The new-look Loadstar: same high quality, improved response and appearance

© Khunaspix Dreamstime.

Today The Loadstar unveils its new-look website.

We could list all the great new features we’ve come up with, but to be honest, it’s pretty straightforward.

The site looks different, but it’s the same high standard of content, created by the same editorial team, which has drawn increasing numbers of readers over the past three and a half years. We have further investments underway to strengthen this team, which will be phased in over the next few months.

So why the redesign? The primary reason is that our analytics showed us that our readers’ habits were changing. Increasing numbers of people are accessing our content through smartphones and tablets, and the previous version of the site wasn’t very mobile-friendly – or “responsive”, as they term it in web-development circles, where we have spent much more time than is generally considered healthy for normal people.

Now it is very “responsive”, so the presentation of the content changes, depending on the device used to read it – no more zooming in and out, and blunt fingers trying to press tiny links.

But while we were at it, we thought we might as well improve on other areas: the way the content is organised and tagged; the article fonts; and so on… there was a litany of things we wanted to make better. The internet is evolving at lightning speed, and we have to move with it. Edmund Burke might not have lived in our breakneck-paced times, but this observation from him still holds true: “A state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation.”

The Loadstar is, of course, still a work in progress. We are not infallible; there are likely to be some aspects we have overlooked – please get in touch if your “user experience” (terrible expression, but it’ll have to do) has in any way been adversely affected by our changes. Or if something doesn’t work.

We do what we do to add value to organisations and individuals involved, or who have interest in, the supply chain. That is, and always will be, our priority, and if we have inadvertently failed to achieve that, we need you to tell us so we can remedy it. We like listening to what people have to say.