GoErie.com

On Monday morning, GoErie.com went live on their new design, which had been in a beta preview for the last few months.

As the most visited media website in the region, with a Quantcast-estimated 134,000 monthly U.S. people using the site, the redesign is big news. The folks at the Erie Times-News powered site are going toward a new direction:

What you see with the new GoErie is a change in focus. The emphasis now is on you, the greater Erie community: Your events, your photos, your news and other information you need to live well in our region, from job opportunities and bargains to the latest posts from community bloggers.

Now the new look isn’t propagated through the whole site yet; that will take the better part of the month. But there’s a lot to like about this new design, including the color scheme, the easy to find spotlight of the top stories, the latest news feed just below, and the very interesting and innovative crime map.

The handling of individual stories is strong, with the “AddThis” share button, print, and reprints button, along with the date/time stamp easy to find. At the bottom of the page are the headlines and most read listings for easy navigation and helps the site generate more page views.

What leaves a little to be desired continues to be the sense of clutter on the front page, using too many design elements. For example, the “GoErie.com Videos” section made to look like a movie screen is just hokey looking and takes too much space. I’m also not a big fan of the new hand-drawn logo (liked the clean look of the old one) and the plain Arial/Helvetica body text font seems boring.

Since I don’t have an iPhone, I don’t know how the site translates for mobile readership that is more and more essential.

The folks at GoErie are looking for your feedback and you can connect by clicking this link.  I’ve always been impressed how the Times Publishing Co. has made big bets on new technology, and this new evolution of GoErie.com is another example of their navigation to the new media context in which we live.