Mary Carty

Delighted to see the launch of our newly designed RTE Sport website today. It was a fun project, working on a new look, new navigation and better search and interaction for sports fans. Check out the new site here. For the redesign we worked with a fantastic team over at the RTE Sports Department. It was a great experience and the end result speaks for itself.

Here is how Tom Grealis, RTÉ.ie Sports Editor describes the new site design.

Welcome to the new-look RTÉ Sport website.
As you can see, pretty much everything is new. And we’re hoping that you’ll think everything is better too.
This is the first major redesign of the entire RTÉ Sport site since 2007. Much has changed in the online realm since then – video streaming is now high-quality; media is now social – and we have made sure to factor all of those advancements into our new design. So, what have we done and why?

Navigation
The RTÉ Sport site is vast, and includes tonnes of content in text, photos, video and audio. So allowing you to access that content as easily as possible was one of our challenges. As with almost all modern websites, we’ve gone with a horizontal navigation. This is pretty much standard across the web nowadays, but if it’s new to you, the main thing to remember is that the new navigation should bring you back to where you want to be no matter where you are on the site.

Scores, fixtures and results
On our new site live scores, fixtures and results are front and centre. Scores for any live tournament that we’re covering will appear automatically when the game/event starts; at all other times you’ll have quick and easy access to a range of fixtures and results for multiple sports. We’ve introduced tabs on our homepage, and on the index pages of GAA, Soccer, Rugby and Racing. These tabs are ‘Latest News’, ‘Live’, ‘Watch & Listen’, and ‘Don’t Miss!’. They are designed to give you a quick flavour of the breadth and depth of content that we are offering our users every day.

Live and on-demand
Take, for example, the ‘Live’ tab. RTÉ broadcasts a lot of live sports – both on television and radio – and most of that content is also streamed live on our site. Now, you can see at a glance the huge number of programmes that you can watch or listen to live. Same with our on-demand content. You can now see our top on-demand clips with one click from our homepage, and if you want to delve further into our catch-up offering all you have to do is click the ‘Watch & Listen’ section from the main navigation.

Interaction
Another of our aims with this redesign was the need to give you, the user, a chance to interact with our content, and share stuff with your friends. You can now comment on stories and have your say, and share your favourite content via a range of social media tools. We won’t be opening comments on all stories and features – it’s not practical to open comments on everything – but you’ll certainly be able to share your views on our key content.

Feedback
We’d like to know what you think of the new site, so please give us your feedback in the comments section below. With the launch of any major new redesign, it’s very hard to spot everything before launch.
We reckon that most of the major sections of the site are working as they should, but please let us know if they’re not. Again, just leave a comment or email us at sportonline@rte.ie. We’ll be fixing things as they come to light, and in the next few weeks we’ll be continuing to make tweaks and improvements, so please bear with us.

There’s a monumental summer of sport coming – GAA Championships, Euro 2012, the Olympics in London – and we want to give you the best possible user experience during those events.
Step one starts here.

Image (c) inpho.ie