Research, experience and statistics over time show that visitors want a media Web site that is simple rather than complex.

“Too busy” is a common criticism and ranks near the top of the list with slow speed and “I can’t find what I want.”

It is not uncommon for a media site to have total pages in the tens and sometimes even in the hundreds of thousands, especially if they are archived over a period of years. I have worked on metro sites where we processed hundreds of stories each week. That equals 100,000 stories a year. The vast quantity of copy pushes Web staffs to user wider and longer home page formats.

One major online newspaper site I won’t name had 134 story links on the home page on a particular day. It had 164 section and sub-section links. It had another 20 advertising, search and general site links. Does it surprise anyone that a person faced with more than 300 choices on a single page may feel overwhelmed?

The lessons: Count your links and set a limit. Put strict parameters on the size of the page, which will force hard choices about what to put there, just as you would with a newspaper front page or TV news program. Use more subindexes and search functionality.

Review the site architecture and write it down on a piece of paper. Does it make sense on paper? Taking a step back and looking at the user experience objectively will lead to higher audience numbers.