The Washington Post's site is to get a major facelift, as announced previously.

"This is a reflection of what the Web site is all about: change. We have done a half-dozen redesigns in-house, but during the past five or six years it has been different parts of the site," said executive editor Jim Brady (see his interview about the Future of Journalism).

Last September, the Post hired the Wonderfactory of New York, which has led redesigns for Newsweek and Martha Stewart. The main focuses of the redesign will revolve around reader participation and friendlier searches.

"They wanted theirs to be a site where you understand immediately it is a place to get the news and participate in the news," said Joe McCambley, Wonderfactory's co-founder and creative director. "The biggest change will be that it will be dramatically easier for people to find what they are looking for."

"We are trying to fill it with the strategies we've emphasized the past few years -- reader engagement, multi- media, and providing useful databases for our readers," said Brady.

Another symbolic issue for the redesign was whether to keep the differentiate logo of washingtonpost.com or adopt one similar to that of the print edition.

Back in '96, the argument for having a washingtonpost.com logo was strong," Brady explains. "Now, most readers don't differentiate the Post from washingtonpost.com, so there is an argument not to differentiate. That is why we are testing this."

This would be a good sign that the different platforms of the paper are no longer considered as competing, but instead as two channels for the same brand name. Brady hoped the redesign would be up before Election Day in November.

Source: Editor & Publisher