Somewhere down the line, a news website front page usually ends up having long lists. A lot of the elements on the page take the shape of lists, prolific among them being story headlines connected with different sections of the site. And the more the news categories the longer the list. Many news site front pages these days are largely made up of these long arrays of headline links.

Lists or link hierarchies are perhaps the single biggest element that detracts from the visual appeal of front pages. Long lists are boring, but many sites may regard them as an an essential evil in the compromise between providing the maximum number of links to draw visitors as deeply to the site as possible and boring readers to death. (Link fatigue? An understatement!)

On the one had you can see some sites trying to fight a valiant battle to restrict the number of story links in most categories. On the other you have front pages that do not have problems with long lists that stretch on and on. They may have a number of links in each section that add up to an awesome figure for a front page. Try counting!

Some sites tackle this problem through customisation: readers can decide on the number of headlines they want to see in each section. But I’d like to focus on the conventional display of headline or story links on web pages. Here the point is a simple one. There are ways of making them look okay if not downright irresistible.

Consider these:
• · Use some kind of a marker to guide the eye. Bullets, if used properly, generally make lists look good. Using some kind of a marker is usually better than using none at all.
• · Think of ways in which colour can be used to liven up lists. You can use colour in creative ways to make lists easier to navigate and attractive to the eye.
• · Give breathing (white) space to list items. This is a vital factor in making lists presentable.
• · Break lists into sub-parts. There are many ways in which this can be done. One part of the list can be highlighted more in display terms than the other, for instance.
• · Add a text hierarchy in display terms. Displaying some headlines in a larger font than the others is one way of doing it.
• · Add pictures. Photos, large or small, can breathe life into a dead list.
• · Add graphic elements. Can work wonders like photos.
• · Consider horizontal lists instead of vertical ones to break the visual monotony. Who says that lists have to be oriented vertically all the time?
• · Avoid underlined links. Links without text-decoration are fine. Just try it out.

This is just for starters. I think there are many more ways of making lists more interesting. Sites that have long pages and get it right usually use some of these elements to make their front pages livelier. I don’t know why some others are just not making an effort.