

“One caller this morning had quite a different take on it, though. ‘I wish every day the Business page looked like it does today,’ she said. ‘That’s what we care about — how those stocks are doing, some big overblown picture that people who are concerned about money don’t care about.’

“Other readers have told me similar things — they they’d prefer more text and fewer visual elements to the page. On the other hand, I can’t count the number of compliments I’ve heard for photos and illustrations, too.”

Read more here.