Welcome to the New Mosaic

With Mosaic’s website currently sitting as a finalist for the College Media Association’s Pinnacle Award for best main page design, you might wonder why we would decide to dramatically overhaul our online presence. But here at Mosaic, we strive to never fall into a pattern of complacency. We’re called an experimental magazine, and how can we be that if we are comfortable with the status quo?

So we shook it up. In fact, I’m proud to say this is our third redesign in three years. I fully support changing the website and not just because it gives me a job to do here. No, I am in favor of this change because of the new features and functionality we were able to bring to our readers and even to ourselves as a staff.

The new mosaic.ua.edu is built on a different platform that will make it easier for the staff to post and manage content. As we continue to work toward our Editor in Chief Elizabeth Elkin’s goal of dramatically increasing the amount of content we post each week, the old system would have simply become too difficult to work with.

Now we can categorize our content, making it searchable and automating much of the menu-building process. As a reader, you now have the ability to search our site for the specific content you want. You no longer have to try to remember which section of the website that story you wanted to share was in.

Previously, I had to manually rebuild each menu page when we added a new story, but the new system automates that process for us, saving time that we can use to deliver more and better content. We also now have the ability to add tags to our stories which will bring you related posts so you can explore our site according to your interests.

These same tags allow us to link stories by particular staff members, so you can easily follow your favorite writer, designer or photographer as they continue to create award-winning material.

All in all, I feel that this site is a much needed improvement. We’ve spent the last three and a half months preparing this new online home for you. Now, I hope you will grow to enjoy it as much as we do.