Welcome to the new and improved UVA Today.

We hope you’ll find that the form and function of the new site are an improvement over the previous format, which has served us well but was in need of updating. These changes are designed to present a cleaner and more attractive news platform that expands places and spaces for photographs, video and other content, while optimizing readership on mobile devices.

You’ll also find new features that are increasingly common at modern news sites, but until now haven’t been part of UVA Today. Among them:

• Trending story lists that offer the most popular content at a glance;
• The latest video content on every page;
• Links to related stories and features below each story;
• Feature pages that expand our ability for visual storytelling.

Our primary goal is to provide a better experience for you when exploring what’s happening at the University through a more current, flexible news site and daily newsletter email. A second goal is to attract new readers who, until now, may not even have been aware of the many compelling activities going on at UVA.

Quality content serves as the heart of this effort. The Office of University Communications strives to find and tell interesting and meaningful stories from every corner of the University community – through traditional narratives, alternative formats such as Q&A’s, social media channels and through visual formats, including photos and video.

In the past year, we have seen UVA Today’s readership climb by more than 40 percent. Analyzing the readership and viewership of our content provides a clearer picture of what you find useful and interesting, and informs our decisions about which stories to tell and how to tell them. The redesigned UVA Today gives us more effective options to do that.

We’d like your feedback. Converting to a newly designed site involved hours of behind-the-scenes work to plan and build the new platform. Hiccups are inevitable, so let us know via the email address below if you experience any technical issues, or even if you are enjoying the new experience.

Finally, University Communications will launch new efforts over the coming weeks to attract new subscribers within the University community and beyond. In the meantime, please share the Daily Report if you find the content useful and think others would be interested. Subscriptions are free.

Thanks for reading.

McGregor McCance
Senior Director of University Relations
mccance@virginia.edu