At Omitsis we have participated in the redesign of the new digital newspaper of Newtral. We have been in charge of WordPress layout and programming, in addition to data migration from their old digital newspaper and its AMP version.
The creation of Newtral has meant a new challenge and learning for the WordPress team at Omitsis. Creating a digital newspaper of this magnitude and characteristics requires a high degree of experience and “know how” in WordPress.
UX/UI Design in WordPress
WordPress is one of the most popular CMS for its ideal features to carry out websites with high-quality design, with transition effects and original content structures. Practically everything a design studio can imagine can be done. In this project, the design was commissioned to the Mendes Altaren studio, which faced the challenge of creating a “different” digital newspaper in which, in addition to prioritizing user experience: UX/UI, the reader would enjoy an impactful and visual design where Newtral’s multimedia resources and content would shine.
When at Omitsis we saw the final design, it delighted our entire being, except our layout part “…in WordPress you can do practically everything: practically“, there were some design points that challenged, not only WordPress’s possibilities, but also those of CSS style sheets, HTML5 and company: not to mention the grid system of the homepage, which none of us had seen on any other website… but in the end it was achieved and the result is that we have been able to capture the great work of Mendes Altaren, which has made us enjoy but also sweat heavily.
Experts in WordPress optimization
There are a thousand ways to get to Rome in WordPress, as many as developers, although the vast majority of them serve to complete small websites, when complex projects are developed one has few routes to choose from to enter Rome through the Arc de Triomphe. If best practices are not applied and refined code is not written, the most likely thing is that you won’t even get to Rome but if you do, you will surely be trapped in the Cloaca Máxima: one of the oldest sewer networks in the world according to Wikipedia, “Lucky You!”
Creating an optimized WordPress means traveling a long path and a large volume of development hours that allow programming taking care of all aspects. Only in this way can you squeeze WordPress’s potential and obtain a reference product in the sector, such as Newtral: both at the design level and, above all, at the performance and speed level. There is no good UX/UI without these two aspects having been worked on thoroughly.
AMP Design in WordPress
The development of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is the secret weapon with which professional digital newspapers can obtain superior speed on mobile devices. WordPress has plugins that help integrate the AMP system and allow its construction from prefabricated templates. These are very interesting plugins to serve simple content at full speed, but when advanced features and designs are required, that breathe the “Look and Feel” of the desktop versions and integrate optimally with WordPress, AMP must be done from 0 with custom code. AMP is a variant of HTML code with its own rules and norms. Without a doubt this part of the work has been one of the challenges for the programming team, since AMP has self-imposed limitations that limit design possibilities in favor of performance. At Omitsis we have delved into this aspect to find ways to get our way and achieve a rich design also for mobile and tablet.
Digital Newspaper Backend in WordPress
In a Digital Newspaper, not only the visitor (reader) must be taken care of, behind the “front page” of a great newspaper, there is a newsroom working against the clock, creating and publishing material online. Therefore, in this project, special attention has been paid to the backend (a great and unfairly forgotten aspect in most WordPress projects). A backend has been conceived for the Newtral team, so they can enjoy notable improvements compared to their previous website (also in WordPress).
The Newtral Backend has special tools for editors, for example for image processing, and presents the new WordPress Gutenberg editor that has been incorporated in those contents where it is more agile. It should be noted that although Guttenberg is the new and brand new editor, it must be studied when it is really appropriate and put in a studied way at the appropriate points.
About Newtral
Newtral is the audiovisual content startup, by journalist Ana Pastor. A pioneering startup in investigative journalism through fact-checking (data verification) that also has its side as a television program producer, some as successful as “El Objetivo” on La Sexta television.
For Newtral, data is the basis of all their work and its verification is essential for the fight in the era of Fake News.
If you need to create your Online newspaper website in WordPress for your newspaper or online magazine check out our solution ApExpress and contact us.
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