EPJ News Multimedia Project Critique

As part of EPJ, we've been asked to critique a multimedia project from a news organization's website. I chose to critique "disabled in Vietnam" by LiPo Chung, on the San Jose Mercury News website. (Alternative link here.)

As you might be able to tell from the screen capture, the project, etc., was a little bit larger than what was allotted for viewing on my screen. When I scroll down slightly, I can view the whole thing, but not the whole page.

This, I think, is poor planning on the Mercury News's part, because in order to see the controls, the user has to scroll away from the identifying logo for the site. Yes, they may have gotten there, by choice, specifically choosing the website before the multimedia project, but often times links to articles or multimedia stories are forwarded. Having that name recognition there for the user to see, without having to work at it, is important. Most people are lazy and will find it irritating to have to use the scroll bar to simply see something very simple.