Ohio's Newark Advocate appears to be the first of the U.S. community newspapers to launch what immediately looks like a cleaner, less cluttered website design. The new template released today is part of a months-long redesign effort code-named "Project Odyssey." Next up, according to Gannett Blog readers: The Indianapolis Star, on Thursday. A version of this design could eventually get installed at all of Gannett's other 80 U.S. community papers.
Related: Advocate Editor Michael Shearer on the changeover
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
19 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Cut and paste still works...
ReplyDeleteThere's a fresh look and new features coming to NewarkAdvocate.com in the next few days.
Our online experts have spent many months preparing a cleaner and more modern design to deliver you news and information.
The new look was created after extensive research and testing, with many of you assisting us through two surveys and various navigation tests on the current site a few months back. We actually launched one small aspect some months ago for our photo galleries, so that won't be changing again.
The good news is you will not have to re-register to continue commenting on articles or participate on the site. Your current usernames and passwords should continue seamlessly, although there's a new Facebook connect login option available, too. This will allow you to use your Facebook account to make comments on articles.
What you'll notice first is the elimination of our rotating top-three headline "carousel" in favor of three clear top headlines of the moment followed by seven other top stories.
The homepage also features a new communities module where you can select the community's headlines you'll receive on future visits. If you pick Granville, you'll always get the latest Granville headlines.
The most noticeable changes may come on our article page, where much larger type and photos will be immediately apparent as will photo galleries viewable directly with stories. We'll also feature more imbedded maps showing where the news occurred.
You'll also find easier access to our archives and links showing the most popular content of the day.
Article comments remain on a separate page from the article, giving you control over seeing other readers' opinions. The commenting system also will include a few new features, including integration of Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Finally, new dropdown menus will appear on every page to assist you in navigating the site. I've found it to be far easier to use than our current setup.
My experimenting with our test site in recent days has convinced me we're meeting the goal of creating an engaging, relevant and more enjoyable user experience.
What we unveil day one undoubtedly will evolve to some degree in the coming weeks and months based on data we collect from your clicks and more surveys. And please help us by reporting any issues you encounter on the new pages.
I welcome your feedback.
Michael Shearer is executive editor of The Advocate, Newark Advocate.com and Newspaper Network of Central Ohio.
Um. That is not terribly exciting to me. Only one pic for lead story. Top 7 articles are very short and no pics. Top article photo gallery does not open. No pics on any local or national news. Larger fonts on opened articles is good. A very 'plain' look for sure. Not sure about this direction from my perspective...where's the color, pics, interactive stuff? What is going to get me to return?
ReplyDeleteUncluttered: yes. Dull-looking? Absolutely.
ReplyDeleteTypical insider speak. Let's see how the pilots do.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like the lack of clutter. Just promise me no popups!
Nice job by those who have worked on it. Better than what we have now.
ReplyDeleteThis is the Newark Advocate. They don't have the newsroom resources of a larger market. I'm curious to see how the design works for Indy.
ReplyDeletePictures are too small to grab attention, except for the one at the top of the page. I didn't find it easy to navigate, and certainly not easier. Go to England's Guardian newspaper Web site if you want to see an exiting layout that works.
ReplyDelete3:34 and 3:49 p.m.--If Gannett announced that it would serve all employees free ice cream in the break room every day, would you complain that the ice cream was too cold?
ReplyDeleteDitto 3:34 and 3:49 p.m. It looks small town, or maybe high-schoolish. The old templates are cluttered, slow to load and sometimes frustrating, but at least there's a little visual impact.
ReplyDeleteIt took how many committees, focus groups and corporate execs how long to come up with this???
I like the uncluttered look. Heck of a lot better than lohud.com! It does need more photos, some jazzing up, but it's a good start.
ReplyDeleteIt's an improvement and I wish them the best of luck with it.
Just a bit of advice: don't try being everything to everyone or you'll end up with another cluttered mess.
It sucks! Was hoping Gannett would finally get it right. They totally missed the mark. The Indy site looks pretty good as it is right now. Wish all Gannett news sites looked like Indy does now instead of looking like someone cut out electronic designs and glued them to the computer screen. Gannett will keep getting things wrong until they hire innovative people who know something about technology.
ReplyDeleteoh. so that's what they spent my raise on. ugh.
ReplyDeleteIf this is what $8 million gets us we are in trouble. Kevin Poortinga and Josh Resnik have been spending money like drunken sailors who have been out to sea for the past 10 years!
ReplyDeleteThis is not the original design that they were pitching to us back in Q1. They had all these design consultants come in and spent a ton of money on THIS?
Someone should be fired for this crap. I remember Bob Dickey saying this new design will "rev-up and turbo charge" our ability to charge for our content! Really Bob? Do you still believe that?
If this is the new Odyssey, $8 million later, then we have a serious problem. I doubt the prima donna's in Phoenix will stand fornthis!!!
Boring, plain vanilla, and badly thought out. After all these months of waiting for something spectacular, they have given birth to a mouse. What a yawn. Why did they even bother if they were going to produce something as uninteresting as this. Take a look at the Washington Post today to see the new approach they took. Much more busy, interesting and most importantly readable.
ReplyDeleteI agree that The Guardian has an attractive and functional site. Maybe it just looks that way since the news is so much meatier than anything Gannett.
ReplyDeleteIt looks a lot like the patch.com sites.
ReplyDeleteHardly innovative. How much did the company spend on this?
It might just be me, but feels a lot like annarbor.com, the site that Booth created after they folded the Ann Arbor News:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.annarbor.com/
It certainly isn't cluttered by anything resembling actual paid advertising... as in real revenue.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing that this pathetic Advocate would be the start of the redesign. All of those little Ohio papers are embarrassing. Remember the huge full page ad "bitch" mistake a couple months ago in neighboring Chillicothe?
Yes, while advertising on the site may be "clutter" it is very telling that there is almost none on this site. And there won't be, either.
while an improvement to the big cluster F**K of a website it originally was; it leaves us at best underwhelmed. this is not the kind of site that inspires users to revisit, much less the kind of template to build an entire franchise of websites on. As with our print products, gannett heads seem to be more concerned about rolling out a formula for assembly-line production, favoring a model that is more conducive to their consolidation efforts than it is to the integrity of the design. our websites are following the same trappings of our newspapers which are losing more and more of their uniqueness as we continue to subscribe to the "one size fits all" approach. each market needs to develop its own personality- it's own connection to the community by engaging them. we keep dumping the local talent and expect these big design hubs to save the day???
ReplyDelete