New York Times revamps website

The NYT website was the most popular newspaper website in the world until last year, when it was overtaken by the Daily Mail.

Digital analytics firm ComScore’s figures from January 2012 showed that the NYT had 44.8 million monthly users, while the Daily Mail had 45.3 million.

The NYT is now trialling a new site design, with the first phase focused on the look and feel of articles. The current site design is here, and a first look at the new designs is here.

Articles have been redesigned to reduce clutter, but still feature large images. Slideshows, video and other images sit inline sit inline and comments can be displayed alongside articles, so that they can be read in context.

Last year the NYT published the Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek article, which featured multimedia content including video and maps.

Jill Abramson executive editor of the NYT, says, ‘As we continue to develop our rich content offering across video, slideshows, data visualisation and interactive graphics, these adjustments provide the structure our newsroom needs to deliver a best-in-class digital news report.’

NYT says the new design was developed by a team of journalists, designers and technologists, who aimed to develop a ‘cleaner, more modern experience’.

It says the prototype site is being rolled out to a portion of its readers, ahead of ‘major site enhancements’ later this year.

The prototype phase, NYT says, will allow it to gain feedback on functionality, navigation, design and overall experience.