Update, Wednesday, Sept. 1: We have released the navigation. Any comments or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.
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Welcome to the new navigation we have introduced today across our website. As with any change, we know that you will relearn how to get to your favourite features and sections. We'll use this space to explain why we did it, what it means for you and how you can use it in your daily reading.
Why we did it
We know that online readers are interested in just more than one content category, and The Globe and Mail site has diverse offerings: politics, life, investing, sports, driving and more. Our new navigation is in part a back-to-basics concept. It's clear, concise and makes it easier for you to explore between topics and subjects. Think of our navigation as a floorplan or building lobby register that follows you wherever you are.
Introducing our new navigation:
See an expanded version of the navigation
But first, a note that we haven't changed the site structurally. Across all areas you'll still find the best of the Globe content you have come to expect.
How it works
Our past navigation was section specific, as you can see from the following series of screenshots. The sports page and the home page had different looks and feels, with an advertisement separating links to major topic areas (News, Business, Sports, Investing, Life) from section-specific links.
Our former sports page navigation illustrates that: You could find hockey, baseball, football, but there was no intuitive way to find our commentary or arts pages:
Here's our former home page navigation:
And our former Globe Investor section navigation:
A new-old way
With our new navigation, we have now aligned the major categories for quick access without losing the feel of where you are. For example, a sports fan can dig deeper into baseball or hockey, but can still get over to business and not feel lost after that point.
How to find what you're looking for
We've organized our content into three levels that make sense to you. Most of the popular content will be accessed by digging into the content using the navigational menu.
A few examples:
You're interested in Toronto news, you go to News > National > Toronto
You want to read our columns, you go to Commentary > Columnists
You want movie reviews, you go to Arts > Movies
If you can't find what you're looking for, fear not, we have an updated site map that shows you where everything is organized. And our Featured content area, the third bar on most pages, has links to some of the more popular links and new features.
A note on design
Our colour coding has, for the most part, not changed. Readers have told us that they like the warmth associated with colours and sections. We've tried to stick to that in our navigation.
See a close-up of our colour scheme
Breadcrumbs
Along with this new navigation, we now also have a 'breadcrumb' structure, which is a series of links that shows you the placement of where you are on the site. These breadcrumbs will show you the trail that got you to this particular page. The example below lets you click on sections the Streetwise Blog is a part of.
A new News page
There are a few changes that come with this design. A News page has been created as a gateway into our coverage of Canadian, world, and political coverage, including the focus on the regions. If you are a news junkie, it's a perfect second destination after our home page. It is available now at www.theglobeandmail.com/news
Opinions is now Commentary
Many of you visit us for our opinion coverage, from our daily editorials and cartoons to reading our columnists. Commentary is a word we've been using in other sections so on a site-wide basis, we're bringing it all aligned under a rebranded page. You'll still find your favourite opinion pieces in this area.
Still lost?
We have a new site map where you can find all of our major pages.
Question and comments
If you have any questions, you can leave them in our comments section below. We'll try to answer as many questions as we can in this space.