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Disseminating News and Driving Business Results on the Web

The Charlotte Observer recognized that their website could do a better job presenting information and engaging users.

The Charlotte Observer serves the Charlotte, North Carolina metropolitan area, one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country. It is a top tier newspaper that had a confusing, difficult-to-navigate website. They understood that in today's challenging publishing environment, it's essential to leverage the Web channel and capture readership as it shifts online. The Charlotte Observer hired NavigationArts to design and develop a user-centered site that would help them do just that.

NavigationArts engaged in our proven user experience design process, beginning with information gathering, requirements definition, and the formation of a site stakeholder group. In this case, the agreed upon web strategy was to create a website that reflects the quality of the physical paper and provides a great news site for and about Charlotte. Creating a positive online user experience for The Charlotte Observer is a critical first step to build reader loyalty - ultimately driving traffic and advertising revenue.

When the project commenced, the website was a combination newspaper site and destination portal - an outdated Knight Ridder template for their newspapers' web properties. One of the important strategic drivers of the project was to separate out the information about the city of Charlotte from the newspaper content, and to change the URL for the site from www.charlotte.com to www.charlotteobserver.com. This strategy enabled the project participants to focus on making a newspaper site that could compete on a level playing field with any leading, national paper.

One of the flaws of the existing website was that the site structure did not allow for the prioritization of content, and many stories ended up linked directly from the homepage. When the homepage is a sea of links, the reader is overwhelmed, and bounces from the site without drilling down into the content - something that the site analytics confirmed.

The information architects worked with the newspaper staff to clarify the mission of the homepage, and the messages it should convey. NavigationArts recommended treating the homepage much like the front page of a newspaper - a gateway that contains a fixed number of stories and serves to entice readers to explore the paper's content. The new homepage design provides some editorial flexibility to the newspaper, but takes a disciplined approach to the prioritization of content. The prominent navigation bar allows people to discover stories based on the subjects they're interested in.

Another significant change in the new site design is the shift in focus toward multimedia content, including videos and slideshows. NavigationArts designed an elegant multimedia widget to showcase the video clips and pictures. Given trends on the web toward community and user generated content, the new site design incorporates tools to help the audience connect with each other and to generate awareness about The Charlotte Observer's community of readers.

After the information architects completed the design for the homepage and the various site sections, the visual designers created a skin for the site that lets the content breathe and provides a clean presentation of the news. The design incorporates more slots for photography, another way to tell a news story and to reflect the city back to the audience. The user interface design for The Charlotte Observer's website creates a sophisticated online presence and a positive user experience - positioning the newspaper to win new readers, and as a result, more advertisers.

Project results included:

• A comprehensive online strategy that aligned website with business goals (increasing site traffic and dwell time) through a user-centered approach
• Redesigning and rebranding www.charlotteobserver.com as a newspaper website, not a hybrid newspaper/destination portal
• A new visual design with a modern look and feel that emphasizes effective delivery of content (highly readable, digestible)
• More sophisticated treatment of multimedia content through the creation of a new multimedia widget
• Balancing the placement of partner content and advertising on the site so there is an appropriate prioritization
• Template development