New home page of mySA.com

Here’s the old version:

Old home page of mySA.com

(You can click on the images to zoom in.)

Eric Braun at mySA blogged about the tweaks. The main difference is the removal of the centerpiece where readers were supposed to click on tabs to pull up a new photo and links to stories and resources. In reality, few people were clicking on those tabs — which meant the Express-News was missing out on page views.

The new version is similar to the way other Hearst-owned newspapers, such as the Houston Chronicle, have designed their sites. To my eye, the new home page offers a cleaner look with more photos to draw people in.

That’s not to say mySA is perfect. Creating a compelling Web site is something many newspapers — including mine — have grappled with. Charlotte-Anne Lucas recently waxed nostalgic about mySA’s innovations but the site has also suffered from many problems for many years, and to me it feels like we’re moving at a glacial pace to fix them.

The good news is, the folks at mySA are working very hard to make the Web site better — as this recent design change demonstrates.

And hey, at least the site doesn’t look like this anymore.