Terra Networks
The Brand New Portal Case Study
Presented in IA Summit 14 — San Diego, CA.
That's a case study of a project that I’ve been a part of recently — in which I’m still working — about the methods to redesign (and the redesign itself) of the entire Terra Networks web portal. The goal was to break traditional ways to delivery online information and create a non-linear navigation to provide content and advertising based on users preferences.
The first briefing we got was to solve a problem that has been concerning most web portals and news websites: lost of the homepage audience. In order to tackle that our company gave this job to a small team consisted of a Product Owner, an Information Architect and a Senior Designer. The mission: to create a whole new layout to the homepage. Our first order of business was to organize the work we needed to do and from this step we came up with an unexpected solution: The Ice Cream Method, which consists in four steps: 1 — Interviews and research; 2 — Concept; 3 — Strategy and 4 — Interface.
With the briefing in our hands, our small team initiated the research for market trends and started a series of internal interviews involving stakeholders of distinct areas: tech, advertising, marketing, content producers and human resources, going from the developer to the CEO. After those internal interviews, we started to talk with users: field research, focus groups and personas.
Next step was gather all the information we had, on the one hand the real needs of the company, on the other hand trends of user behaviors consuming online media and information. So, we came out with a list of needs, like:
• We must not be as an free-to-air tv and offer everything to everyone (We must avoid the mass media behaviour, offering everything to everyone);
• Do not limitate creativity on news and advertisement broadcast by having a more open structure;
• We must be aware of the user context and keep a consistent experience in every device;
• The brand should transmit a young image;
• Users seek for information independently of media format.
And a list of macro-trends, such as:
• Users are always connected, doesn’t matter where they are;
• Google and Facebook are the start point to find information;
• Users trust the information their friends recommend;
• Advertising based on user’s navigation history are more effective;
• Users wants information based on their preferences.
So, when we put together all this information, we realize that what the company wanted wasn’t what it needed. Because of that we delivered a debrief to the company: it was necessary to change the content and advertising delivery paradigms in order to became relevant to each user, instead of simply redesign the homepage.
The new concept was created around six pillars:
• Be close to the user and his friends;
• Be special to user, everywhere;
• Credibility and trust;
• Value services;
• Create and tell stories;
• Demonstrate innovation.
We thought we should stop to intend being the user’s navigation start point and be present everywhere he goes with personalized information: “Be the main reference on digital content on spanish and portuguese language countries, any hour, any device and anywhere.”
This concept gave birth to a new Experience Map to the portal with a much more simpler horizontal semantic navigation system giving importance to a cross-content experience rather than full hierarchy menus. This cross-content experience is based on two concepts defined by Pierre Lévy: hunting and gathering ( 2001, Cyberculture, pages 67-73 — http://goo.gl/o9vCuz ). The whole experience happens in only three templates: Homepage, Subject Pages and Content Page.
After that, what started as three people team redesign a homepage became a more than five scrum teams working to rebuild the paradigms of content delivery and digital service offer. Currently, we are all working on the experience redesign that has a lot of card design, flat design, responsive design, non-linear navigation, content based on user preferences and high impact in advertising formats.
Submitted to IA Summit 14 — Poster Night.
Download (JPG)
