Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
To cope with the vastly increased number of news stories now appearing every day in English, we've had to make a number of changes to our front page. These changes affect the front page in English only.
We are now showing only one link per country per day -- but if there are more, it clearly says that there are xx new stories from that country, and this is a link to a page which shows dozens more news stories.
This is only way out of three to actually get to the page showing country-specific news stories. You can still click on the name of the country which appears to the left of any news story, or you can use the drop-down menu appearing under our search box to see stories from any country.
In addition to this -- which greatly shortens the length of the front page in English -- we have moved back to a three-column format, allowing us to simultaneously highlight the following key features 'above the fold' (meaning, on the first screen you see, without having to scroll):
* Search - both current news and archives
* Drop-down menu of country pages
* Links to all regional pages
* All current ActNOW campaigns
* You have the right to join a union - link to ILO core conventions page
* Donate link
* Radio LabourStart link
* LabourStart Jobs link
* Top 10 news stories of the week
* Photo of the week, with a caption
* Book of the day
Our previous front page showed only the following items from the above list above the fold:
* Book of the day
* Top 10 news stories
One advantage of the new front page is that more people will be enticed to visit the country-specific news pages, which will also be improved over time. These pages are rich sources of labour news which might have been neglected previously.
As a result of the new design, I hope that more people will suggest photos, participate in more campaigns, use our search and our regional pages more, will donate more money, check out the ILO core conventions and offer translations in additional languages, listen to our radio station, use and advertise on our jobs board, and so on. That's what should happen when we go from 2 to 11 items featured on top of the front page.
We've both made the front page smaller and easier to use, and yet put the spotlight on many more aspects of our project.
Any suggestions you have for improving LabourStart are, as usual, most welcome.
Eric Lee - ericlee@labourstart.org
Texts appearing here are often press releases sent to us by unions and other organizations which do not appear elsewhere on the web. LabourStart takes no responsibility for their content.