Quartz releases site update, focuses on ‘continuous design’
Quartz, quick to not call the update a redesign, refers to it as an “upgrade, touch-up, refresh, progression,” saying that the site is in “continuous design”.
“We make changes to the site several times a week. Often we test design tweaks with a small portion of users before deciding whether to roll them out to everyone. And we offer different experiences to people based on their device, location, referral source, loyalty, etc. At this point, qz.com is an ever-evolving organism, adapting to your preferences and habits,” said Quartz in a blog post today.
Major changes
- Much of the code powering qz.com has been rewritten to speed up the site and give us greater flexibility in future development. Quartz says improving performance is an on-going project and probably the site feature on which it spends the most time.
- The queue of stories that long-ago appeared on the left side of qz.com, then was collapsed by default, is gone for good. Our top, latest, and most popular stories can now be accessed more easily from the newly designed navigation bar.
- On phones and tablets, that navigation bar now appears along the bottom of the screen to save your thumbs from performing calisthenics to get around the site. This seemed particularly important as readers’ phones get bigger and bigger.
- Approach to displaying stories to readers who visit on their phones using browsers within social media apps has changed. The idea is to give a few more options and save scrolling too much to access them.
- With today’s launch of Quartz Africa, plus Quartz India, and Quartz proper available, the site includes new messaging to indicate what experience you’re receiving and let you opt in or out. Editions are easy to change from the menu.
- Quartz is ending its previously limited support for Internet Explorer 9 after dropping IE8 last year and in anticipation of Microsoft’s imminent move toward the same
Find out more about Quartz’s evolution here.
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