nzherald flashback: Sept 22, 2001

It's hard to talk about 2001 without referring to the events of September 11 -- or the very early hours of September 12 as it was in New Zealand.

Minutes after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Centre, nzherald.co.nz night editor Megan Bedford spotted the dramatic pictures on television. At first she thought someone must have switched the TV set to a movie channel. She quickly realised what was happening, however, and got the news on to the Herald's website while notifying colleagues from the print edition who were on their way home after finishing the next morning's paper.

Amazingly, the Herald produced a special print edition with news of the terror attacks at 2.45am, only a couple of hours after the story had appeared in the online edition.

Real-time news is now a hallmark of nzherald.co.nz with updates whenever major news breaks.

In August 2001, nzherald.co.nz had received it's 3rd facelift. Although the overall design was similar to what had gone before, there were important changes to benefit readers.

The site was "slimmed down" - again - to reduce the file size of each page and make downloading as fast as possible. To achieve this, navigation graphics in the left hand column were replaced with simple text links.

The HTML table structure was reworked, combining the two centre columns into one, and giving a less cluttered appearance.

New advertising positions were introduced, ranging from small "tiles" to a very hard-do-miss "big banner" at the top of the main pages.

With the facelift, the name Herald Online was officially retired and the site became known simply as nzherald.co.nz.

"We tried to play down the design elements such as colour and graphics so the focus would be on the stories. Further optimisation of the HTML table structure and incorporation of Cascading Style Sheets provides for fast loading on dial-up modems."
- Ben Ataya, nzherald senior web developer

"The result is a clean, fast look that give news and advertising all the exposure they need."
- Patrick van Rinsvelt, nzherald.co.nz technical manager

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