The new LifeTeen.com, launched June 2010. But what is it all about?

Earlier this summer at the Life Teen Training Convention we launched the new LifeTeen.com in front of a crowd of 620 people. If you weren’t able to make it to the event, let me share with you what the new LifeTeen.com is all about.

We started the redesign of LifeTeen.com earlier this spring by surveying a combined 600 teens and adults who are regular visitors of the website. We asked for honest answers to tough questions about how much they liked the old website. What’s good? What’s bad? What are we totally missing? Thanks to everyone’s thorough responses, we discovered 5 consistent recommendations. Here is what you asked for and how we’re implementing it:

1. Smart integration with Social Media. On the new site, every page is integrated with our staff Twitter feeds and our Facebook page. Plus teens can share each blog with their own Twitter and Facebook.
2. Accessible through mobile devices. All the motion on the new site is accomplished without Flash, therefore it’s easier to navigate on a mobile phone. Plus we’ve eliminated the small scroll bars like we used to have in the NewsBox.
3. Easier access to content. Our navigation is cleaner and more welcoming. Plus you can browse content by medium (photos, videos, blogs), by category, by keyword, and search.
4. Content to help teens go deeper. We regrouped our content into three new sections:
   • Learn About Your Faith. Answers to tough questions about our Catholic Church.
   • Relationship with God. Go deeper in prayer, sacraments, and Scripture.
   • Live Your Catholic Life. How do you live in the world but not of the world?
5. Stronger connection to the larger Life Teen Movement. On the new site, there are 1000s of faces of teens, dozens of faces of contributing writers, and no authors have their own button. This means that the site represents more the larger movement of Life Teen and not the “columns” of a small group of writers. Much of our new content over the next year will show off to the world all the great things that are happening in our young Catholic Church.

Let me explain the strategic decisions we made to accomplish these goals. (Warning: If you aren’t into web design, this will probably bore you.)

1. Simple Graphics. On the previous version of the site, I over-designed the header, navigation, footer, and background because most of our original content was dull text. The site needed punchy graphics or it would not have been worth visiting a second time. After several years of expanding into new types of content, the site’s graphics began to compete with the content. Too much was going on. I believe that the new look gives just enough punch to make the site interesting to look at but it still doesn’t distract you from the content of the site: blogs, videos, podcasts, and photos.
2. Primary Navigation with Megapanels. Through the design and development of the site, we found that several big-time websites had simplified their navigation to a limited number of buttons that had “drop down” menus that were huge: Lowes, HGTV, Food Network, Ikea. The best navigation on these sites really drew my curiosity went beyond classic drop down menus to design “mini-sites” on each panel with cool graphics and catchy copy. I think we did this and more with our megapanels.
3. Seasonal Navigation. This is a big deal. We’ve always had seasonal content that meets users where they’re at during the year, but we’ve never had seasonal navigation. For instance, nobody is thinking about registering for summer camp in the fall and winter, so why did we crowd the website links to those sections? I couldn’t tell you. But we’ve learned from our mistakes and now the site is simple and useful year-round.

Finally, I want to give special thanks to Greg Iwinski and Ryan Miller, two members of my team who worked day and night to pull together this new website. You guys are champions!