clockThis article was published more than 8 years ago
Entire site now powered by Arc, a custom publishing platform built in-house
The Washington Post begins rolling out an all-new homepage today that offers readers a cleaner, more dynamic reading experience, a bolder visual display and improved performance. The new homepage marks a key milestone in the site-wide reboot led by The Post’s engineering and news teams, one that has been driven by the in-house development of a new publishing platform called Arc.
“The Post’s homepage is a destination for many readers and we wanted create a page that lets them quickly see what the day’s big stories are and easily navigate to other top content on the site,” said Joey Marburger, director of digital products and design at The Post. “We’ve built this page so it can transform and evolve. If news warrants, readers could see an entirely different homepage look every day of the week.”
The new homepage design is more dynamic and flexible, utilizing large visuals and headlines to help editors prioritize stories for the reader, not unlike the front page of a newspaper. The page features a digital re-cut of The Post’s flagship font Postoni, a robust weather dashboard, and easily navigable stream of top headlines.
With the launch of the new homepage, The Post’s site is now entirely on the Arc platform, which was custom built to meet the needs of the modern newsroom. Developed by engineers who embedded with editors, Arc’s sophisticated site layout engine, PageBuilder, offers an intuitive production environment that creates a fast and efficient designs. When editors are working in PageBuilder, they view the webpage just as a reader would see it, letting them add or edit a feature on that page with one click. Editors can create story templates, publish updates and adjust headlines and text with ease. It also gives editors the flexibility to create different presentations that are specific to a story, all with the reader in mind.
“Throughout this process, we were focused on creating a system that prioritized content, design, speed, presentation and performance equally—one that could evolve over time based on the needs of the newsroom,” said Greg Franczyk, chief architect of The Post’s site. “PageBuilder and the tools within ARC are designed to meet the daily demands of a 24-hour news organization, creating a more efficient infrastructure that improves the reader experience.”
Experimentation continues to be at the forefront of The Post’s strategy, a mentality that was essential to the development of the Arc platform. Like other parts of Arc, PageBuilder started with a simple redesign of Washington Post author pages, then grew into a larger initiative that took on the technology that powered content on The Post’s site.
About Arc: Arc is a powerful suite of publishing tools custom built for the modern newsroom by engineers at The Washington Post. Each of the tools work seamlessly together and can function individually, based on a newsroom’s needs. Each tool in Arc has a team of dedicated engineers devoted to advancing the product and responding to changes in the digital news landscape as quickly as possible. Learn More.
