WEB DESIGN
WEB DESIGN
I never expected web design to be so versatile. Throughout my year as online editor-in-chief, I discovered countless tools and features that could be used to improve the tjTODAY.org website. While my co-online-EICs and I were appreciative of the work done by previous online-EICs, we also recognized significant room for improvements. That's why, over the last year, we set out to make changes to the front page, section pages, and article pages.
FRONT PAGE
As the first thing you see on tjTODAY.org, the front page was our biggest priority. We sought to make the homepage less cluttered, easier to navigate, and more visually appealing in terms of font and text/image dimensions. The two videos below demonstrate the changes to the website's design.
WEBSITE IN JULY, 2020
WEBSITE IN JUNE, 2021
KEY CHANGES
Logo
The first major change was to the logo of the website. For the sake of brand cohesion, we changed our logo to match the one one on the tjTODAY magazine.
Width
We also expanded the width of the website. In the July 2020 edition, there is significant whitespace on the edges, whereas in the June 2021 our content stretches nearly to the end of user screens at 100% zoom. This better immersed the user in our content.
Font
We transitioned from a compressed main font like the one in the July 2020 video to Lato, which was similar but wider and more curved. This font, we feel, does a better job of drawing attention to our content.
Text & Image Dimensions
On the whole we increased the size of images and headlines throughout the website. To support these adjustments, we added trendlines, which separate each widget in a way that's visually appealing to the user.
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Widget Reorganization
Finally, we transformed the Entertainment and TJTV sections into main widgets. Before, they were found at the bottom and side of the page, respectively. This cluttered the page and made the widgets hard to find.
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SECTION PAGES
Previously, our section pages included rigid square boxes stacked in rows. For a more user-friendly experienced, we did away with this and adopted a section page with larger story boxes and more varied alignment.
WEBSITE IN JULY, 2020
WEBSITE IN JUNE, 2021
ARTICLE PAGES
Many of the changes to our front page carried over to the article pages. As seen in the two videos below, the width and headline font on the article pages changed significantly.
WEBSITE IN JULY, 2020
WEBSITE IN JUNE, 2021
EMPHASIS ON SECONDARY ELEMENTS
In my first two years on tjTODAY, the tendency was to publish articles solely with the text and a featured image. After reviewing other online publications, we realized that our approach was simply not sufficient. As a result, we began emphasizing that writers include other elements to better engage their reader.
PULL QUOTES
The first element that we emphasized was pull quotes. Incredibly easy to include in articles, pull quotes interrupt walls of body text while also drawing attention to key parts of the piece.
SECONDARY IMAGE
We began also pushing for staffers to include an image besides just their featured image when writing longer articles. In the article on the left, I opted to use a chart that details the budget adoption timeline.
Finally, we instructed all team leaders to add the related stories widget before posting articles. This keeps the viewer engaged in our content longer and brings up viewership of older articles.