After six months of planning and hard work, the Fort Frances Times Web Design team launched an improved website late last week—unveiling new features and even more of the content they’ve come to expect to find at www.fortfrances.com
“It’s been a long time in the making,” said Times’ office manager Linda Plumridge, adding the Times’ website was last redesigned in 2003.
She explained the Web Design team have been looking at many websites since January to get ideas and decide what features they liked and didn’t like, as well as what they were capable of doing and what just wouldn’t work for their purposes.
From there, the team—web design specialist Cory Westover, web salesperson/developer Lynel Jackson, web developer/designer Cindy Homer, and programmers Troy L’Hirondelle and Bryan Davis, along with summer student Justin Newman—tackled the myriad aspects of redesigning the site, from the cosmetic to the “nuts and bolts” underneath.
Plumridge noted overhauling the website was truly a group effort and thanked the team for their hard work.
“It’s a really complicated site, but it doesn’t look like it. That’s because we’ve got great programmers on staff,” she remarked. “We have the talented staff in place to do this.”
While the site needed a cosmetic makeover, the greatest reason for the overhaul was technological, noted Plumridge, adding most of the changes are to “the back end of it.”
“It’s all about the way it’s built,” she remarked. “Technology has changed. They’re using different software, designed for the web.
“It doesn’t really affect the end user, but it does affect the way the people who work with it use it.
“The website was growing beyond the capacity of what we had. We had to update to newer software,” added Plumridge. “We had to overhaul the engine so everything will work better, faster.
“You can’t stay stagnant in this industry.”
From their first glance at the revamped website, regular online readers will see it boasts a sharp design with crisp graphics.
While many of the features are familiar, such as the tabs to find news stories, sports stories, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth announcements, and TV listings, they’ve been rearranged to be more user-friendly—running along the top of the page and not down a very long list on the left-hand side.
New features include a link to check the weather forecast, a link to submit news tips, a link to view complete classified listings, and one to check out a community calendar.
“I’m really excited about the calendar,” said Plumridge.
Online users can submit information on community events to be added to the calendar although Plumridge noted this information will be screened to see that the event promoted is truly a community event and not, say, an individual’s garage sale.
Plumridge noted she’s hoping to work with Diane Maxey on the calendar. As previously reported in the Times, Maxey has expressed interest in developing a district-wide community events calendar.
Plumridge noted the website also offers up more, and larger, photos than ever before, including those not published in the newspaper.
She added larger batches of photos will be posted for significant and popular events, like the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship or the Fort High prom.
The public also can purchase photos they see online.
A little further down the road, Plumridge said the website also will feature video clips of community events, which will be provided by Times’ staff as well as the public.
All of the story content has been moved over from the old site—a staggering 31,500 items, nearly 20,000 of which are local and district stories.
That total also includes 900 recipes, which Plumridge pointed out are quite popular, as well as Canadian Press content, which is deleted over time.
As far as new content, the website will continue to be updated every day with stories from the Daily Bulletin and Times. But just as before, not everything in the newspaper goes up on the site right away, and there are advantages to being a subscriber.
Plumridge noted online readers will continue to be able to search for and check out previously published articles on the website, but that eventually, stories posted will be available to read for free for a limited period of time and then moved to an “archives” section, where readers will have to pay to access them.
This has become common practice on many other newspaper websites.
The website also will give readers access to free PDF versions of special sections that are published each year, whether it’s the “Discover” visitors’ guide, the recent high school graduation insert, or the annual bass tourney supplement.
On the same note, the website also is the spot where people can subscribe to receive a PDF version of the Daily Bulletin and Fort Frances Times instead of the paper copy—especially useful if you live far from home and can’t wait to get your paper in the mail.
The website also has been altered to be more accommodating to online advertisers. Homer noted the revamped site allows for advertisers to have exclusivity.
In other words, if an advertiser wants their ads to “pop up” whenever users read a sports story, they can do so.
In related news, the Times Web Design team has been doing an extensive overhaul on the Town of Fort Frances’ website.
Keep checking the link from the Times’ home page.
Fort Frances Times
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