OMG! What did you do with my LJWorld.com?

By Staff     Feb 3, 2011

The new latest (left) vs. the old latest (right). We've included more media types in the feed, plus included links to content on the other sites in our family of sites.

Well, we’ve done it again. We’ve taken your LJWorld.com and shaken things up a bit.

While we’ve been busying redoing KUsports.com, re-redoing lawrence.com, building and rebuilding WellCommons, venerable LJWorld.com has continued with almost no major changes in several years.

Today, however, that changes. We’ve unveiling a host of subtle changes that we think will make it easier for you to find the variety of content on a variety of topics that our journalists are creating. Here, in detail, are the biggest changes we’ve made. If you have feedback, questions, or concerns, feel free to post them below and Whitney, Ben Spaulding, our designer, or myself will try to get you answers.

So, the biggest change is “The Latest” — a constantly changing feed of the latest content from our staff. On the previous homepage, it was only a list of the latest stories and blogs on LJWorld.com. Now, it’s a list of the latest multimedia content from any site in our network — and it can be a video, a photo gallery or even a special feature. Here’s a before and after:

Next up, you’ll notice in that same picture that we’ve added a third tab: a most discussed feed from lawrence.com and WellCommons. There’s a lot of good content and good discussions on those sites and we want to put them in front of our largest audience, on LJWorld.com. We don’t have KUsports.com discussions anywhere on the homepage yet, but we have some other plans for that, down the road.

The old version of features are at top, the new version is below. You can also see that we've moved our videos module down a bit, in acknowledgement that our videos will now also cycle through the latest.

In addition, you’ll notice that we’ve rearranged and change our featured content boxes. Instead of being stacked down column two, they’re now split between column two and column three, with sports and state government occupying prime positions. Next are our WellCommons and lawrence.com features, which replace the large WellCommons box and Arts and Entertainment feature we had on the old site. These link you directly to those two sites. Here’s a before and after look at that.

The last significant move is the editorials, which have moved from under The Latest above the user blogs and letters to the editor. We think this reflects that all of this content is, fundamentally, opinion-based. In fact, in a previous iteration of the homepage, those two modules were located together. Here’s a look at where you can find that content now.

That brings us to what didn’t change. Most discussed is exactly where it has always been and its function is the exact same. The navigational bar is the same as well, though we do expect some changes there in the not-too-distant future. The top ads, visual tours and green edition remain where they’ve always been, as do our lists of special features, events and the ever-popular on the street question.

If I’ve missed something or you have a question or concern, leave it in the comments. I’ll be checking in all night and again tomorrow to help out and take your feedback.

The previous location of editorials, below, has been replaced by a new location near user blogs and letters to the editor, at top. It also helped make our columns more even!

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