So I have to write a blog post about the Web site of a local news station. I thought it would be cool to review TV Tokyo’s site. There’s only one issue – it’s in Japanese.
This does present a problem, however, technically if the Web site is organized in the right way I might be able to still discern if it’s a good site or not.
TV Tokyo is the smallest of the Tokyo television networks. It’s nicknamed “Teleto” = terebi (television) + Tokyo. It’s known for it’s anime. TV Tokyo is responsible for broadcasting some of my favorite cheesy anime such as Bleach, Naruto, Love Hina, and Pokemon.
Despite not understanding the language, the TV Tokyo Web site is manageable. Visually it is appealing. It has a lot of features, but it appears to be organized so that the user is not overwhelmed unlike NHK’s Web site. Like a newspaper, Teleto’s home page is organized into three columns. Some web designers may think that this traditional approach is boring and outdated, however, if you have a whole lot of information it is best to keep the organization simple so that is easy to digest. I like the way the navigation at the top is broken up into different areas that the station offers such as food, anime, news documentary etc. Each of those different pages has a different design that fits the nature of its content. They serve as mini home pages. I think it’s harder for a channel such as this one, which has soap operas, news broadcasts, lifestyle shows etc. to find a way to organize everything. Showing a large variety of content without confusing a reader is difficult. I like how Teleto also has reusable content resources (events, movies listings, prominent on the page. These are the pages that readers will continue to come back to as points of reference. News Web sites should be used for more than just every day news and are resources for readers for other types of information.
Teleto’s site is just plain fun. Now if only I could understand what they are saying.
There’s a big difference between the news page and the anime page.
Cool blog. I would be interested in seeing in your opinion how this site is different from a lot of the American sites you’ve seen, and also some more links, but kudos for writing about a site that is in Japanese!