Jumping Fox

Among a slew of newspaper redesigns that are utilising more magazine-driven layouts popping with colour and graphics, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has launched a new design that uses more solid columns of text and smaller photos than most.

Will Alford, product design chief behind the redesign explains their thinking in this detailed summary of the redesign at Visual Editors (added emphasis is mine):

For years our industry has chased those elusive nonreaders. Our market research led us down a different path. What we’d have to do to win over those folks risked driving away our core readers.

We believe we can thrive by increasing the satisfaction of those who already engage with us regularly. To us, this meant we had to design a newspaper for people who like newspapers. If our strategy works, more of you will renew your subscriptions or purchase the paper more often or convert from single-copy customers to home subscribers.

It’s sad that something as simple as listening to your existing users seems so groundbreaking.

At the heart of any successful project is a solid understanding of your user. Sometimes they tell you things you want to hear, often it’s things you don’t like to hear–comments on the AJC’s own blog post about the changes are filled will negative feedback–but if your redesign ignore them in search on converting new readers, it’s at your peril.