The changes are subtle but the home page of our Web site looks a little different.

Since we redesigned our site four months ago, we received complaints that the site was too busy and difficult to navigate. Some felt that the look was too soft and that we were making the news more difficult to find.

Those readers were right.

Gone is the "carousel" that highlighted three main news stories. Replacing it is a simplified home page that contains a left-hand column of the top stories from the print edition with a middle column of updated news throughout the day. More breaking-news posts appear on the home page as well. The right-hand column has quick links to our most popular features: blogs, columns, obituaries, back issues, recipes and historical photos from our 150th anniversary.

Also in the right-hand column are our calendar listings, our most-viewed stories and our most commented-on stories.

Go to any specific section of the Web site, such as Local News, Sports, Business, Island Life and Opinion, and the pages are set up the same way. The idea is to lay out the stories in much the same way they appear in print and give readers a look at the entire list of what was published, similar to what we presented on the site before it was redesigned.

Much of the credit for the new look goes to Andreas Arvman, our Information Center digital editor, who has reviewed several other news Web sites to find out what might better work for www.honoluluadvertiser.com. He has made the site newsier and more attractive.

He started by removing some of the graphics and photos that dominated the site and added more news stories.

"By scaling down the size of the main photo, we could shrink the left column and expand the breaking news module and give those headlines more room," he said. "We were also able to give more space to top breaking stories and dress them up with a thumbnail photo, synopsis and bigger font for the headline, which better reflects the greater news weight of these stories."

We wanted the carousels removed because they were too wide and took up too much space. Since our breaking-news posts filed around the clock are among the most popular features of the site, we wanted to give those posts more space rather than the narrow column we ended up using that hid the breaking news.

"The resulting design ended up looking a bit more like the newspaper than the previous version did," Arvman said. "There are fewer fancy tricks and a more straightforward presentation of stories, and inspiration came from bigger news sites like The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle. At the end of the day, you can't go wrong when you let a focus on news drive your decisions."

Let us know what you think of the redesign and whether there are other improvements we can make. We've already heard your first round of suggestions and they've made the site even better.

Mark Platte is senior vice president/editor of The Advertiser. Reach him at mplatte@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8080. Or post your comments at www.honoluluadvertiser.com.