Website revamp 'puts Reuters journalism at centre stage'

The new design has a clear and clean focus on Reuters content and features:

• Prominent use of Reuters imagery
• Simplified navigation, including a trending topics section at the top of each page
• Content widgets, such as interactive stock tickers, maps and in-line video that deliver supporting information to article content
• Personalised scroll feature, designed to drive new content discovery
• Fully responsive pages optimised for viewing on all platforms.

"The new Reuters.com story pages enable us to present our world-class journalism with stronger multi-media elements and richer context, greatly improving the reader's experience," said editor-in-chief Stephen Adler.

“The article page redesign is central to upgrading the Reuters.com user experience,” said Isaac Showman, managing director of Reuters Consumer. “The refreshed and simplified look, combined with new personalisation features that drive content discovery, are the first in a series of steps we’re taking to better showcase Reuters premier journalism.”

The changes aim to remake Reuters.com from a news website into a news utility, he said.

"A lot of news websites are a reflection of newspaper design," Showman said. "Essentially, the premium is on the storytelling and on the presentation of that storytelling. When you’re developing a utility - of course storytelling is important - but what’s critical is what you’re helping the news consumer to do."

In Reuters' case, that means helping people make important decisions quickly, Showman said. They want information that's accurate and relevant, and they want it fast. They also want context around that information - where is the story happening? What are its financial implications? And, lastly, how is it relevant to them?

Reuters is also introducing three new fully-responsive advertising solutions that will increase consumer engagement and retention.

The new design spans all editions of Reuters.com article pages with the exception of Japanese and Arabic language sites which will be updated later this year. ■