By Tim Fitzpatrick

| The Salt Lake Tribune

In the first of several refinements, we rolled out a new home page last week with a cleaner, crisper look that does not sacrifice the familiarity of sltrib.com. Please look around and give us some feedback.

As part of the change, we have given our editors some new options for displaying news. These new "grids," as we call them, allow us to push more headlines to the top of the site. There are many times when the big story of the day is obvious, and we have grid options with big headlines and photos. But these new grids are the choice when it’s less obvious what the big news is. Audience interest diverges on those days, so we want a home page with plenty for everyone.

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We’re also giving a higher profile to photo galleries and videos, which have mushroomed in popularity.

But perhaps the biggest gains are found under the hood. The new home page loads much faster. The headlines pop up almost immediately. Photos load as you scroll down the page, and readers are not left watching the hourglass while the last element processes.

The home page is just the beginning of an effort to update sltrib.com. These changes do not represent a wholesale departure from the site we launched 19 months ago, but they are the most significant changes we’ve had since then. It is an acknowledgement of the speed with which the online news world changes. Our old home page was just so 2010.

So look for coming changes elsewhere. We are working on article pages that more effectively display related content and videos, and we will roll out a new gallery format to better show our photographers’ work. Improvements for mobile and tablet audiences are also in the pipeline.

The Tribune’s dedication to independent journalism in Utah will not change, but news delivery is a moving target. And we’re moving with it.

Let us know what you think.

Tim Fitzpatrick is deputy editor. He can be reached at fitz@sltrib.com.