'Wash Post' Hires Outside Firm For Major Web Site Redesign

By: Joe Strupp The Washington Post, undergoing its biggest Web site redesign ever, has hired The Wonder Factory of New York to help create its new look, according to James Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com.

Noting this marks the first time the Web site has brought in an outside firm for a design change, Brady told E&P the overhaul has been in the planning stages for several months.

"It is bigger than any other [redesign] since building it in the first place," Brady says about his site, which first launched in 1996. "We are trying to fill it with the strategies we've emphasized the past few years -- reader engagement, multi-media and providing useful data bases for our readers."

Brady had few specifics on Wonder Factory's arrangement with the Post, but said they had been working with the firm since October and hoped to have the new look ready to launch before Election Day next November.

"The work to build it will probably start in the next month or so," Brady said. "We have done a half-dozen redesigns in-house, but during the past five or six years it has always been different parts of the site."

Brady said the redesign will be aimed mostly at easing the transition from one part of the site to another. "How everything fits together, we are trying to have a flow better between an article and the home page," he explained. "The site represents who we were, not who we've become."

Officials at The Wonder Factory, whose other clients have included Newsweek and Martha Stewart Living, did not immediately return calls for comment Monday.

Brady added that more capacity could also be an element of the redesign, but that is not the top priority at the moment. A slowdown last Friday was the result, in part, of a capacity issue when the Web site was overwhelmed after a new automated photo connector uploaded too many images at once from the Associated Press.

"We took off the automated gallery for a while, but it appears to be okay," Brady said.