There are several reasons that a newspaper might undertake the grueling task of a redesign. Some see it as a way to increase readership, others view it as an opportunity to introduce new features, and some are just sick and tired of looking at the same elements everyday. Perhaps one of the more important reasons is to create a design that not only meets the needs of individual sections, but helps the reader better navigate the paper.

When a paper makes the decision to undergo a redesign, often one of their first moves is to invest a chunk of money to conduct research to see what their readers are looking when they pick up the paper. They take this information and begin to create a new layout that attempts to meet both the readers needs and the needs of the section editors.

Unfortunately, the Daily Californian does not have the funds to hire a consulting firm to find out what visually entices our readers. Every department of the paper values input from the readers, even the design department. If you have any ideas about what you would like to see in the Daily Californian as we take steps to begin a redesign please send them to design@dailycal.org.

Even if it’s a simple complaint of the type being too small to read or you don’t like a certain font let us know. You might see the changes you suggested when the redesign is finished.

The Daily Californian launched its redesigned Web site Sunday evening. It was another step in our efforts to increase our online capabilities. The redesign has been in the works since July, when we had our first online summit to brainstorm new features. In addition to having a much cleaner look and feel, we wanted the site to address several key issues:

1. Improve user navigation and interactivity of our content
2. Organize the many projects we’ve introduced such as blogging, photo reprints, multimedia, Marketplace
3. Increase our online revenue-generating capabilities
4. Better feature our articles and special issues

(Click here to read more…)

Our dear Clog is going through a lot of growing pains this semester. Not only did we start the year off with a new editor, but we’ve also had to work with a tiny staff while adjusting to a whole new blog design.

If you take a glimpse at the Daily Clog right now, you’ll see a clean, attractive interface–the kind you’d want to show to your mom. Beautiful, yes, but the transition did come with various technical difficulties. Since the semester began in mid-January, the Clog and its resident tech have been working hard to fix a wide spectrum of flaws in the new design, whether they be lost comments or broken links. We still have a lot of work to do, so bear with us.

Speaking of lost comments: Where have all the commenters gone? The last time we checked, blogging was supposed to be a highly interactive medium.

Don’t get us wrong. We do get comments, and we very much appreciate them. The occasional gripe about our writing abilities is nice, but we love what you think about the actual post topic even more. According to Lifehacker’s guide to weblog comments,

“Leaving a comment on someone’s weblog is like walking into their living room and joining in on a conversation … (g)ood blog commenters add to the discussion and are known as knowledgeable, informative, friendly and engaged.”

Why not jump into the Clog’s lively conversations?

Geek to Live: Lifehacker’s Guide to Weblog Comments [Lifehacker]