Financial Times kicks off website redesign with new look homepages

The Financial Times will begin a site-wide redesign this week with the launch of a new version of the homepage for each of its international online editions.

New look pages for the FT's UK, Europe, US and Asia editions will launch on Tuesday, with the addition of a new site for the Middle East, matching the title's print edition for the region.

The homepages, which will sport the traditional 'salmon pink' background of their print counterparts, will carry a new site masthead of Financial Times rather than FT.com.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Kate Mackenzie, interactive editor for the FT, explained the key changes to the design of the homepage (visit our blog for a full screenshot of the new look):

• Top ten 'must read' items in a list format – items featured on the homepage will be selected to represent the most important content at the time, rather than the most recent stories, explained Mackenzie. News, analysis, comment and multimedia pieces will be mixed together in this list: "It gives us a lot more freedom to show readers quite clearly and simply what the most important things are across the whole of the FT."
• Collapsible Sections around the 'must read' list.
• Narrowed search function - can now narrow search to within sections.
• Horizontal navigation bar – part of site-wide plans to provide 'simpler navigation', said Mackenzie, starting with the removal of the left-hand section list on the homepage.
• Highlights bar – similar to 'must read' list, selected by editors, highlighting important content at a given time.
• 'Below the fold' section - to showcase multimedia content.
• Markets data – feature carried over from existing homepage.

Significant changes to the site's infrastructure are also underway, said Mackenzie, with the existing content management system being developed to promote smoother and more efficient publishing of related content online.

"It's [the change to the infrastructure behind the site] in that realm where the editorial approach intersects with the pure technology," she added.

"It's trying to break free from this dichotomy of either 'completely manual' or 'completely automated' by introducing a fairly sophisticated system which does some of the grunt work for you, but also allows us to tap our journalistic knowledge really efficiently.

"Rather than just having a system that links all stories together by keyword, it gives the editorial user the opportunity to interact with that system."

In particular the technological changes will help the site make more use of metadata and tags for content and enable journalists to provide links within their stories more easily.

As the rest of the site is redesigned section by section, these 'back-end' developments will have an impact on the way in which editorial content is packaged on the site, said Mackenzie.

"People will see that we're taking a different approach to the way that we organise our stories and our coverage of particular issues," she added.

"At the moment we have a fairly old-fashioned approach to organising the relationship between stories online, but it's going to become a lot more dynamic and tag driven."

"There's two main approaches: one is how to group together coverage on that discrete [individual] story that instant, so there's a focus on the time; but simultaneously we're expanding the focus on the issue and at a different levels. People will be able to narrow down the topic that they're looking at more or less depending on their interest in it."

This is a strategy already used by the site for its companies coverage, added Mackenzie, but that will become 'more pervasive' as a result of the redesign.

On the new homepages this feature will be introduced through colour-coded links, for example, links in dark pink will take the reader to more in-depth analysis of a topic.

As part of the redesign, and as a means of responding to feedback about the changes, Mackenzie will participate in a new editors blog, which will feature the weekly note sent to staff by FT editor Lionel Barber and deputy editor Martin Dickson.

A revamp of the remaining sections of the site will take place in incremental steps into spring next year.

Kate Mackenzie talks to Journalism.co.uk about the changes:

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