New era as Shropshire Star website delivers a fresh look

After months of research, design and development work we today proudly present the new-look shropshirestar.com, which has a clean, modern feel.

The website breaks new ground – it’s the first in the UK to be built and powered by the Washington Post’s own state-of-the-art digital platform.

It means it’s faster, updated more often, and will look better on your mobile phone.

We’ve made it easier than ever before to quickly get to the content that matters to you.

Whether it’s news from your local town, or details on the next Shrewsbury game, readers will see it’s easier than ever to find what they are looking for. New local hubs for the main towns and villages in the Shropshire Star region make it easy to find what’s going on in your neighbourhood.

Our football pages have been given a complete overhaul, and for the first time feature fixtures, results, squad details and league tables. And our entertainment pages have been given a sleek new look, with events listings from around Shropshire and Mid Wales, as well as the West Midlands and Staffordshire, and pages dedicated to entertainment news from your area.

We’ve given more weight to content from our readers, with a new-look Star Witness section, while our ‘Voices’ pages give added emphasis to opinions from readers, and top columnists like Peter Rhodes and Nigel Hastilow. Our all-new motoring section showcases the latest news, reviews and features.

Away from the news, you’ll now find it easier than ever to search for a job, a classified listing or even a local business.

The site has been in a public test phase for several weeks while the team at MNA Digital, part of the Claverley group of companies which publishes the Shropshire Star and Express & Star, continued to tweak and enhance the website.

Andy Hill, managing director of MNA Digital, said: “We are really pleased with the cleaner design for shropshirestar.com.

“The navigation of the sites was an important part of the project that received a lot of attention. We wanted to simplify the navigation and make it easier for our readers to find the content that they are interested in.

“We carried out extensive user research, which showed that our sites were cluttered and confusing to navigate meaning that it could be hard for a reader to find the content they are searching for.

“Offering our readers too much choice through the navigation was counter-productive. The new navigation is simple to understand and works well on a mobile as it is easy to use on a small screen.

“This is important because more than 60 per cent of our users access our websites using their mobile phones.”

MNA Digital Commercial Director Will Beavis, Head of Digital Editorial Mike Woods, Managing Director Andy Hill with the Washington Post's Matt Nelson and Ian Baker.

Shropshire Star Editor Martin Wright said: “We believe the new website is a big step forward for our growing digital operation. It will allow users to keep up to date with all the news and sport as it happens, complementing our established print publications. And just like our newspapers, the site is built upon high quality local journalism based upon our many years of bringing you the most comprehensive news coverage from around Shropshire and Mid Wales.”

Mike Woods, head of digital editorial content for the Midland News Association, said: “We’re thrilled with the feedback we’ve had from users who’ve been trying out the new website while we’ve still been working on it.

“It was vital for us that we built it around users’ needs, and didn’t just make a website that looked flashy but didn’t help our readers find the content they want.

“Today’s a major step forward for the Shropshire Star and Express & Star websites. But we won’t stop improving and refining them as we continue to give readers the news that matters to them across digital and print.”

Matt Gibson, chief creative officer at website designers Cyber-Duck, said: “We worked with the MNA to develop websites with a great balance between editorial and commercial content. By researching and understanding the behaviour of our readers as well as their journeys through the websites we have been able to create a better reading experience across all platforms.

“With user experience so vital for retaining and growing MNA’s readership, we are delighted to have worked with MNA and its readers to help shape a more intuitive way to find, read and interact with content online.”