SINGAPORE'S NATIONAL COSTUME?

Curtain? Rug? Or a Masterpiece that reflected Singapore's multicultural identity? The national costume worn by Ms Singapore 2011 Valerie Lim, at the Ms Universe Pageant in Sao Paulo, has sparked an online debate that is as fiery as its colour.

This picture of Ms Lim on stage at Credicard Hall attracted hundreds of comments within a day it was posted on the Yahoo! Singapore Entertainment website on 8 September 2011.

The best comment came from Anuradha, who wrote, "It's a clever fusion of all the 4 ethnic races in Singapore. The top looks like a Saree, the well fitted right waist with the high slit is like a Cheong Sam and her head gear is of Malay influence...". The worst comment was made by Power JD, who said,"I have a curtain just like dat!".

The weekend edition of Singapore daily The Straits Times (ST), The Sunday Times, carried the same story three days later on 11 September 2011, under "Breaking News". I wonder which part of its story is "breaking news", considering the ST story reported nothing more than Ms Singapore was spotted in a national costume in Sao Paulo as well. While the headline - Ms Singapore Universe seen in "National Costume" - seems to suggest that there are some controversies brewing over the costume, the story did not mention any.

For those who are interested, this year's "national costume" is designed by Hayden Ng (see picture with Ms Valerie Lim). In his blog, "Ms Singapore Universe 2011 National Costume", Hayden explained that he was inspired by the Peranakan wedding gown in designing this year's national costume, which incorporated elements of other ethnic groups in Singapore as well.

Despite the half-baked story, the ST Online is a good website for Singapore news. It has a well designed information architecture, which makes it really easy to navigate through the pages.

I was directed to the ST webpage containing the National Costume story via Google. Once I arrived at the webpage, I could tell that I was reading a news article within the Singapore News Section of the The Sunday Times. The navigation bar at the top of the page gave a good overview of the major sections of the site. With a mouse click, I could go to the top of the section, other main sections and the Home Page. 

The website also tried to anticipate my needs by providing links to related stories. On the right side of the three-column page was a list of Singapore-related news headlines, sorted according to the time of posting. It also provided a list of top 10 most popular Singapore news stories. 

However, I love the "sort" function of the Comments section the most. It allows me customise the comments in four ways: Popular Now, Best Rating, Newest First and Oldest First. I could choose to read the top 5 most popular comments instead of ploughing through all comments. I think the website passed the Keith Insone Navigation Stress Test with flying colours. What do you think?