Navigating MassLive is about to become easier

An even more complete look at WMass
Sunday, August 17, 2008

Navigating our Web site, MassLive.com, is about to become much easier.

Beginning on Wednesday, there will be a completely new home page designed to make finding what's important to you a snap - or a mouse-click, as it were.

The Web site team has gathered research data and listened to users for months before coming up with this new look. The changes are not the least bit superficial because the team pulled no punches in addressing impediments.

For example, one of the major benefits of the new home page will be a wider, less cluttered look that will make finding your favorite areas of interest effortless. And to make it easy to stay on track when moving around the Web site, a new navigation menu will be available throughout. An illustrated index of the site also will help, and that is a change that users cited often as much needed.

You weather devotees will be pleased to see that the usual current weather conditions, forecasts and access to live weather radar that has become a staple is being enhanced. Since New England weather changes more often than the price of gasoline, links to key weather information will be prominently displayed at the top of the home page, since it's top of mind. Users will be able to select the community that's most important to them in order to customize the weather information for their favorite town or even neighborhood. Severe weather alerts will show up on the home page 24/7.

MassLive is the Internet home for local news, sports and information about our region, and it is the place to go to make sure you're up-to-the-minute on local breaking news. Our reporters and photographers are devoted to getting the news to you via our Web site when it breaks and when they learn about it. We have reporters in courthouses, city and town halls, police stations, the Statehouse, sporting events - you name it. While a more complete story, sometimes with graphics, will appear in our daily newspaper the next morning, breaking news is put almost immediately on MassLive, and it is updated as more details become available.

I used to write news stories for radio and television stations, or broadcasters, so many moons ago that I've lost count. Back then, the editor's mantra to us was "immediacy is the soul of broadcasting." That's true today of news organizations such as ours that use the Internet to keep readers informed. That immediacy extends to the user, since you now can even sign up (no charge) for a feed that will alert you when we have posted a new local story on MassLive, and you can keep up with local breaking news via your cell phone.

In conjunction with the new MassLive home page, later this month, The Republican will begin running an extensive daily index on page A2 to assist our readers in finding content on the Web site that augments our print coverage. This could be videos, photo galleries, podcasts, searchable data bases and a host of other features to provide a complete look at everything Western Massachusetts.

Anyone who develops Web sites will tell you that the successful ones driven by news content must be vibrant, robust, searchable and interactive. Since MassLive.com was launched 10 years ago, it has become that and much more, and the new design will make it easier to zip to the page or content that's important to you, whether it's keeping up with local news or finding a restaurant, movie review, high school game results, stock quotes, what's on sale and what's for sale.

If you're shopping for a car, a house, an apartment, a refrigerator or a used mountain bike, you can find it. That's why they call it one-stop shopping. No matter what you're looking for, MassLive is by far the best local connection to the Greater Springfield market.

One of the fascinating segments of our Web site is the growth of interactivity. Citizens are now contributing news, information and content about the communities in which they live, and conversations, some civil and some not so civil, occur in the forums that focus on cities and towns in the region.

Many of you had a hand in shaping the new MassLive design, and you and others are invited to weigh in with your opinions and suggestions beginning Wednesday. I would say "Don't be shy," but we learned long ago that's really not necessary. So fire away.