It’s important to find ways of introducing readers to a major news site redesign: not only do they have to come to terms with  it but also be motivated to provide feedback on it. Not all sites are able to do it well or even to the reasonable sastisfaction of the thousands of readers who make use of their site day in and out.

On the Web,  interactivity is the buzzword  - so readers or users can prove invaluable allies in helping the site managers evaluate the redesign and find areas for improvement. And how do you do it?

We there could be the usual Flash intro to the redesign, a page explaining the major changes, a blog post inviting comments, a feedback form and perhaps a FAQ page. Interestingly, the Chicago Tribune, during its redesign has gone as far as using  a community platform called Get Satisfaction to get things going in a really comprehensive way. More than 400 topics were listed there when this post was being written - now what more could you want in terms of feedback, troubleshooting pointers and suggestions for improvement - all from the community.

I think that’s a great way of interacting in a close way with readers and riding out the post-redesign phase. Not always will the going be comfortable though; one reader asked, "Can you tell me how a community-powered page will cure a design problem? Are you opening the page files for fixes from the general public?"

As for the current redesign itself, the keywords (according to the site itself) were easy navigation, streamlined design, tab through headlines, easier sharing and commenting and better video players and tools. I know only too well the kind of effort involved in a redesign so I wouldn’t want to pass judgement on it without really spending a lot of time studying the pages.

Well to know the kinds of trends on view, I will list here the key aspects of the the previous redesign of Chicago Tribune, a couple of years ago: home page tabs, classified and entertainment search tools, time stamps, email briefs and alerts,  mobile website and alerts, story ratings,  most popular/viewed/emailed tabs, blogs with comments, user photo uploads, photo galleries and video.

The latest redesign: