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Behind the scenes: Telegraph.co.uk's redesign

Posted: 17/07/08 By: Laura Oliver
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Screenshot of new Telegraph.co.uk homepage

Telegraph.co.uk will launch new look news, sport and travel sections in the next week - the first stages of a site-wide redesign.

The homepage has also been revamped as part of the plans, which focus on 'deeper engagement' with users.

The redesign will be extended throughout the site with business likely to be the next launch, Paul Cheesbrough, chief information officer at Telegraph Media Group (TMG), told a press briefing.

It is hoped a relaunch of the entire site, which has been developed internally within TMG's project lab, will be completed within the year.

“We've experienced some great growth and we've also closed the gap on our traditional competitors, but we've got one eye on the next couple of years and to really drive that next stage of growth we need to replace some of the infrastructure, tidy the front end of the site up, and power on to the next stage,” said Cheesbrough.

Improved navigation on the site - a feature requested by focus groups conducted by the publisher - is a key aspect of the relaunch, he added.

To this end the left-hand navigation bar will be removed in favour of an extended horizontal content menu and a new site A-Z to help users familiarise themselves with the new layout.

Telegraph TV will no longer be such a prominent feature on the site's homepage, but video will instead be embedded across the site and throughout news articles.

The site's comment content has been moved 'above the fold' on the homepage, again as part of the push towards increasing engagement with users.

A flexible page structure for the homepage and section homepages has also been introduced. This will enable different types of multimedia content to feature across the pages and allow the site to better reflect breaking news and other key stories.

The title's editorial team will decided what content is featured in these flexible areas, which may also contain content tailored to individual users in the future, Cheesbrough said.

The site is also in the process of upgrading its blogs and community section – a development that will run in tandem with the redesign of the rest of the site, he added.

More images of the new look Telegraph site can be seen on the Journalism.co.uk blog.

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