We have turned off comments on this column because we'd like to have feedback all in one place. Please use the link to the right to submit. If you'd like a response back from the editor, please include your e-mail address when submitting the form.
• • •
On Tuesday morning, we’re unveiling a new design for IdahoStatesman.com — one we think makes our website better, easier to use, faster and less cluttered.
We know change is hard, but we think this change is well worth doing and is overdue.
Our users here in Idaho — as well as users at McClatchy websites across the country — have made the same complaints for years. Our sites are busy. Our navigation systems are complex. Often, it takes our users longer than it should to find the specific content they want.
The problem has always been the wealth of information we have in our newspapers and our efforts to reproduce that online — along with all sorts of online-only content, from databases to photo galleries, from comments to blogs.
We want to give you everything — and we think everything is important to certain users. And it is.
But this is the Information Age. There is a glut of news and information out there, and we should be giving our users a website that helps prioritize that content, that is more intuitive and easier to navigate.
Once the company decided that’s what we needed to do, they marshaled resources to get as much input as they could from users. They created a variety of designs and asked users to evaluate what worked and what didn’t. For the past few months, right here in the Treasure Valley, different subsets of users have been choosing their favorite location for photo galleries, the names of advertising features and how to provide time elements on updates of news stories.
Now we not only have a new website that is created by users, but it’s one that can be enhanced and improved as we continue to gather input from our users.
Here’s what you’ll see on Tuesday morning:
• A sharp, clean design that loads faster, according to our time trials. Of course the speed will depend on what service you use, but we think most of you will see an improvement. I particularly like the bold new masthead.
• Easy access to the content that is most popular with our readers: headlines and summaries of breaking news and top stories, photo galleries, obituaries, local deals, story comments and columns on high-interest topics from BSU football to politics to opinion to prep sports to entertainment to outdoors.
• A simpler navigation system, with fewer categories. Do note that we have moved the key advertising links above the newspaper’s name.
• Fewer promotion and ad positions on the home page, making the ones we have more compelling and effective. Advertisers in the two McClatchy markets that launched before us have been extremely happy with how their ads are now being noticed by users.
• Options for different design approaches based on what’s actually happening that day. These will be made available over time but will give us flexibility to do a better job of packaging all the elements — extra stories, photos, graphics and videos — we have with our biggest stories.
• A user-friendly navigation bar at the bottom of the home page that will get you to all sorts of helpful places — our Facebook page, our mobile phone apps, our electronic reproduction of our newspaper (and our archives), our contact list.
Not everything is changing.
You’ll see the same “widgets” that direct you to blogs, videos, photo galleries and the most popular stories. The events calendar, while redesigned, has the same easy-to-use functions to post your event or find the event you want. Our special project pages, including BSU football and Varsity Extra, are pretty similar. How you can post your comments is the same — although I can always hope for more civility and more comments about the story’s main topic.
Most importantly, we will continue to give you the most news and information in the Treasure Valley, from the largest reporting force in the state.
We have invested in more smartphones and laptops for our staff so they can get more news and information on our website easier and faster, but this investment will also benefit all of our platforms — our mobile application, Facebook, Twitter, even our print newspaper.
Probably the only change I don’t like is the loss of our poll. We know users have enjoyed taking our poll based on the numbers. We hope to add a new vendor soon, but I’m afraid it might not be as easy to use.
So please come to our website after 7 a.m. Tuesday and check out our better, cleaner, faster and easier to use site.
P.S.: If you love getting your news online and not in print, you might want to consider subscribing to our electronic replica of the newspaper. It’s pretty cool and it will ensure you don’t miss any content, such as the graphics and boxes that accompany many of our stories to provide extra details and context.
You also can see all our ads and make sure you don’t miss a sale on an item you can’t live without.
Even cooler, the e-edition gives you easy access to the archives of 3 1/2 years of newspapers and the first year of Business Insider, our weekly business magazine. That’s a great deal!
Vicki S. Gowler is the Statesman’s editor and vice president. You can subscribe to the electronic edition of our newspaper by calling 377-6370.
