Background
The Washington Post app provides users with access to the latest news, articles, and multimedia content from a leading source of journalism that covers a wide range of topics, offering comprehensive analysis and real-time reporting. The app is increasingly popular and maintains a high-retention rate among The Post's most loyal subscribers. Findings from the Next Gen (2023) research study, conducted by our research team revealed that news readers are motivated to get updated quickly or browse when they: have a break in the day, first wake up, have time to kill, want to learn something new, or be entertained. However, within the app, users often struggled to find timely and relevant content that resonates with them during the limited window of time they spend engaging with it.
So we asked ourselves:
How might we help users quickly find relevant content in a seamless and intuitive way? And make content discovery more engaging to encourage deeper exploration, increased time spent in the app, and greater awareness of everything The Post has to offer?
Deeper insights
Our questions were guided by insights from our 2023 app user survey, where users primarily expressed concerns about organization, access to diverse content, and overall usability:
"It’s hard to find anything in the app"
"I want clearer organization. It’s a little overly complicated in places. Jumping from format to different format, somewhat randomly"
"I want easier access to games, comics, recipes, chats, etc."
Before App Refresh
Design Strategy
I created a objectives directly aimed at addressing the key user concerns while simultaneously improving the overall app experience:
Personalization
Streamline and personalize how users discover and find topics and content
Unify experiences
Create consistent content presentation
Improve navigation
Diverse navigation pathways to access the content users love
Positive refinforcement
More delightful rewards every step of the way
Modern UI
Modernizing the look and feel of the app
Then, I translated the objectives into a design-led strategy with actionable tactics, proposing new ways that we could address one of our app's most significant user challenges. To kick things off, I developed a design plan that outlined an initial round of two-week sprints for concept development. I assigned and onboarded designers on my team to execute these sprints.
Our Approach
Following our two-week sprint, we prioritized four of the six initial tactics, which were pursued as separate projects and released over the course of the year. I had the pleasure of closely partnering with each designer at every stage and contributing to designs.
