Platform introduces modern aesthetic, navigation
The Southern Ute Drum is proud to announce that the newspaper’s previous website gave way to a new modern design – boasting a clean, sophisticated interface and improved smart phone navigation.
The Southern Ute Drum staff collaborated closely with Southern Ute Shared Services over several months to update the Drum’s website, working hand in hand to bring key aspects and the visual components to fruition.
The switch took place on Monday morning, Jan. 29, which seamlessly carried over the new website theme and layout.
“The main goal of the new Drum website design was to enhance the aesthetics to make it more user friendly and legible and a vehicle for the high quality of journalism and photography that the Drum staff produces,” said Trevor Ehlers, Cloud Developer II with Southern Ute Shared Services. “We focused on modernizing the layout to allow for more space for dynamic photographs and article text for mobile, tablet and desktop computers. Inspiration was drawn from various other newspaper websites around the country as well as classic print versions.”
New website features include improvements to smartphone and tablet interface, a clean modern aesthetic, ease of navigation, a dedicated community notices section, redesigned visuals with an emphasis on photography, social media sharing icons across all platforms, and improved custom search features.
This idea for a full redesign has been in the works for some time. Conversations about the need for a stronger visual layout and more versatility on the website first gained momentum during the pandemic, which led to an initial design framework. That roadmap served to guide the development and design process once the project was approved to move forward last year.
Web Services Supervisor with Southern Ute Shared Services, Dana Kopf has been involved with the newspaper’s website design since its inception over a decade ago.
“Since the initial launch of the Drum website over 10 years ago a lot of things have changed, from code to browsers.” Kopf said. “Our team redesigned the site with modern design principles in mind, while paying homage to traditional colors and fonts. The site was updated to the latest coding standards and features a photo rich, mobile friendly layout.”
“It was a great pleasure working with the Drum staff to bring the new site to fruition,” Kopf said. “I’d like to give special thanks to Trevor [Ehlers] for his tireless work on site design and development.”
The Southern Ute Drum newsroom is comprised of Editor & Media Manager, Jeremy Wade Shockley; Reporter & Photographer, Divine Windy Boy; Administrative Assistant, Krista Richards; Graphic Specialist, Robert L. Ortiz; and Media Archivist, Rosaleigh Concepcion – who joined the team last year.
The Drum staff recognizes the value of diversification in how the news reaches the varied demographics of the tribal membership – which include the printed newspaper, newspaper website, archived e-Editions in PDF format, and social media channels.
Regarding the new website, Ehlers speaks to the importance of keeping up with the times in a digital age. “Ultimately we wanted to produce something unique and new as well … that the Southern Ute Community would be proud of that they could use going forward as a source of information,” Ehlers said.
Check out The Southern Ute Drum online: https://www.sudrum.com