A clickable interactive front page has been launched by a regional daily in what is believed to be an industry ‘first.’

The Manchester Evening News introduced the feature at the suggestion of reporter Pete Bainbridge when he completed a training session on using Thinglink, a website which allows users to attach links to web pages from pictures or videos.

The new feature will direct readers to the relevant sections of the MEN’s website when they clicki on different parts of a digital image of that day’s front page.

For example clicking on the splash headline will take readers to the relevant story on the website, while clicking on the masthead will take them to the MEN’s homepage.

The MEN’s interactive front page on its live blog

The feature will appear on the paper’s Twitter feed and live news blog.

Said Pete: “We’ve been using Thinglink to add information to pictures for a while now.

“Recently, I trained on it and thought it would be an interesting way of presenting our splash, when we tweet it out and use it on the live blog.

“Readers just have to click on the part of the front page they want to read and it takes them straight to the article.”