BellinghamHerald.com evolves to meet readers’ needs
We’ve redesigned our digital home page and print edition today to present news in ways that meet the needs of today’s busy readers.
We’re increasing our efforts to take a layered approach to storytelling, giving you the choice of reading highlights that summarize each article or to dig deeper into the details. Many articles will include pullouts of key facts, important quotations or statistics that help tell the story.
We’re using metrics from our website to learn which stories readers most value and we’re redoubling our efforts to focus on those kinds of stories. We’re going deeper on some stories, while continuing to cover the kind of breaking news our readers want.
MEETING CHANGING NEEDS
Since the tri-weekly Fairhaven Herald began publishing in 1890, the newspaper has evolved as readers, the community and technology have changed.
When Sehome, Whatcom and Fairhaven consolidated in 1903 as Bellingham, we changed our name to The Bellingham Herald. We built the Herald Building in 1926. Bob Hall and David Johnston bought the building in 2009 and have brought new businesses to the neighborhood. We continue to operate The Bellingham Herald from offices on the second floor.
We launched our first news website on Feb. 15, 2000. Today, we launch our sixth major change to the website’s design. Mobile users see updates to our apps several times a year as we continue to refine content, design and how the apps work.
DIGITAL CHANGES
At bellinghamherald.com, we have redesigned our home page to feature the best of our “now” content at the top and our deeper content, including video, in the middle. There’s also a “to do” section, offering the best of our living and entertainment coverage, toward the bottom.
Site navigation hasn’t changed, and our website remains responsive, meaning you can easily see all content on your smartphone, tablet, desktop or laptop.
Our tablet and phone apps received a more contemporary makeover and load faster. The new app home page aggregates the best stories from various sections. In addition, app users can save a story for offline reading, and tablet app users will again be able to read in portrait view.
The e-Editon, our digital replica, was updated several weeks ago. The updated site features “pinch and expand” viewing, side swipe to flip pages, audio reading of articles and a better way to print puzzles.
COVERING WHATCOM
Whether you read the print newspaper, check the e-Edition on your tablet, use our smartphone apps to get news notifications or follow a story from social media, we continue our 125-year tradition of keeping you connected to our community.
We invite your feedback on our evolution at new.bellinghamherald.com/feedback.html.
Julie Shirley is executive editor and Mark Owings is publisher of The Bellingham Herald.
This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 12:00 PM with the headline "BellinghamHerald.com evolves to meet readers’ needs."