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Inside the Web is a blog exploring the intersection of the web, international development, and the World Bank, written by Bank staff that work on online strategy, editorial, content, governance, and technology.

Bank's New Home Page: A Preview of More to Come

Today the World Bank unveils a new home page as a preliminary step in a broader, site-wide redesign, which we’ll begin rolling out at the end of 2010.

We’ve revamped the page to align with the Bank’s new web content strategy and in response to extensive user feedback. Our objectives for the new site are to:

Provide premier development content. Present the latest news, results, project information, data, documents, and reports from across our global organization, in the spirit of openness, mutual learning and knowledge-sharing.

Improve access to information. Offer our online audience open access to all of Bank data, research and tools, through regularly updated content, mobile devices, e-mail alerts, social media and other venues as they emerge. Provide relevant, localized multilingual content to non-English speaking audiences.

Embrace an open exchange of content and ideas. Engage with colleagues, clients, and partners through online dialogue on development issues—initiating conversations and gaining insight that may serve as valuable input to the Bank’s work. Invite users to make use of social media tools, including blogs, Twitter and Facebook, and respond to discussions as they occur.

We’ve designed the home page to embrace these principles and offer a visually compelling entry point into the Bank’s site. Consider it a preview of more to come!

In the meantime, tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

Comments

Dont break design rules to that extent

Your resources for looks like breadcrumb. Later I recognized that breadcrumbs are below (Awkward isn't).

Countries in top navigation and topics are key you did good separating it. But most users start left to right scan. Then these two are last to come across (wasting time) and losing ease feel.

I hope you got best guys to do it. But, trying to much and coming with elements that violate experience is bad in long run. People just dont have time.

Its really annoying to just have one section ready, just say whole site dint change.

Enough of bad things: New design emotional feel is awesome. You really got it well right.

Web redesign

Your web site has been the best, most comprehensive and clear web site I use for my research. Please don't change it too much! I think it is just fine as it is.

congrats

Congrats to everyone involved in this project. The new home page is beautiful - but more importantly everything about it makes sense!

Great job!

I love the new look of your website - definitely leaps in improvement from the previous one. It's pleasing to the eyes, and it does invite people to explore the site more. Kudos to the team who developed/designed it!

It looks fantastic, but how

It looks fantastic, but how do you find the jobs page?

The Jobs link is located in

The Jobs link is located in the footer of the home page, below the Bank logo.

The Jobs link is located in

that's almost impossible to be located...

Top menu(Hover color)

When mouse over in the top menu the color changed bit darker(Hover color is dark), it cannot be read easily.

Looks good, but it still has

Looks good, but it still has some bugs. It's not campatible with Safari browser etc...

Our tech team tells me that

Our tech team tells me that this has been fixed. Thanks for flagging.

finally

Congrats! I know how hard it is to convince and please everyone who has a stake in this highly visted site. Hats off to all!

Looks great!

But when Russian and Chinese versions will be done?

We're hoping to launch the

We're hoping to launch the home page in Chinese and Russian by mid-November. thanks.

New homepage

New things are normally hard to accept, I'v been used to the old design, but I think I can adjust to the new one, change take time!!

consulting opportunities

this information is very hard to access, comapred to the former format.

Jobs site

The jobs link should be placed in the resources section rather than the bottom in grey. People look for this site most often. If I'm not mistaken, the jobs site has the most hits in the Bank's website. Thanks.

No doubt, this is a popular

No doubt, this is a popular section of the Bank's web site. After consultation with our HR department, we decided it was appropriate to separate "Jobs" from other target audience groups currently under Resources (civil society, governments, etc.) We also looked at best practices across UN, media and think tank sites. The majority of these place jobs in the home page footer.

Love the Look

I love the new feel and look of the website. As a recent graduate, I was often frustrated by the cumbersome and decentralized manner of finding information needed. However, I also notice that there is a stronger emphasis on what the Bank has accomplished. While I understand its importance, I would advise moderation; part of what makes the World Bank site so appealing is that it is a knowledge bank of development issues.

The slideshow at the top of

The slideshow at the top of the home page appears to be in too large a frame. The frame size may be reduced since it may hamper opening of homepage from home or outside office, where many of us do not have a high-speed internet connection.

Thanks for your comment. The

Thanks for your comment. The size of the photos in the feature carousel cannot be changed, but we're working to optimize all home page elements to reduce download times for those without high-speed Internet. We're aware that this is a problem--bear with us.

beautiful

beautiful

Great Design

Looks good, can't wait to see what they have done...

Comment on your web sites( missing pages)

Dear Sir,

Congratulation for your new web site I did know completely your changes in the web site however the website is generally looks excellent.

In the former web site home page there were links for Conference, consultation and competition pages however I didn't get then in this new websites. If they are not included please include them since they are very important. The reason may also me I didn't know where to find.

Thanks,

Habtom Ghebrehiwet

This section is still on the

This section is still on the home page, located under Events & Consultations, below the 'What's New' feed.

Resources for Doing Business With the Bank

Under the redesigned website l realize Resources for those who are interested in doing business with the Bank is not found on the page. Could that be reinstated.

Thanks for the comment. We

Thanks for the comment. We have redesigned our 'Resources' section to better target key audiences. The Investors link now provides information for those who are interested in doing business with the Bank.

Blocking the country link

Your little feedback balloon is blocking the Countries Link on the home page. Please move it or shrink it!

Our tech team tells me that

Our tech team tells me that this has been fixed. Thanks for flagging it.

Missing countries

It seems not all countries are included because I could not find Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.

If you'll look under our

If you'll look under our Countries tab at the top right of the home page, you'll find links to our country pages for each of these.

Marvellous New Look

Congratulations for new design and look-up.

Why don't you start actually

Why don't you start actually helping third world countries instead of depleting their water supply and forcing countries further into debt? You're not suppose to be just a big buisness corporation, you're suppose to help.

Pleasing to the eye

The new look of your website - definitely is great improvement from the previous one. It's pleasing to the eyes, and it is inviting. Very interactive as it does invite people to explore the site more. Great job to the design team, job well done

The look is good but where do

The look is good but where do you go if you want information on specific sectors like education, infrastructure etc..

Look in the top navigation

Look in the top navigation bar, all the way to the right. You'll see a "Topics" link, which will take you to a list of these sectors.

Great job with the new

Great job with the new website. Its more user friendly and inviting.

Great initiative, other

Great initiative, other organizations should do the same!

New Home Page

The home page is now cleaner, eye soothing and readability has improved substantially. One small request, if there were a small tab/ button somewhere in the home page itself leading to procurement sub page would be great.

Hi all, Congratulations to

Hi all,

Congratulations to everyone involved. I could empathise how much blood, sweat and tears went into launching a new design. The new look and feel is more user-friendly than the previous design. But I guess you tried too hard to cram everything on the frontpage: looks like the whole of World Bank once a piece of this precious space. So to please everyone, I assumed that each 'important' section either got a link, a navigation title, a box, etc.

I was a bit confused by the two-navigation approach, the breadcrumbs at the bottom screaming for attention with a deep red background and (maybe) 12-size font. In my opinion, the 'Resources' bit should not be too prominent since we're quite adamant to find what we want from the site: if we want it, we'll find it. The old side has this relatively muted links on the left-hand, something similar would have been enough.

I think the 'In-depth' should have a more prominent place. I honestly don't get the difference why are those topics on the first-half when it only lead to articles in contrast to In-depth, which is more comprehensive and look like subsites.

Good initiative of asking for feedback from users, I guess this would be a good addition to your usability study.

Congrats again everyone, including the IT people. :-)

M. Stryk

very good Website

I find this website very very professional and full of the content..keep the good work up.

Blue to Red?

Nice website.
But I would like to know what was the reason for your decision of changing the WB Blue color to Red? I feel like the WB website (although prettier) is losing its identity.

Thanks for your comment.

Thanks for your comment. Actually, we chose red color palette deliberately, to signal a move from the old “blue” Bank to new, more open and approachable Bank. The color change announces to visitors that they are about to embark on an entirely new online experience. The new look and feel will be consistent across all parts of the web site, creating a stronger visual identity that what we've had in the past.

Hi Julia, in a quick scan to

Hi Julia, in a quick scan to find 'education' I had trouble locating how to get there. Eventually, I saw the topic feature in the right corner. But my first instinct was to click on topics under results, which takes you to a slightly random page that just lists results profiles: http://go.worldbank.org/WV2K4WP970. To get to the actual education page (www.worldbank.org/education) took more work and I think isn't quite obvious enough for the general public. Maybe to make the presentation a bit more issues-driven you could have a drop down for all topic portal pages, either further left in the top navigation or centrally located in the content block of the page.

Thanks, this is looking nice. Hope my suggestion helps.

Best,
Chrissy

Thanks for your feedback.

Thanks for your feedback. The relative placement of the main Topics link-- at the far right of the top navigation-- is the same as in the previous design of the World Bank's external home page, although this navigation bar is lower on the page.

We're hoping that the new design will not impair most users' understanding of this link as being at a higher level than the Topics link in the Results section. But we're noting all feedback on the design to help determine anything we might need to change.

The new wesbiste....

I terribly miss the old website... This is hard to read for me; may be too light in color and resolution.... The content is even vague or it feels that way... I wish someone would re-install the old website, or I need the magic wand to do it on my own!

Hello from Ukraine Please

Hello from Ukraine
Please test the site properly. There are a lot of bugs :( It is very disappointing that such organization as “The word bank” has so low quality web-site. There is a bug even on the homepage! Submit button next to the “Browse results” lost its position and looks awkward (goggle Chrome).
You’d better to add slide animation to the “hear you are area” and fade/slide effect to the top slideshow.
When I chosen Russian language I was no longer able to switch back to English as the link didn’t work. Seems there is a problem in your CMS.

Please - I can't get to Topics...

now you can't access topics at all...not only is the location difficult but, the feedback button is covering the topic text.could you please fix that....

We have now removed the

We have now removed the feedback button, so you shouldn't have any problem seeing the Topics text.

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