News and Media

The Jamaica Gleaner website has received a makeover. The redesigned site was launched on February 16, 2009 and features a new, modern look; easy-to-navigate buttons to take viewers anywhere on the site with the click of a mouse. It is hard not to compare the new design to old website as this is definitely night and day. I must confess that my previous preference for the Jamaican Observer website was for the most part based on looks. Today, this has all changed; finally the Jamaica Gleaner website can now add “pretty looks” to as one of its attractive feature.

Gone are advertisements that dominated the right sidebar. The new website is based on a modular layout, a popular design style for many newspaper websites. This new layout goes a far way in improving the flow of content and providing focus to some important areas. In the past I have complained about the number of online ads appearing on the front page now online ads are better integrated with the news content. I am please to see that the Gleaner design team did not simply copy its competitor’s design (Jamaica Observer) and instead chose a tailor made approach.

The new design highlights the new Gleaner’s strategy. It now seems more apparent that the company is looking to broaden its online content offering; check out the Gleaner Company Websites section on the bottom page. Is this a new vision for the Gleaner? Or did the online team finally convince management that they needed a facelift to counter the rising popularity of “new” Jamaican news websites? Whatever the answers to these questions, this is a step in the right direction.

Newspaper websites all face the challenge of displaying a huge amount of content while trying to balance usability and navigational issues. Rather than focusing on negatives in this new design, I congratulate the Gleaner web design team in their efforts to produced a great looking online presence for the news and information; a place where I will certainly be visiting more often for Jamaican related news.