Sunday Sun redesign with readers in mind

We asked. You answered. We listened!

The Nation Publishing Co. Limited is undertaking a redesign to its flagship publication, the SUNDAY SUN. The new design is one of the most fundamental changes to the look and feel of the Nation Newspaper in the company’s history. It reflects a blend of the company’s ideas for a fresh, modern and innovative visual direction for its newspaper products and feedback from the public at large.

Earlier this year, the Nation engaged an independent company to conduct focus groups with key external and internal stakeholders representing its readership. These included readers, advertisers, nation staff and vendors. The information collected gave further insight into how the Sunday Sun and to some extent all the Nation Newspaper products are received by the Barbadian public.

The focus group participants were segmented by age into the following reader groups: 16 to 25 years, 26 to 45 years and over 46 years. The remaining groups comprised a mix of readers and non-readers of varying ages, each of whom were asked to provide frank and honest feedback in several key areas. These included:

• Perception of the Nation brand

• Frequency of news consumption

• Major factors influencing readership of the newspaper

• Specifics on how and why they read the Sunday Sun

• The type of content needed from a Barbadian newspaper

• Their perception of the current and proposed presentation, layout and content of the Sunday Sun.

The individuals who participated in the focus groups were very open and vocal. Some of the areas of concern raised were:

• Difficulty in navigating stories due to cluttered and unappealing page

designs

• Confusion about the sectioning of the Sunday Sun paper and the

completion of stories on pages far from the original articles.

• The prevalence of errors in news reporting in Barbados                                             

• The need for more follow-ups on trending stories

With the results of the focus groups, supported by information collected in previous questionnaire-driven reader surveys by Nation Publishing, a core internal committee, supported by a Barbadian-owned communication and creative agency, worked over several weeks to refine the new look and feel of the Sunday Sun and develop an even more appealing and useful content plan for the publication. On Sunday, July 2, the Nation Publishing will introduce a completely redesigned Sunday Sun newspaper driven by creative design and impactful content.

“It is important to us as a Barbadian media house to remain the definitive, most dependable and relevant source of information and news, for our audiences both here at home and around the world,” says Valerie Hope, Head of Marketing & Communications for Nation Group. “In any product we produce, the public is always top of mind and we want to ensure the core values of the newspaper, which were birthed with the first edition of the Nation Newspaper in November 1973, continue to guide our approach to news gathering and reporting. We are very excited to reveal our new Sunday Sun and look forward to more public feedback in the coming weeks.”