The New York Times has relaunched its Android mobile application, acknowledging consumers? demand for an efficient, effective user experience on mobile by including shortcuts for quick swiping and a streamlined layout for tablets.

Features of The New York Times Android App 5.0 also include breaking news alerts that link to developing stories, and an application that combines photographs with top reports. The changes show how traditional publishers are grasping that the way to stand out amid a proliferation of apps by providing faster speed and easier navigation on their own platforms.

?We took an honest look at the experience we were offering readers,? said Kate Harris, a senior New York Times product manager who focuses on mobile platforms. ?Despite pushing new features and updates, we realized our app was no longer a cutting-edge product. 

?Although our app was winning awards, it was still five years old under the hood, basically, a dinosaur in app years,? she said. ?It just needed a lot of technical love. 

?So we decided that rather than rewrite every line of code, it was actually smarter to put our efforts behind a greenfield rebuild of the app to improve speed and responsiveness and efficiencies going forward,? she said.

Regular readers of the New York-based publication will find the new design, dubbed Phoenix, comfortable and intuitive, with a sleeker and more modern look. 

A new top navigation bar lets the user swipe horizontally through the most popular categories while providing a shortcut to the top of the news report. The redesign retains a drawer menu for users who want to dig deeper.

The app now includes larger photos and a variety of custom type treatments to create a more visually pleasing and immersive experience. 

The changes also differentiate phone and tablet. Tablets now have a grid layout that make better use of screen real estate and showcase photos more attractively.

The revamp also includes article pages featuring richer media. In another change, a redesigned daily notification called Morning Briefing tells the user what happened overnight and provides a head start on the day ahead.

In a first for the 164-year-old New York Times, the app designers gathered input from readers and allowed the feedback to guide changes.

?Launching a new app is a big deal, and we wanted to get early versions of the app in front of users as soon as possible to hear what they liked and didn?t,? Ms. Harris said. ?It?s also a way to widen our pool of testers beyond the building and collect feedback on a larger scale from a diverse range of devices and users. 

To recruit the Beta testers, The New York Times ran a house ad in the live app. ?The response rate was so positive that we took the ad down after only four days,? Ms. Harris said. ?Our readers were eager to be a part of the conversation and help shape the NYT app experience for Android.?

The input they gathered helped the design team address a range of device-specific bugs and create features aimed at meeting the mobile user?s needs.

The new app was released to a small percentage of current Google Play users earlier this week. That percentage will increase in the coming weeks.

The New York Times was an early adopter of Android, launching its first app for the platform in 2010.

The app?s relaunch continues the publication?s effort to highlight its mobile properties to boost engagement with its content.

In November, it launched an updated version of its real estate mobile application that leveraged the features of the iPhone to reach a mobile audience for real estate content.

Other news brands such as the Chicago Tribune and the Montreal Gazette have unveiled redesigns of apps and Web sites that reflect how traditional publishers are beginning to see mobile as a tool with unique storytelling and engagement potential and moving away from a view of the technology as a novelty or extension of their operations.

?We?ve spent the last five months rethinking the experience we?re putting in the hands of Android users around the world and rewriting our app to deliver it,? Ms. Harris said. 

?With richer articles and better performance, it?s a faster and smoother way to explore The Times on Android,? she said. ?It has a clean, modern look that makes reading and sharing easy, but still gives our readers the depth and familiarity they expect from The New York Times.?