TYLER HICKS
It’s a story as old as time—or at least as old as the internet: You hear about some breaking news (or new food truck) and use your laptop or smart phone to check out the Denton Record-Chronicle’s website. Maybe it fails to load, or maybe you’re just turned off by the lackluster layout. Luckily, the good folks over at the DRC launched a new webpage design that the newsroom brass believe alleviates the concerns and questions perplexing local readers.
The brand new dentonrc.com is now live and ready to make Denton denizens and others forget all about the much-aligned former design. In addition to a cool job title, Denton Record-Chronicle Webmaster Larry McBride has full confidence in the new layout’s ability to enhance the product and reader experience. “We have the ability to get news to our readers quicker, and the new site has a new look,” he says. “We believe it will help us increase our online readership.”
Previously, the mobile experience was a chore and bore for anyone interested in local news, features, reviews and politics. News stories appeared in a bland, linear style that, more than anything, encouraged you to put down the phone and go outside—people still do that, right?
McBride and the rest of the DRC team were well aware of these major concerns, which is why they set out to build the new site over 10 months ago.
“The main goal was to make it more user-friendly with the visual appeal,” he says. “We were really limited with things that we could do with the old website. We wanted a site that looked different and was more up-to-date.”
The Webmaster called the overhaul “well-overdue,” and he believes the paper’s new online layout is miles ahead of the old spread. Check it out to see if you agree, and sound off in the comments below to let us know if it is up to par or if you miss the former design.
For now, let’s remember the recently deceased DRC web design like any newspaper worth its weight would—with an obit. Cue Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You.”
Denton Record-Chronicle’s Former Website
Sometime a while back—May 15, 2016
The old website of the local paper-of-record, the Denton Record-Chronicle, died as it lived—Slow, yet full of life and great stories. Born around the time Al Gore invented the internet, the old website was a go-to for anything and everything newsworthy in Denton. It is survived by its smoother, sleeker successor.