A re-design of the Daily Star's website.
The Beirut Daily Star newspaper has one of the worst websites I’ve ever seen. It is slow, clunky, and hideously ugly. The navigation is awful and it crashes browsers on a regular basis. What’s worse, the IT people have installed some kind of ridiculous automated advertising code that scans articles for certain “keywords” and links them to commercial websites.
This software is hilariously hit-or-miss. I remember reading a story a few years ago which contained the phrase “piles of ammunition”. The word “piles” was hyperlinked to a website that sold hemorrhoid cream.
There are always rumors that the Daily Star is in the process of unveiling a new website, and yet this website never materializes. Until now… sort of.
Mustapha, the wonderful designer behind Beirut Spring is pushing the envelope by launching a re-design of the Daily Star’s website. You can see the mock site here, and check out the blog devoted to the project here.
Qifa Nabki 
Al-hamdullah!
Posted by sean | February 4, 2010, 11:38 amLooks good for sure.
Posted by Nasser Victor | February 4, 2010, 12:16 pmwow. I feel I can breathe!
I positively HATE the Daily Star website as it is now (does it sound strange that reading it makes me claustrophobic?)
Posted by Blackstar | February 4, 2010, 12:40 pmDailystar was the first and for a long time the website I used to check the news about lebanon. Today I am reading Now Lebanon and naharnet and once and a while the dailystar. I liked very much this beta version. But I think that the worst problem is that the website is edited once a day, so sometimes it delivers old news…
Posted by Alberto | February 4, 2010, 1:22 pmA huge improvement. The real site is absolutely terrible. It looks like a spammy ad-infested blogspot site, or worse.
I stopped buying it when it stopped being an insert in the IHT but remained the same price. And then I stopped reading it online because it’s such a terrible website, but this new layout means that I’ll start reading it again.
Posted by sean | February 4, 2010, 5:27 pmGood stuff, Mustapha. Keep up the pressure.
Posted by david | February 4, 2010, 7:52 pmthe only thing that makes this any better si that the daily star is currently so bad. but this is not good either.
Posted by Joe M. | February 5, 2010, 3:26 amThank you, Mr. Mustapaha!I wanted to comment on your blog, but somehow it doesn’t work for me – so I hope you’ll see it here: well done! I hope the DS people will be inspired.
Also thank you, QN! Thanks to you, I see many things that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
Posted by Umm iDriss | February 5, 2010, 6:17 amThank you all for the overwhelming response. I’m humbled.
Joe M. kindly send feedback for how #BDSP can get better. The whole point is to make people like you happy.
The best way to learn about the project itself and how it’s proceeding is through its blog which is updated daily: I’m sorry Mme Umm iDriss for google’s less-than-ideal commenting system.
http://betterdailystar.blogspot.com
Thank you all again.
Posted by Mustapha | February 5, 2010, 8:52 amAll due respect, you tip your hat to the ‘Beirut Spring’ web log? I’m sorry, but your currency has just been substantially de-valued.
Posted by ali | February 5, 2010, 1:20 pmI think they refuse to redesign the website because they would possibly lose subscriptions to their ‘e-newspaper’ they offer.
Posted by Nasser Victor | February 16, 2010, 9:04 pm