TO OUR READERS

Thanks to your frequent visits, latimes.com has seen the fastest growth of any top newspaper site over the last year. We’re breaking more news than ever on latimes.com, we’ve expanded our blog network, we’re publishing more stunning visual, interactive journalism, and we have savvy readers like you contributing to conversations.

Now we’re bringing you a site that’s easier to read and use -- crisper, cleaner and better able to showcase the world-class journalism our newsroom produces around the clock.

Key changes include:

* Streamlined navigation at the top of every page, highlighting main coverage areas such as local news, sports and entertainment. The idea is to make it easier to get around the site from wherever you are.

* Right below the black navigation bar, you’ll see “In the News” topics. Here, you’ll find quick access to big stories we are following, whether it’s the state budget or the Emmys or unrest in Iran.

* A new modular approach to the homepage means you can quickly find and access the multimedia packages of most interest to you. Scroll down the page and you’ll see features that include the award-winning investigative coverage of “Mexico Under Siege,” excerpts from popular blog posts and columns, top headlines from well-read sections and interactive databases such as Mapping L.A.

* An improved video player loads more quickly and has more features for sharing.

* We’ve made scrolling through articles easier, with fewer interruptions from related content or advertising. We’ve enhanced our article-sharing features to include more seamless interaction with social networking sites and the ability to send articles to instant messaging services and mobile devices.

* Design aficionados will note that we have gone from a sans-serif font (Arial) to a serif font (Georgia), which we think is easier to read.

For more details on what’s new, check out our site tour. Our work is not done. We approached this redesign as another step in the evolution of the Los Angeles Times, as a building block for more things to come. Thanks for supporting the work we do by visiting us and engaging with the site. As always, your feedback is welcome in comments to the readers’ representative blog at latimes.com/readersrep or by e-mailing readers.rep@latimes.com.

Meredith Artley,

Managing Editor, Online

Russ Stanton,

Editor