An update on the STLtoday redesign
We’re a day into the redesign of STLtoday and we’ve made a lot of progress in addressing many issues that arose — some issues we’ve noticed ourselves, and many you’ve brought to our attention. For example, within 30 minutes of launching the new design, some of you let us know that some key links in the classified advertising section were broken. I think we got those fixed about 31 minutes after launching the redesign.
First, here’s a link to our video tutorial about the redesign. And at the bottom of this posting, you’ll see a link to our “frequently asked questions” about the redesign.
Some have asked whether we tested the site before we launched it.
Well, of course we did.
I think many people familiar with this process will agree that sometimes, you don’t really know where the problems are until you get the site out of the garage or the test track and onto the highway, in a true production environment. I won’t suggest that’s the cause of the all the problems, but it accounted for some. Here’s a few updates on our progress — along with our thank you for coming along for the ride and for those of you who offered constructive feedback.
Pop-up ads. We know some of you have had an issue with numerous pop-up ads. We’re working on that and we think (stress, think) we have figured out the problem. Please let us know if you still see it. The more detail you can provide, the better (i.e. what browser and operating system).
Can’t find the older columns. Boy, howdy, we know this was a problem. You could read current columns, but not previous ones. We’ve made progress on that, but it’s high on our list to address.
Formatting problems. You probably have noticed some pages that weren’t formatted in our new design correctly. Prep Sports, Weather, some of our guide listing pages (i.e. restaurants, bars) and others. We’re getting to them as quickly as possible.
Site map the Today’s Post-Dispatch. Oops. We thought we had’em ready — but obviously, we didn’t. The site map is up. So is Today’s Post-Dispatch — but there’s still some tweaking to do. Thank you for your patience.
Blog text formatting. We’ve made changes there to fix the lack of text formatting — bold, italic, bulleted type and set-off quotes. All fixed.
Broken links in the dropdown. Made a lot of progress stamping out bugs there, but let us know if you still see things. Some of you have made great suggestions for items that should be in the dropdown that we overlooked, so we’re adding and tweaking as needed.
Dropdown menu under ads. Ugh, yes, we know. Working on that, too, and as we ID the ads that are causing the problems, we’re taking care of it. If you have specifics on that issue, again, we’re all ears.
Forums – we increased the number of threads! We heard about this for a long time, so we’ve bumped the number of threads per page from eight to 12.
Multimedia channel. A work in progress. Thank you for your patience.
Got more questions? Don’t forget to consult the FAQ we posted here. You can also send e-mail to sitehelp@stltoday.com.
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
It’s clear that the overwhelming majority of your readers are really disappointed with the new format. I’m one of them, but that’s beside the point. What bothers me is that you don’t really seem to be taking many of the suggestions seriously. You’ve responded to complaints about technical glitches, which is good. But you have been totally ignoring the complaints about the site’s look and layout that have been made by commenter after commenter. For example, there have been umpteen comments about the (horrible) blue color. Yet you only responded to the one comment that liked it. The same goes for the bad layout, the out-of-date, unprofessional look, and all the other valid complaints that keep coming up, over and over again. You haven’t responded to those complaints at all. Are we to take this to mean that you have no intention of changing anything other than technical glitches, that you paid a fortune for these awful changes and they are here to stay whether we like them or not, that our opinions mean nothing?
I’ve tried to get used to the new look, but the truth is that I just don’t enjoy the site anymore and I’ve been going elsewhere. Unless this new, awkward format is scrapped, I can see my visits dwindling down to nothing real soon. Sorry, but this site is just not worth my time anymore. Sad, since I really used to like coming here.
Look, someone at the Post-Dispatch needs to step up and fix things PDQ. The new site is a disgrace and this Kurt guy refuses to step up and report on any efforts to fix it, other than a little thing here or there. There’s a lot of news people are trying to keep up on, but the unusable STL TODAY site is getting in the way. This is a desparate request to fix things right away. I want to be VERY CLEAR, too:
THERE ARE PROBLEMS GALORE WITH THE NEW SITE. IT IS NOT JUST A MATTER OF PEOPLE TAKING A WHILE TO GET USED TO CHANGE. FIX THE PROBLEMS OR GET PEOPLE IN WHO CAN.
It’s interesting that Kurt hasn’t responded with a new blog post to the torrent of negative responses to the new site. Clearly the people at STLtoday think everything is fine, and will stick with this horrific new format. Not a single person I know prefers the new site, with many people saying it’s one of the worst redesigns they’ve ever seen. Everyone upset with this disservice to the St. Louis community should check out http://www.stlbeacon.org. It’s a new site featuring some former Post-Dispatch writers, and it’s MUCH EASIER TO READ.
FYI - Don’t be surprised if this post gets deleted. The people at STLtoday really hate that there’s finally competition in St. Louis for news.
Jason: Don’t be surprised if it’s NOT deleted, either.
Tom: I’m sorry you don’t feel I’ve been responsive. I’ll see if I can do better. We are working to address the technical issues that have been raised.
As for aesthetic issues, I’m not sure how to address that. We have heard from many people who like the look as well.
“As for aesthetic issues, I’m not sure how to address that. We have heard from many people who like the look as well.”
Well, I guess you just answered my question above of whether or not you’re going to do anything about the horrible layout and aesthetic changes. Did you really read all the comments? I’d say that the people who actually LIKE the new look are a very small percentage of the overall commenters, with the overwhelming majority HATING the new look.
I guess I was right: you must have paid a fortune for some company to redesign the site, and by hell or high water you’re going to get your money’s worth and keep those changes, even if most of your readers hate them.
I checked out the stlouisbeacon site that others have mentioned, and while it’s far from perfect, it’s much better laid out and organized, much more straightforward and easier to navigate than the PD’s new design. Between that site and a few others, I no longer need to visit the PD site which is run by a company that really couldn’t care less what its readers think.
Bonus: those other sites don’t take 20 seconds to load, requiring you to kill time elsewhere while waiting to see the headlines.
Slooooooooooowwwwww
Slow slow slow slow slow, I used to visit everyday. Now I visit once a week to see if you have changed back.
Kurt - It’s been a couple of weeks and I still like the new design. I’m not sure why everyone is STILL whining. Get over it already. I noticed earlier complainers stated they would “move on to another site”, but then are posting in the Interact columns. Maybe they came around after all.
Tuck,
It’s called a BOOKMARK. You can actually get to the forum without going through the STLToday.com home page. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, you can’t even get to this forum through the home page anymore. I know that I looked and looked and looked and came up dry. This included the site map. If anyone knows how to find this forum from the site navigation, please let me know.
It’s probably there but about as unuseable as the rest of the site.
Tom
I used to log in to StlToday several times a day to catch up on local news. Now that it is harder to get to and you have to access several pages to get the same information that used to be all on one page, I maybe visit 3-4 times per week.
I miss the old site…
I do not like the new format.
Here’s why:
It is hard to find breaking news and updates on current stories.
The Main category headings are concise, however there are so many vaguely-worded subcategories (and some are duplicates) that it is hard to navigate to the specific column or story you want.
That is my two cents, FWIW…