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Exciting changes are coming to ajc.com

9:17 am January 9, 2009, by Julia Lavine

On Tuesday, January 13, we will be introducing some exciting new changes to ajc.com. The changes will include a revised design for the homepage and improved navigation. We hope this will make it easier for you to find and read local and national news, as well as all your usual favorite features.

Check out the overview graphic for more info on specific changes »

As always, we want to hear what you have to say. Tell us what you think about the new look.

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75 comments Add your comment

Deanna

January 9th, 2009
4:34 pm

Wow! What a daunting task. But it looks like y’all’ve done a great job. Looks very clean while still having lots of content and stories on the home page like I enjoy. Well done! Will there be someplace for us to submit usability issues after the rollout?

Jason Gilstrap

January 9th, 2009
5:03 pm

Deanna, thanks for your comments.

You’ll be able to post comments on this blog once the new design launches. We look forward to reading everyone’s feedback.

Jay

January 9th, 2009
6:12 pm

Enter your comments here Why couldn’t the change coincide with the stopped delivery of the print edition to the “hinterlands”? You sure know how to confuse folks.

Looks good!

January 9th, 2009
6:33 pm

Long as y’all don’t mess with Smiling Pets or Taco Mountain, I’m cool.

jeffrye

January 9th, 2009
10:11 pm

I am hoping you can delete older news stories from the home page on a more timely basis. I am a little perturbed when I click on a story only to have the dateline say it happened 3 or 4 months ago. Furthermore, your coverage of anything to do with intown Atlanta is sorely lacking. I rarely see stories that have anything to do with my area of the city. Yes, there are many readers in the city…it annoys us there is not adequate coverage of city life.

BG

January 9th, 2009
10:21 pm

Nice redesign. It’s good to see that the leaderboard ad has been removed. Would it be easy to add a few more elements for weather, such as today’s high and tonight’s low, just to the right of current temperature? The Weather Channel does that in their IE toolbar. It would be nice to show a small image of current doppler as well. Okay so I’m a weather junkie.

Montana L

January 10th, 2009
10:40 am

“Private Quarters” as the top photo nearly every time I hit ajc.com? Come on, what are y’all, a newspaper or Atlanta Magazine Homes?? Gimmie some news, not posh spaces of the monocle crowd!

Doug

January 10th, 2009
11:03 am

A very nice redesign – keep it clean, with plenty of customizable options and the readers will keep coming!

Sam

January 10th, 2009
12:25 pm

I’ll definitely watch for the changes, but from the mock-up you’ve provided, I really don’t see much that’s being altered. Everything looks basically the same. What am I missing or not seeing? Thanks.

LIsa

January 10th, 2009
1:31 pm

agree w/ weather comments above. I use your little weather quick links all the time!

Steve

January 10th, 2009
2:26 pm

How about making it easier to find message boards on your site? Whenever i post something to a “discuss” forum i can never find the same discussion forum a couple of hours later that i just posted to.

AK

January 10th, 2009
3:31 pm

Very nice. I’ve emailed several times saying your design needs to be refreshed and suggested you look at WashingtonPost.com as a guide, which it looks like you did. I visit the Post’s site daily and love their home page. In comparison, ajc.com was a huge disappointment. Thanks for listening to reader feedback. I can’t wait for the new design to launch!

Nick

January 10th, 2009
5:43 pm

Thanks for the much needed redesign. I’m not sold on the logo image or the colors of the logo. Thought you had a good thing going with the AJC Circle. Make sure navigation works fast on slower computers/connections unlike ESPN’s new design. I can’t believe they almost made that site unusable. Looking foward to seeing the udpate.

bboykins

January 10th, 2009
5:45 pm

This looks really, really good! Couple of things I would suggest is to make the video table horizontal with the Inside AJC.com table. I would put a picture or graphic tease in the area that how has the video table. I would even take that space to promo print product (which I think you all would consider taboo, but you’ll be surprised what traffic that would bring. Oh, and I would move MundoHispanico ad under the new Buzz feature.
Overall, very good navigation and usability. Thanks!

Wayne

January 10th, 2009
11:39 pm

Could you redo your jobs site? I’m someone outside your now-shrunken delivery area and I think your partnership with HotJobs stinks. I KNOW there are far more jobs printed in the paper than actually make it onto your website.

Bill Burns

January 11th, 2009
7:05 am

I think your current design is fine. Much easier than many including the New York Times which I read often on the internet. Sometimes “change” in not always for the better. On another AJC matter, I am not happy that you have eliminated the Saturday LTE’s. You have also greatly “cut back” om the size of the Sunday LTE’s. I admit that I have a “bias” in this LTE thing, I have written around 400 of them to the paper in the last seven years.

horace

January 11th, 2009
10:01 am

Since the ajc newspaper circulation area has continued to get smaller ajc.com is my only option. I can adjust to any format. I hope that the business section is totally revised.
In the current section news that is several months old fills most of the space. News items six months to a year old is not news anymore, only space filler. Please give us more current news.

Al

January 11th, 2009
10:05 am

I hope that as part of the new design we will see more true news stories featured on the home page and less about every move some hip hop star or desperate housewife makes. I read several major newspapers online daily and none of them devote anywhere near as much home page attention to entertainers. Stick to the news affecting peoples lives on the homepage and leave the entertainment stories in accessatlanta. I do like the new design by the way.

Scott Baker

January 11th, 2009
11:28 am

Thanks for the great comments and suggestions, they are extremely useful in helping us to improve the site. Many of the issues we have worked on in this rollout are issues that readers have suggested.

In my work – as part of the online design and user experience group – we had three main goals for this iteration of the site design.
- To clean up the design
- Make the site load faster
- Make navigating content easier
Keep in mind we are constantly making upgrades to the site (some visible and some behind the scenes to improve functionality and page loading times). We have many other design upgrades rolling out this year that will continue the design improvements throughout ajc.com.

Weather: BG and Lisa, we realize weather is very important to readers and have some major enhancements planned, unfortunately they won’t be ready in this iteration – so stay tuned.

Logo: Nick, in regards to the logo, there were other logo versions that we had worked on but there was a branding decision to go with a consistent logotype for the ajc brand.

David

January 11th, 2009
4:06 pm

It looks good. Does this coincide with a redesign of the printed project?

David B.

January 11th, 2009
5:37 pm

Wow, a few new graphics with no real change. Even after a redesign, AJC.com is still one of the ugliest newspaper Web sites on the Internet. It must’ve taken an incredible amount of time and energy to come up with something that is essentially the same as before – a clutter of advertising and pint size hyperlinks jammed onto the screen. The opening line of your redesign meeting must have been “How can we possibly get all of these headlines and ads crammed into the smallest block possible?”

The reason I feel bad for papers like the AJC is that your revenue plan has turned into something that is almost solely based on advertising with no regard to content/substance. For every link you have on your home page, users can click onto pages that are equally cluttered and ad-chaulked. The more graphics you have distracting the readers, the less likely any news is going to be read. And that raises the utlimate question – what is the point of AJC.com to begin with?

Promote your stories more with longer (or any) lede lines; don’t rely on the headlines by themselves. If you’re trying to attract new business or residents to the city, then start by cleaning up the AccessAtlanta pages for dining and theater. And for God’s sake, keep anything that qualifies as a story for “The Buzz” in that box and off the top stories list. It’s embarassing when the two categories – ACTUAL news, and entertainment – get mixed.

And next time you try to redesign the Web site, look at your competition before settling.

Patrick

January 11th, 2009
9:18 pm

Please, please, PLEASE fix your polls that have multiple questions!

Example:
http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/braves/stories/2009/01/10/braves_starting_pitchers.html

There are eight questions and 8 different forms on the page. When a visitor clicks “vote” it’s only for the single question and you have to click vote eight different times. There’s no session state either, so there’s no way to view multiple results on the same page.

Why not just have 8 radio collections and one form on the page? That way someone can answer all the questions at once and view all the results at once.

Also, the flash polls tied to the photo galleries have been broken for a long time. Vote on one question and it won’t let you vote again.

Scott Baker

January 11th, 2009
9:43 pm

Patrick, sorry about that, it is a less than ideal user experience — a new template for this should be out next week.

Wayne

January 11th, 2009
11:10 pm

Please include more pictures with your stories on the net.

Pete

January 12th, 2009
10:34 am

I would like either the time the past was last updated or something similar to MSNBC.com that says last updated x hours/minutes ago. I basically keep a browser window open to AJC all day and it would be nice to see if it had updated. Thanks!

Pete

January 12th, 2009
10:36 am

Oops, that should be “page” and not “past” above. I was thinking about the time in the past when the page was updated and the fingers led a magic life all their own.

Tica

January 12th, 2009
2:39 pm

I feel like the redesign has a lot of potential…however, I still feel like the page is too cluttered. Is it really necessary for you to show 5-6 linked stories under each section on the bottom part of the page? There must be some way to simplify that, especially since you’ve already got the headings up in the top of the page. I also would like to echo the suggestion that tells us how long ago the story was last updated (this is important for breaking news).

BG

January 12th, 2009
2:46 pm

Scott, thanks for acknowledging my weather suggestions. I look forward to the new launch. Someone had referenced the ESPN site. I agree that it’s slick yet difficult to navigate, and attribute most of the difficulty to lack of familiarity.

Shaun

January 12th, 2009
3:13 pm

The design looks pretty much the same. Are yall going to monitor the comments to keep the racist idiots’ comments off the web?

Scott Baker

January 12th, 2009
4:36 pm

A few of you have mentioned wanting stories to include timestamps, later this year ajc.com is moving to a more powerful content management system that has that capability. Until then most stories (unless it’s a big breaking story) won’t have a timestamp. One other nice feature, we will also be able to have multiple templates, for example on stories having the option to include a video or larger photos.

lula todd

January 13th, 2009
6:31 am

Where’s the weather tab?? I NEED that one! Otherwise, it looks great.

ginger

January 13th, 2009
6:33 am

The overall look is clean and fresh, and seems to be clutter free. The logo is very whimpy,cheap and a bit cheesy looking.I mean baby blue and that font?? ugh!

g

marge

January 13th, 2009
6:40 am

Love the new look. Glad to see the Hollywood Buzz not so “Front and Center” I was beginning to lose respect for you guys as a viable news source. Thanks for the new look, and I notice the sports stories better now.

herbK

January 13th, 2009
7:15 am

Sucks, but I would guess a 14 yr old with html/css experience could have done it in 15 minutes. Just like the printed version, becoming more irrelevant each & every day.

Sarah

January 13th, 2009
7:23 am

You ‘fixed’ something that wasn’t broken. I do not like it!

Steve

January 13th, 2009
7:37 am

Good job, if it had to be done. Miss not being able to get a hard copy of AJC in my town. The Chattanooga Times is filling the vacuum.

Dee

January 13th, 2009
8:15 am

The new format is confusing. I liked the old one. I, too, am tired of seeing the same outdated stories week after week. Private quarters? It is just a way for real estate agents to list their listings. Please defer them to the real estate section. I am interested in news worthy stories. I could careless about the latest escapade of some “celebrity”. Last but not least…where is the vent?

Cemeeli

January 13th, 2009
9:00 am

I like it, I like it!!!

It’s like getting a brand new Portfolio binder…cool :) .

J David Raiteri

January 13th, 2009
9:10 am

I think paint newspapers, like the typewriter & landline phones & large novels & large file cabinets…..are a thing of the 1900s. In fact, JOURNALISM IS DEAD…..

Emily

January 13th, 2009
9:11 am

A lot of the changes are subtle, but it is a big improvement. The site is much cleaner and easier to navigate and it might help to remind people what you were starting with. Keep up the good work.

Jamie

January 13th, 2009
9:13 am

I use Mozilla firefox for a browser and the text is difficult to read. One of the reasons I prefer the AJC for local news is that I prefer reading to watching a video clip. I would recommend making the site cross browser compatible.

edge770

January 13th, 2009
9:14 am

Did you get your logo design done by RITEAID? It’s almost as cheap and hideous looking. Go take a look at west coast or even say the Augusta Chronicle newspaper sites. I also want print ads available such as Fry’s available in a pdf format or able to read them online.

jason

January 13th, 2009
9:14 am

Thanks for making the changes. I would also like to thank you for making changes to the mobile version that I get on my PDA so I can see the same version as I see on my laptop. That was a very frustrating few weeks when the mobile version was the only one available. And I hope you guys won’t be going back to that. thanks -

$ Bill

January 13th, 2009
9:15 am

I like the new look! It’s cleaner, less cluttered and a bit easier to read.

A

January 13th, 2009
9:27 am

Can you please move The Buzz from the very top of the page? How will the AJC ever be taken seriously as a source of news if you have Hollywood news and gossip and the latest from those horrible ATL housewives front and center. Seriously, look at WashingtonPost.com, NYTimes.com, heck even USAToday.com for how a news site should look like.

KSE

January 13th, 2009
9:28 am

I already sent an email saying I thought the new logo was terrible, I really hope this wasn’t a senior level graphic designer who created that for a newspaper. So much is conveyed in the type of font, colors, style that is used and nothing about the new logo says newspaper. The original was much better.

If the AJC folks are bored and need something to do they should try proofreading their online articles before publishing them, I see bad typos all the time.

Cindy

January 13th, 2009
10:01 am

Looks better, but you really didn’t fix any of the navigation or usability issues that have continually bugged me. Typical ‘redesign’ – all fluff, no substance.

Brandon

January 13th, 2009
10:02 am

The redesign is a HUGE improvement over the previous site. Better in every way. Well done!

Carolina

January 13th, 2009
10:10 am

Why not keep the old logo/branding? You can do a site redesign without changing traditional elements. The new logo doesn’t convey newspaper to me – more like grocery store.

I can see a lot of cosmetic changes were made, but you’ve still neglected to fix a lot of the usability and layout issues. Perhaps take a look at other, great versions of online newspapers like The Washington Post or the New York Post before making a decision on the final version of the site.

me

January 13th, 2009
10:29 am

I’m ok with change… but the font is waaaaaaaaaaaay to small now!

A

January 13th, 2009
10:38 am

One more thing. Could you *please* change to a serif font? It will help make the site look more polished and the AJC look more serious as a news organization.

Amy

January 13th, 2009
10:58 am

Where is the quick link to the blogs? Like Momania? Am I overlooking them?

Traci

January 13th, 2009
11:01 am

I wonder if “Scott Baker” is the one who ERASED my comment. Hmmmm, pretty weird & well typical to say the least! Guess the AJC cannot accept nor take negative feedback on the redesign.

PS: I hate the layout, I hate the font, the logo is horrible and where in the heck is the local news now? I hate everything about the new change! SUCKS!

DB

January 13th, 2009
11:21 am

Atlanta is very deserving of a first class newspaper, when you guys at AJC get it right it is magnificent.
More investigative reporting, and the Food section needs to be refurbished, it used to be a weekly highlight not that long ago, when John Kessler still had “unfortunate” hair, LOL. I hate the new logo, it looks like a middle school contest winner.

Gabe

January 13th, 2009
11:30 am

The site redesign looks great. AJC.com is my homepage, so I see it several times during the day, and always browse the top stories and breaking news. Overall the site looks very clean and very well organized. I have to agree with several of the other comments…the new logo looks awful! It looks like a total copy of Hewlett-Packard. Take a look at any printer or fax machine made in the last 10 years and you’ll see exactly what I mean!

Nick

January 13th, 2009
11:36 am

I like the top navigation. It’s crisp, much more informative and I feel like I can access more of the site now. I would like to see Atlanta Weather/Traffic complimented with alerts, big incidents, warnings.

The logo, which has been repeated many times, is off the quality of the rest of your product. I would recommend the circle 2.0ish “AJC” to take it’s place. It would add a darker blue to the top, maintain the feel of the redesign and not look like it was thrown together to get width out of a constrained logo. Add Atlanta Journal-Constitution under if it you need width still to fill the space. Even a typographic logo would be better than the two-tone rounded box.

Major headline font needs work. The font has too much space between letters to be the headline font online. A serif font, as mentioned above, could do the trick or a heavier, more stylized sans-serif headline font.

Overall, good job. I think it’s a definite step in the right direction. I think making subtle changes over time will help your design get tweaked.

Nancy - Jackson, GA

January 13th, 2009
11:37 am

The new design is cleaner, but my questions are regarding the lack of AJC paper copies in my county.
1. Will the AJC make Parade Mag available through your site?
2. Will sale ADs from the Sunday paper be available on your site?
3. What about the Sunday Comics?
4. I tried the AJC Print version and the font is much too small when an article is printed. I attempted to fit it to the page and portions of the article did not print. Please help with this issue.
5. If it is not feasible to home deliver in outlying counties, at least provide weekend papers to some of the convenience stores/gas stations in the county.

StephHatesIt

January 13th, 2009
11:39 am

I am sorry, but I cannot agree with previous posts. I actually think the logo looks antiquated and borderline comical–not at all journalistic or anything to be taken seriously. I understand wanting a sleeker look, but this is not it. Nonetheless, I am an avid reader and will try my best to adjust.

cynthia

January 13th, 2009
11:52 am

I like it! Good job.

Lee

January 13th, 2009
12:15 pm

What? You guys changed the web page? Haven’t noticed….

Jeff

January 13th, 2009
12:15 pm

The new logo is not good. Not good at all. Really bad. Ugly.

trent jones

January 13th, 2009
12:21 pm

It’s somewhat better, BUT…

the AJC is not going to survive much longer. seems like you guys are taking the “dumbed down” AOL approach by featuring funny videos on your front page.

and those giant dynamic ads are a disaster. they may make short-term money but they are killing the website.

we all have access to the NY Times and WSJ for national news.

we use craigslist for classifieds.

we use Yelp and Urbanspoon for restaurants

we use rottentomatoes for movie times.

AJC should focus on providing top-notch local coverage. break out into community sections.

AJC cannot survive in its current format. it’s the worst major paper in the country and even the good ones are struggling.

i can’t really blame the web designers for being given such a poor product. there’s not much you can do if you are being asked to cater to the lower-income people who still would read this paper.

Chris Boyles

January 13th, 2009
12:38 pm

As a daily reader, this is a step in the right direction. The editing still needs work though. Several times a week I find articles plagued with misleading headlines, typos and chopped sentences. Also, dead links are frequently a problem. And just because it’s a blog doesn’t mean the writer gets to be sloppy (this means you Rodney Ho). I hope the redesign isn’t just superficial. There needs to be a commitment to overall site quality.

Chris Boyles

January 13th, 2009
12:40 pm

P.S. I agree that the new logo looks like it’s from 1972.

jamie

January 13th, 2009
12:56 pm

There needs to be vent access at the top of the page by the weather – for our urgent venting needs.

Joe

January 13th, 2009
12:58 pm

Hard to read font.

mel

January 13th, 2009
1:00 pm

Chiming in to echo “I understand wanting a sleeker look, but this is not it.”

The design is far too soft, the logo looks silly and the focus problem (blur of nondescript content toward the center of the page) that the old one had is still there and perhaps been magnified now due to the mushy look of the right rail. The design could really use some punch.

The positive is that you’ve wrested the stylesheets back from oblivion and kicked those nasty old JavaScript bits out for jQuery. Congrats to whomever did all of that work, I know it was probably daunting.

Dondee

January 13th, 2009
1:28 pm

Don’t like it….

Sharon Grandberry Burton

January 13th, 2009
3:01 pm

Thank you to everyone at the AJC for your hard work to keep us informed. Overall, you’ve done a great job! I appreciate the opportunity to provide feedback about the website redesign. I am a frequent internet user.

1) The logo is not catchy. I would have preferred to see something more unique in terms of color selection and font. The brand identity is not distinctive enough for the viewer. It is almost generic. I would prefer to something more creative.

2) The organization of content is much better. The content is easily accessible in terms of navigation on the screen. I enjoy the stories. The timing of stories and the accuracy works well for my needs.

3) I like the visual enhancements such as more video, pictures, flash elements.

4) You offer a great variety of stories. I enjoy Private Quarters and Vacation pictures. Nice touch to keep your general audience connected. We are invited to add to the site. Great engagement opportunity. I really like the photo galleries.

5) Good use of space. I like the white space.

Thank you!!!

Tom H awks

January 13th, 2009
3:15 pm

I subscribed to the AJC for several years, and when they quit delivering in my area I bought it at the store. I loved setting down in my easy chair at night and reading the AJC. I am sorry but setting down at a computer and reading the paper is one of the most non relaxing things I can think of. I called about mail delivery but could not get same day delivery Thanks goodness the Gainesville times and the USA Today still serve my area.

Lisa

January 13th, 2009
9:19 pm

What about a tab for Arts and Culture…? Your reduced coverage and visual arts reviews are really hurting you among folks I talk to in the arts community, as AJC becomes less read…there’s so much going on locally, in large AND smaller venues; we want to read about it, and see images…

Vet

January 13th, 2009
9:23 pm

I do not like the new format…too plain.

dino

January 14th, 2009
12:49 pm

THEY NEED TO FIRE ALL OF YOU!!!!!
THE NERVE OF YOU TO EDIT ALL OF THE COMPLAINTS AND LEAVE THE POSITIVE COMMENTS.

alice ayliffe

January 15th, 2009
10:45 am

If you must use my name, pls. use only first name. Re new format, the home page is too cluttered, there’s no link for the Vent, & who cares about celebrity over indulgences?

Jesse

January 16th, 2009
6:05 pm

How do I find Cynthia Tucker’s & other’s editorials?
Is there another online AJC newspaper in addition to this site?
The AJC has preserved the freedom of all of us by being a statewide and nationwide government watchdog providing a check and balance to politician’s excesses.
I am concerned that this will be lost due to cancelling statewide delivery.