Gulf News online was ranked as the top English-language newspaper website in the Middle East and North Africa by Forbes Middle East. As great as that is, it is not the end of the road.
The first thing that came to mind was how to make the website better, and who better to ask than Gulf News readers. We asked what they would like changed the most and they answered — warts and all.
Taimoor Nawaz, a Pakistani national residing in Dubai, logs on to gulfnews.com and reads the news frequently.
He said: "I always get mixed up between the different sections and it gets confusing if you want to search for an article because there are too many sections."
Nawaz, a hotelier, feels that because there is so much content on the website that it should be simplified for better navigation.
Martin Thomas, a British business consultant residing in Dubai, also faces the same issue and that led him to use only news alerts.
Thomas said: "The content and the style of writing are good but when it is hard to get to the report then it becomes a problem."
Farhana Zaman, a Bangladesh national, suggested providing more links to related articles when reading a report.
She said: "When I read a report, I struggle to find the background or the reason to why the report was written."
According to Zaman, an accountant residing in Dubai, some of the reports do not have links to related stories that would explain more about the subject.
Zaman also thought it would be a good idea for gulfnews.com to provide a platform where readers could post blogs and have debates, such as the weekly ones on Gulf News Readers Blog — gnreaders.wordpress.com, on the website.
Dorothy Naveena, an Indian teacher residing in Sharjah, feels that the search option is not very effective as it does not find the reports that she searches for. It turns into a frustrating act when it takes a few tries just to find the report that Naveena is looking for. She said: "I do not think the search function recognises some of the key words I put in and therefore does not give me the results I am looking for."
