We live in a culture where lack of time prevails. At the same time, we are bombarded by information and visual images, rendering what we do more difficult to assimilate at times.
In some cases, a sort of attention deficit disorder sets in for consumers of media, which leads us to bypass useful information provided by photos and graphics because we become oblivious to them. This affects not only newspaper and magazine designers, but also those who design store display windows, furniture, clothing and gadgets.
Knowing what we know about readers — and we have conducted extensive research and have held focus groups with readers — we have created new navigational devices starting on Page One to guide readers to that good story that may be inside.
In The Miami Herald, we added the 5-Minute Herald for the scanner who wishes to go for the quick read with a quick breakfast and postpone more leisure reading for during lunch or before going to bed. Reading the newspaper in more than one setting has become the norm for many readers worldwide.
However, the degree to which readers are engaged with their newspaper varies, although we know that time spent is less than it was five years ago. This is why indexes and other navigational
devices are so important and why we have emphasized them as much as we worked on improving The Miami Herald. The emergence of the Internet, where navigation is key, has made this even more important for the modern newspaper. Readers unconsciously transfer some of their Internet quick-browsing behavior when they come to print.
The Miami Herald editors seek to serve a three-track readership:
A) The serious, traditional reader who wants to read the newspaper more leisurely. But even this reader will be able to benefit from the better hierarchy for stories, as well as all the different navigational devices.
B) The scanner who first reads headlines, looks at photos and reads cut lines, along with summaries.
C) The supersonic-speed reader who has barely five minutes in the morning to get a glimpse of the news. The 5-minute Herald will satisfy the needs of this reader.
We added a new color palette that allows for color-coding by sections, thus making the journey through the inside of the newspaper easier and quicker.
With the strategies of functionality are in place — such as navigation, typography, color-coding — we turned our attention to how well the newspaper fit into the city and/or region it serves. We hope that the new look of the Miami Herald reflects the diversity, high-level energy and excitement of the Miami and South Florida region.