The launch follows an almost year-long beta phase and standalone migrations of the Guardian’s US and Australian editions in an open product development journey that gathered over 100,000 pieces of user feedback.
The global move, which includes the Guardian’s entire UK audience for the first time, was spread over recent months to incorporate the feedback of the Guardian’s audience, and also signifies the organisation’s transformation from its pioneering digital-first strategy to a digitally-led approach to journalism, says the Guardian.
Since the introduction of its digital-first strategy the Guardian has grown from a UK-based newspaper into a global, Pulitzer Prize-winning force, and the new approach will put digital thinking, innovation and open journalism at the heart of the organisation’s operations, while still producing a newspaper to “delight and entertain” print readers.
The Guardian says: “Developed using an entirely new approach, the new site has been completely rebuilt around the needs of its readers. All readers around the world will now see the beautifully designed new front page and will experience enhanced interactivity, functionality and responsiveness across the site - regardless of the device they are using. The site was created to provide the best possible way for the Guardian’s 107 million unique browsers to find, read and engage with its journalism.
The new theguardian.com uses a groundbreaking, flexible ‘container’ format, which reflects the way people consume news and features, rather than how they are produced. Containers can be customised in a variety of different ways to highlight stories, allowing editors to think beyond simply building a page, to creating a collection of stories that bring each day’s news to life for readers. It also allows for a clearer emphasis on live and up-to-the-minute news, while bringing audiences closer to the Guardian’s journalism by offering more ways to share stories and participate in the conversation.
The new site has been designed to be visually compelling, with a focus on innovative design, and has been built around the needs and preferences of Guardian readers. With simple and elegant layouts that improve the reading experience, and a new colour palette to guide people to specific sections, stories and writers, the site offers more ways to discover and engage with the Guardian’s award-winning journalism, more often.
In addition to the new design, theguardian.com is now a brand new platform, supported by a new suite of editorial tools. It has also been optimised to load as quickly as possible in response to feedback from readers who value speed of use, and is responsive across all platforms and devices, providing a clear and consistent user experience regardless of screen size.
As well as presenting better and richer ways to experience and engage with Guardian journalism, the new site also offers improved and more bespoke ways for advertisers to reach the Guardian’s valuable progressive audience. GNM has integrated advertising more seamlessly into the site and has introduced a new and innovative set of high impact formats that work gracefully across all screen sizes.”
Wolfgang Blau, director of digital strategy, Guardian News & Media, said: “The Guardian has an almost 200-year long history in creating world-class journalism. In more recent years, the Guardian has also become one of the world’s most influential breaking news organisations across all devices and the main social media platforms. With our new site and editorial tools, we are now in an even better position to provide our community of readers and viewers with both our in-depth journalism in text and visuals, and our fast breaking news coverage from our three newsrooms in London, Sydney and New York.”
Tanya Cordrey, chief digital officer, Guardian News & Media, said: “The development of the new site has been a truly collaborative project with our readers since we began rolling it out a year ago. We’ve received, listened to and acted on over 100,000 pieces of feedback at every step of the beta phase, but just because we have now switched entirely to the new site it’s not the end of the journey; the site has been built with the Guardian’s future in mind, allowing us to flexibly and quickly evolve the site as we continue to respond to our readers’ needs and technology changes. As ever, we will continue to listen to the feedback from our global community of readers.”
