Website redesigns come from Salon and ProPublica; Harvard Business Review utilizes new website tool
Content publishers who make website redesigns and try new tools as part of an evolving digital strategy show their prowess in advancing their brand online.
Today we’re looking at three publishers who have recently gone this route, and the reasons for doing so.
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Our first story looks at Salon and its recent website redesign focusing on mobile audience. MediaPost reports, “Progressive politics, news and culture site Salon.com has redesigned to focus on its mobile audience and video experiences.”
“This is the first redesign of Salon’s site in “several years,” per Jordan Hoffner, CEO of Salon Media Group. He hopes it enhances support for Salon’s popular interviews with newsmakers, documentaries and live video broadcasts.”
The article continues with a look at the reasons for the website redesign. “Earlier this month, the San Francisco-based publisher announced a partnership with Tout, a platform that serves users targeted video programming from thousands of publishers’ sites, based on their mobile preferences. The goal of the collaboration is to increase the distribution of Salon’s live video programming.”
“The new layout design was inspired by sites Salon considered “best in breed on the web” and integrated with data points from Salon‘s “power users” and how they use the site.”
Our next story moves to ProPublica and the site’s recent redesign. ProPublica shares, “Today we’re taking the wraps off ProPublica’s new CMS to help us stay at the forefront of our rapidly evolving field. This is the first complete overhaul of our publishing platform since, well, ever. We’ve designed this new system to take us into the next phase of our journey, and we’ve taken the opportunity to build in a few additional improvements.”
The article continues with specifics on redesign. “Regular visitors to the site will notice a cleaner, more modern design along with improved navigation. A new “Topics” section helps users find reporting that’s of interest to them, and a new “Impact” page helps everyone quickly see the effect our journalism is having in the world. It’s also easier to scan and move between pieces in our regular reporting series (formerly “Investigations”), as well as our Data Store and new Illinois unit. We even took a moment to freshen up our logo.”
“Everything is built on a fully responsive “mobile-first” design that looks and works well on all devices. Pages load faster and are more secure thanks to completely rebuilt front-end code and the removal of outdated third-party software. And a modular design system lets us update and add features quickly and easily.”
Our last story looks at a new website tool being used by Harvard Business Review. FIPP reports, “As a platform, Facebook Messenger appealed because of its scale and potential HBR audience.”
“The new bot is aimed at a couple of different audiences, Frick explained: at the existing Harvard Business Review subscriber audience who are loyal and highly-engaged, and also at a broader audience who are not yet paying subscribers but working professionals who are interested in what HBR has to say.”
The article continues with the progression of bot usage by HBR. “This new Messenger bot comes after Harvard Business Review’s success with their first bot on the Slack platform, which was launched last year.”
“Frick said they now have over 10,000 who’ve signed up to Harvard Business Review’s Slack bot.”
Website redesigns keep digital publishers in competition online if their site is designed with best practices in mind. Are you planning on a website redesign? If so, set up a time to chat with us. We’ve helped more than 300 publishers with website design, architecture and monetization.
