An enhanced experience

Faster, friendlier and even more engaging for readers - The Star Online has launched its new-look portal.

PETALING JAYA: Star Media Group Bhd is pleased to announce a revamped The Star Online website (www.thestar.com.my).

Since its launch more than 20 years ago as Malaysia’s first news portal, The Star Online has established itself as the No. 1 English news site.

But the online world keeps changing, and so do people’s reading habits. The new website is the result of reader feedback gathered from online surveys we conducted over the last few months.

While it is also based on a mobile-first Internet outlook, we have not neglected the desktop experience either.

We are making use of technologies, techniques and tools like big data analytic and dynamic content to improve the entire user experience.

We have also made our backend more robust because of increasing traffic.

The Star Online’s monthly unique visitors have jumped from 5.2 million in 2016 to 7.5 million in the first six months of this year, while monthly page views have jumped from 49 million last year to 59 million.

With dynamic content, in the long run, we aim to make your reading more personalised, and customised to your preferences.

This means faster loading times even as we provide more rich content, and a more responsive and intuitive website.

We’ve redesigned the visual experience, from fonts to how pictures are displayed, to make your reading experience a more enjoyable one.

We have also repositioned sections to bring the content you enjoy to prominence.

But the design is not merely cosmetic. On the backend, we’re improving our metadata tagging to make sure you are presented with stories that are relevant to you.

With dynamic content, in the long run, The Star Online also aims to make your reading more personalised, and customised to your preferences.

We don’t want you to be stuck in an echo chamber either.

You will still be presented with stories from other parts of The Star Online, and even outside of it.

And with many of you coming to individual stories off social media, we want to make sure you quickly get to more engaging stories on our site.

We’ve also consolidated and collapsed the various sections, so that you can quickly explore topics of interest to you, no matter where they appear in the newspaper, or even if they are online exclusives.

This is just the start, of course. We’ll be doing more over the next few weeks. Do drop us a line at feedback@thestar.com.my with your input.

Everything you know and love in The Star Online is still there – only better.