Tweaking Slate May 3, 1999 Slate has started to preview an upcoming redesign of their site which Michael Kinsley in his Readme column remarked that, "The changes are less aesthetic than functional. Our editorial concept has evolved for almost three years and our navigation and site organization haven't kept up." The redesign replaces the meaningless navigation bar that used page numbers with a new DHTML navigation bar that includes links to articles and others sections of Slate.

Slate's front page has also been adjusted so that only new content appears with almost all the links being visible without any scrolling. The secondary page contains the complete content listing and replaces the use of "new" to indicate new articles with an abbreviated name of the day (eg. Thu or Fri) the story was posted. Along with the help of the new navigation bar, all the individual pages on Slate do a better job of linking to other current content on Slate and within individual subsites (like Frame Game and News Quiz). The complete opposite of the old design that presented articles with no easy way to access other content on Slate, with the exception of the search links to past articles and the mysterious page numbers navigation bar.

Another usability improvement with the Slate redesign comes with stopping the practice of using a single colour for both links that have and haven't been visited. Slate's new promotional campaign is also well underway as seen with this banner ad seen on rival Salon.com's site recently.

Related links [1] Slate Magazine - An Early Review; Useit.Com [2] Slate vs. Salon; Columbia Journalism Review [3] Comparing the Slate Designs; Useit.Com [4] Web 'zine Slate prepares a new screen Kinsley; ZDNet