It’s a new year, and time for a new look and feel for dohanews.co.

After more than two years, the website was looking a little dated, and running a bit slow…

So today we’re launching a big package of changes that aim to improve our news offerings, the site’s navigation, the homepage and how the articles are read. Here are some of the main differences:

It’s faster!

No one wants to wait for an article to load, so we have cut down the amount of time it takes to see a story by a lot. You’ll notice our site is faster, no matter which device you’re using.

It looks better on a phone.

We visit Doha News on our phones all day, and we know many of you do too (according to our analytics).

The old site worked fine on the small screen, but had many little bugs and issues. This new version was designed with mobile users in mind, from the font size to the spacing to the color of links.

We’re keeping it simple.

Busy, distracting websites are unpleasant to look at, and it appeared much of the stuff we had in our sidebar didn’t keep anyone’s attention.

So we’ve adopted a more streamlined approach – though we’ll add some stuff back in as needed (If you miss something, let us know).

However, keeping it simple also makes sense when it comes to the points we mentioned earlier: it’s easier to use on a phone, and speeds up the site overall.

A more intuitive way of reading?

Two of the biggest changes we’ve made are to how you find your next article on Doha News.

When you finish reading a specific article, we’ll automatically show you another, and another and another. Read as many as you like without having to click or reload the page.

And on the homepage, we’re trying something new by letting you read the full article right there, without having to click off the page.

Try it out, and let us know what you think.

It’s all experimental.

In the coming days, we’ll be increasing the amount of news we post in the form of snippets such as briefs, quotes and other items that can easily be read and viewed on the homepage.

With this design, we’re trying out some new things and bringing back some old favorites. But please keep in mind that this is a work in progress.

And if you don’t like something, we’ll aim to make it better! Just let us know in the comments section, on Facebook & Twitter, or by emailing us on [email protected].

Thoughts?