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ABCNews.com Improves Design, Navigation, Search
May 20, 2009 8:13 PM
We are delighted to introduce a number of improvements to ABCNews.com designed to create a more compelling, user-friendly online news experience.
We've simplified our navigation, made video more prominent, developed a better site search tool, and created a more readable, visually stunning design.
Major improvements include:
VIDEO FRONT AND CENTER
We set out to showcase our video in a unique way and our new rotating video strip does just that. You'll find more than a dozen videos at the top of our home page and other sections. We have also added a direct link to our video player at the top right of the site, and a new box on the home page featuring full episodes of all of our primetime programs.
IMPROVED NAVIGATION
We've simplified our navigation to make it much easier to find your way around ABCNews.com. Rather than having separate navigations for our topical sections and our shows, we've moved them to one, easy-to-read row -- and added a second row underneath with handy quick links. Mouse over the headings and you'll find more useful links related to each topic or show, enabling you to navigate directly to some of our best content with just one click.
We've also added useful links at the top right of the site -- to our video player, blogs, newsletters, mobile products, ABC.com and sports news on ESPN.com.
IMPROVED SITE SEARCH
We've built a new site search engine from scratch that delivers results that are much more relevant. In addition, search results are now categorized by type (stories, blog posts, videos, photos and recipes), date, show and section. After you get your search results, click on any of the links in the left column to refine your search results even more by any of these categories.
We're also adding quick links to hot topics above the search box at the top of the site.
We will continue to improve the search experience. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to find the content you want.
VISUALLY STUNNING DESIGN
We're using larger images to create more visual impact, and shifting to 16x9 widescreen images to create a more modern look, reflective of the move toward widescreen televisions and computer monitors.
MORE READABLE FONTS
We've changed our fonts sizes, styles and colors across our site to make our headlines and stories more readable.
GOOD MORNING AMERICA RECIPES
You can search our exclusive GMA recipes database and find quick links to popular recipes and chefs directly from our Recipes widget on our homepage. And you can even embed it on your iGoogle or Facebook pages, or on your personal website or blog. (More about our new Recipes section, which we launched last month, here.)
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
You'll find new boxes on our homepage highlighting exclusive content from Good Morning America, the Blotter and Investigative Team, our exceptional politics team that includes George Stephanopoulos and Jake Tapper, and our original web-only video series, the Quick Fix.
We've been gradually rolling out these new features over the past month and fine-tuning them -- and we will continue to improve upon them as we move forward. We also have more enhancements planned, so stay tuned!
Our team at ABCNews.com is dedicated to bringing you the best news experience online.
We hope you enjoy the improvements!
- Jonathan Dube
Vice President, ABCNews.com
May 20, 2009 in Design | Permalink | Share | User Comments (53)
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Thank You! I can finaly read your site. The headlines were so tiny before and always moving. Everythings much easier to read now
Posted by: shirley | May 22, 2009 9:57:44 AM
ABC News is going to be the Katie Couric of news sites. Hope you guys enjoy playing third fiddle behind NBC and CBS!
Posted by: anon | May 22, 2009 8:01:26 AM
For several months I have been checking several news sites each morning as I start my day. Sadly, abcnews.com just keeps getting worse and worse. It is at the point where I have to be bored to tears to click on the site. It is a great shame because Charles Gibson is great. The worst thing about the site has nothing to do with the unbelievably bad design. It is the fact that items sit on the site in the different categories for WEEKS if not MONTHS before the contents are changed. I can't believe anybody is really managing the site except to throw the latest stories on top of the old stuff. So we will see about all this site hype. But I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by: Jane Bramwell | May 22, 2009 4:13:40 AM
1) The left-to-right movement of the top band is too busy. HLN (television) has changed to a vertical folding or overlay type crawl on the bottom of the TV and it is much easier to read. The one here is way too distracting with all the screen movement.
2) I liked the previous home page that used flash or something to rotate images from the top 8 or 10 stories. The home page was dynamic, but not distracting, and story headlines were all in one place and easy to read. Now I have to page down my screen to read the headlines (which means: I don't read them).
3) Move the stock index ticker to the top part of the page, and redesign it to use less screen real estate.
4) As a technical matter, this page I am typing this on does not scale properly when I am using anything but small screen-font sizes. This comment box partially disappears and there is no scroll bar.
In sum, the redesign is akin to a move by a Knight on a chessboard, one step to the side and two backwards.
Posted by: One Who Cares | May 22, 2009 12:19:43 AM
I prefer the previous set up. It gave a brief scrolling preview of all the stories with out the busy looking homepage. Don't like this new look very much.
Posted by: Venus | May 21, 2009 11:57:12 PM
your best set-up was two or three set-ups ago when the videosfrom GMA , Nightline and world news were readily accessable -
why have all the garbage here at the news site ?- it is cluttered
Posted by: David | May 21, 2009 11:09:06 PM
Rose are you serious? It is SOOOO much easier to find stuff now! About time too! I could never find what i was was looking for before. this is much better!
Posted by: sara | May 21, 2009 11:01:27 PM
Perhaps there are still "bugs" to be worked out, but I can't see posts on some of the items nor are they posting my comments. Strange.
Posted by: CG | May 21, 2009 10:53:41 PM
I don't like it at all. Too busy. Real news all mixed up with corny stories.Get rid of the advertisements before every video. It's torture to have to wait through them to see only a brief few words. It was better the old way. Visually stunning? Way too high an opinion of yourself.
Posted by: sallie day | May 21, 2009 9:45:43 PM
I don't like it one bit, I don't even feel like looking at it anymore. It was much easier to find stuff on the old site.
Posted by: Rose | May 21, 2009 6:22:34 PM
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