2012.11.05
Check out the new roanoke.com homepage design
Our development team is excited to share an image of the redesigned roanoke.com homepage. Keep in mind it’s not functional, but it will give you a preview of the design and a sense of our priorities as we continue work on the new site. (It’s best viewed when you double click on the image).
You may notice the image in the center of the page is large much larger than photos on the current roanoke.com. You will see greater emphasis on photos throughout the new site. There will be more galleries and none of our photos will be displayed in Flash, so they will be viewable from tablets and mobile devices.
Another new feature is a blog called Times Square, located about midway down the homepage. This blog is intended to be like an information concierge, pointing out new features of the site, and highlighting what stories are being talked about either on our site or in social media.
You will also see all of our blogs are easier to find on this homepage (listed down the left side of the page). You will find the blogs in this same spot throughout the other pages of the site. You’ll also see social media buttons and tools for sharing news and photos throughout the site, making it easy to share content. One of our primary goals with the redesign has been to make the site more engaging and to highlight people, and these areas of the gateway are some examples of how we’ve done that.
Take a look at the page and give us your thoughts. If you missed the previous post on the new navigation, check it out, and you will see the navigation bar in better context here on this homepage.
Your feedback is important to us as we continue development of the site and prepare it for beta.
Thank you for moving away from Flash! Flash is the devil.
Good work!
Comment by Jude — November 5, 2012 @ 3:23 pm
Love the new emphasis on photos. Well done.
Comment by Whitney Anderson — November 5, 2012 @ 3:30 pm
This looks great! I hope that you all included an education news tab like the one on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website.
Comment by A Beasley — November 6, 2012 @ 8:18 am
Thanks for the suggestion, A Beasley. We will have an education page that you will be able to get to from the news index page. Included in that section will be a new blog by education reporter Courtney Cutright. Please share your ideas on what we can include in the education section that will be useful to you.
– Karenna, RefreshRT team.
Comment by karennag — November 6, 2012 @ 4:41 pm
looks nice. very clean
Comment by colleen — November 7, 2012 @ 1:07 am
Much improved and long overdue. I’ll certainly visit more often now.
Comment by Steve Grieco — November 8, 2012 @ 11:59 am
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Comment by A Reader — November 8, 2012 @ 9:22 pm
Thanks, all, for the feedback. We’re excited to bring these changes to you very soon!
-Carole Tarrant, Roanoke Times editor
Comment by Carole Tarrant — November 9, 2012 @ 9:47 am
Looks a lot like the Facebook timeline format
Comment by Brandi — November 9, 2012 @ 11:01 am
The new home page design looks great. I am a Roanoker temporarily living out of state and I depend on your web site to keep me informed of the Roanoke area news. Keep up the good work.
Gary Lafferty
Venice Fl.
Comment by Gary Lafferty — November 9, 2012 @ 11:19 am
I like the new look. I get most of my local news via roanoke.com!!! Please, though if you have reader comment section, consider a moderator. Lately other local news sites have become hate filled, bitter tabloids.
Thanks for making a change!
Comment by Jen — November 9, 2012 @ 12:00 pm
Being a former Roanoker, this page gives me more of a feel of what is happening in the town. Previously it had focused too much on crime.
Comment by Mary Anne Marx — November 9, 2012 @ 12:50 pm
I don’t like it. I think you are now into entertainment, not news. It is all about pictures and gimmicks. Where is the content? Where is the actual news; not on your front page! I wish it looked more like the front page of a true newspaper.
Comment by Leo Lady (SW Roanoke City, Elevation 1026') — November 9, 2012 @ 1:25 pm
I love the new look! Roanoke.com is my go-to for local news (and national, but more so local) and I am looking forward to the new website design. I’m sure you have your reasons for not allowing comments on all news stories (you can only comment on blog posts, right?), however I would love to see more dialogue about local news stories. I do think a moderator is a good idea, but I don’t think other local news sites have become hate filled, bitter tabloids because of user comments. I love to read others’ input on local stories, even if some are bitter and hate filled. You can’t control ALL of the comments from people. Also, my favorite stories to read on Roanoke.com are crime stories, so I disagree that there is too much focus on crime – I don’t think there’s enough! Haha, goes to show you can’t make everyone happy and every single person will want something different from their local newspaper. You can’t please everyone, but thanks for trying to and thanks for encouraging user input on the new design! Can’t wait!
Comment by Rebyl — November 9, 2012 @ 1:29 pm
Can you included a tab to take you to local weather? Unless I am missing something the current page doesn’t offer it or its buried deep in some other tab. It doesn’t appear the new page has it either. Weather has a major effect on our lives, activities, and plans.
Comment by hogrider — November 9, 2012 @ 3:04 pm
Let’s face it, most of us read the Roanoke Times for local news, traffic updates, etc., and use other sources for international news (sorry, no offense). The other format was fine, it had the local news upfront and easily accessed. An improvement would be if you actually updated the news throughout the day. Do you know how disappointing it is to see no new news at the end of the day? Please consider offering a link to VDOT for traffic update/delays as well as a link to the Roanoke airport for flight delays during inclement weather.
Comment by Fritz — November 9, 2012 @ 3:59 pm
Thanks for your question, hogrider. On our current site, you can click on the weather symbol (today’s it a sun) that appears by the current temperature. This is under roanoke.com Roanoke Times logo near the top left. One click takes you to Kevin Myatt’s Weather Journal.
But weather will have a more prominent and consistent place in our redesigned site. You may notice on the image above, there’s a weather box on the right side near the top. It’s larger, and it will be on the homepage and in the same spot throughout the new site.
- Courtney, RefreshRT team member
Comment by Courtney Cutright — November 9, 2012 @ 4:02 pm
I just hope there will continue to be no possibility of comments. They always devolve into partisan yelling or religious/atheist attacks.
Comment by Jesse — November 9, 2012 @ 4:47 pm
Is there an option to hide Dan Casey?
Comment by Blacksburg reader — November 11, 2012 @ 9:59 am
Like new look,Clean, Tired of Grey background, Just one question when will it happen.
Comment by Ken Whorley — November 14, 2012 @ 8:06 am
Thanks for the continued feedback. Jesse — we are still looking at different options for commenting. We will definitely offer it on our blogs, but we’re still considering allowing comments on stories. Either way, we will maintain commenting standards and moderation. Blacksburg reader — no, you won’t be able to hide Dan’s blog, but you’re always welcome to skip his posts. Ken — Look for the beta site in early January, followed by the new roanoke.com shortly after that.
Karenna, RefreshRT team.
Comment by karenna — November 15, 2012 @ 12:06 pm
I LOVE IT I JUST HOPE YOU WILL PUT AN EDUCATION TAB ALSO AND DO MORE REPORTING ON WHATS GOING ON IN OUR SCHOOLS. THE PUBLIC DESERVES TO KNOW !!!
Comment by CHRIS CRAFT — November 19, 2012 @ 7:39 am
I would urge caution regarding the use of comments on news stories. It opens the door to a lot of hateful speech, gossip, and bickering.
Comment by RP — December 3, 2012 @ 3:16 pm
I hope you are working on a more functional internal search engine. The current one is useless.
Comment by tass — December 4, 2012 @ 5:53 pm
Very nice, very clean with not too many extraneous scripts in the mix. The Search function needs work and you may want to look at some of your field sizes compared to the content they’re meant to contain, size standardization is crucial.
Comment by Brad — December 11, 2012 @ 2:22 pm
I like the new design. It is BOLD, INCLUSIVE and COMMANDS ATTENTION. I am a former Roanoker who lives in Denver,Colorado.I keep up with my hometown through your website.
Comment by Elaine Neal — December 11, 2012 @ 2:36 pm
I’ve been perusing the Roanoke Times’ web sites for a good many years, since I haven’t lived at home since I left in 1977. I have to tell you that the design is, to me, immaterial. I can figure that out. I can work out the navigation. Unless this “new version” actually contains an increased amount of news and feature and sports article CONTENT, I will basically note no meaningful change.
Comment by Mike Johnson — December 14, 2012 @ 1:51 pm
Looks great! I love reading the Times online, both the NYTimes and Roanoke Times. I think you have done a tremendous job keeping up with technology with limited financial resources. I agree with previous posts that the search engine has been the biggest weak spot on the website in the past. I look forward to interacting with the new changes! Graphics look spot on…
Comment by Gretchen Ninestein — December 24, 2012 @ 5:19 pm
I applaud the new look. I know how hard it is to redesign a newspaper — and the accompanying web page — and both are exceedingly hard to do w/o alienating viewers/readers.
Looks like you have fairly straddled the line here with a crisp design, easy navigation and some what appear to be standard positions for news.
Keep forging ahead. Congrats to the team from one who has been there! Nicely done. Just don’t let them pay you in chile from the TT!
Comment by Saintbridge — January 5, 2013 @ 6:10 pm
Please don’t forget the Style Street Section!!
Comment by Peggy Quesenberry — January 7, 2013 @ 10:29 am
Glad you like the first pass at the site, Saintbridge. And yes, Peggy, you will find Style Street on the new site.
– Karenna, RefreshRT team.
Comment by karennag — January 10, 2013 @ 9:50 am
Two thumbs up…….long overdue. It looks like you will be engaging the reader a lot more with this new format. Change is good, stagnant is stale.
Comment by Thomas J Lacey — January 27, 2013 @ 10:43 am
One invisible thing — will you have a “print version” stylesheet? With the current site, a student printing this page for reference would use 15 sheets of paper — about a third of it for ads, headers and menus, on a campus computer-lab printer that charges per page. (And college labs charge per page.) [Geeky, I know: "CSS Style Sheet" not to be confused with the popular "Style Street"!]
Comment by Bob Stepno — January 28, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
Photos are still way too small. Should be able to click and enlarge.
Comment by Wichita — February 21, 2013 @ 10:13 am
Somehow your website to the full electronic newspaper has disappeared. Has this been dropped for subscribers?
Comment by Bill Sizemore — February 21, 2013 @ 10:27 am
Hi Bill,
Yes, if you are a subscriber, you can access the eTimes. The login page is http://www.roanoketimes.com. Please let us know if you continue to have problems accessing it.
– Karenna, RefreshRT team
Comment by karennag — February 21, 2013 @ 11:39 am