No your eyes do not deceive you. You're looking at a brand new Crosscut. One you will come to love as much as you would come to love that kitten over there.
We’ve been noodling this redesign for a while now and we’re thrilled to finally roll it out. Let me extend our heartfelt thanks to Boeing for underwriting the project and to our hardworking web development team at Odd Dog Media who, by the way, are still speaking to us.
I know that many of you liked and felt comfortable with the old Crosscut. Clearly, this new site will take some getting used to – for all of us. But here are some of the reasons we decided to shake things up and why we think you’ll like the new Crosscut.com.
First, it really was time to freshen up our look and to streamline and focus the site and our coverage. To those ends the new design highlights our concentration on three broad topic areas: Politics and policy, arts and Culture, business and Technology. We expect transformative ideas and leaders to emerge from each of those three arenas and we’ll be there when they do.
The launch of the new website also marks the debut of a new, souped-up version of our Daily Troll. To keep you current on the latest Northwest news, we’ve mashed the best of Clicker and Troll into a new aggregation service that you can count on to deliver the most compelling headlines, stories, quotes, tweets, etc., not just once a day, but all day long.
Other things to love about the new Crosscut.com: It’s responsive, automatically adapting to whatever device you’re viewing it on: phone, tablet, desktop. No app required. (That said, the new site looks best on the most recent versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. so we encourage you to upgrade your browser of choice. Versions older than Chrome 38+, Firefox 32+, Safari 7+ and IE 9+ won’t provide an optimal viewing experience. Just saying.)
The new site also features continuous scroll, so if you have the time and the inclination you can wander back through Crosscut’s archive of 11,000 stories (and counting) – without ever leaving the page. Seattle Opera intrigue, the online sex industry, elephants’ rights, the escapades of Pam Roach, the fall of Mark Driscoll, the ongoing saga of Bertha. It’s all there, a scrolling treasure trove of thoughtful takes on Northwest news and the people who make it. And now you’ll be able to more easily share your favorites on social media. Those Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. icons will be close at hand in every story – like benign little stalkers.
The new site also offers two viewing options: Click “Editors’ Picks” for a more magazine-like lineup of the most recent stories; toggle to “Trending” for a spartan list view of the most popular ones. (You’ll find "Editors’ Picks" and "Trending" side by side on the homepage and section pages, right below the lead image. A third list view of all recent stories is coming soon.)
Finally, we’ve heard from many of you over the years that you’d like to see more personal accountability in our Comments section, so we’ve switched to Disqus, one of the most robust and widely-used discussion tools on the web. You’ll have to login to comment, but it’s a quick, painless process and you can use your Google, Facebook or Twitter logins. Comments will now display alongside, rather than beneath stories. To join a discussion just click on “Comments” at the top or bottom of each story page - or on the little Comments bubble icon in the far right margin of the page. Once you do, a screen will slide out and you can start yammering away. Just keep it civil, and clean.
We’re thinking of this as a rolling launch, meaning we’re aware of a few imperfections – legacy comments are all “Anonymous” at the moment, for example. But we’ve decided to tackle these bugs in public over the next few days (or weeks) rather than wait any longer to launch the new site.
One imperfection won’t be fixed. Our iPhone app doesn’t work with our new WordPress platform. My sincerest apologies to all our iPhone app users. But [SILVER LINING ALERT] with the new design’s responsive nature you don’t need no stinking app. (Btw: The new site looks pretty great on my iPhone 6s.)
Another reason to iterate in public, as they say, is that we know you’ll have comments, suggestions (and yes, complaints) about the new site. We look forward to your feedback (positive and negative). In fact, we’re counting on it and expect to modify the new site in response. So if you find any bugs (broken images, broken links, error pages, etc.) please alert us by leaving a comment on this story or, better yet, emailing webreporting@crosscut.com.
And remember: What hasn't changed, what will never change, is our commitment to practicing quality journalism that arms you with the information and insight you need to be a fully engaged citizen.
Onward.
