Insider Q&A: the making of the South China Morning Post’s redesigned, reader-first homepage
- An insider look at the research, ideation and development of the Post’s refreshed and redesigned homepage
- Our team shares the process, insights and learnings from the year-long project
In December 2023, the Post’s new homepage was unveiled. Involving manpower from multiple teams – including Editorial, Data and Product – the revamp offers a fully reader-first experience. Featuring a cleaner and more streamlined design, improved content discovery that showcases our diverse ways of storytelling, plus optimised, lightning-fast page performance, the refresh is the exciting next step in our homepage’s journey. So what did it take to get to this point?
To find out more, we dive into the research, ideation and development process via a Q&A with the Post team: Ben Abbotts, vice president (Product), Alison Wong, senior product manager (Product), Bryan Poon, director, product design (Product), Mattia Ferreira, user research lead (Strategy & Data), Shea Driscoll, digital editor (Editorial), Raymond Cheng, project tech lead (Product) and Ken Cheung lead engineer (Product).
Hello team! First things first – can you give us an overview of the Post’s homepage redesign?
Ben Abbotts (Product): “Our homepage is extremely important as it’s the gateway to our content for many millions of readers around the world. Given its significance, we’re constantly looking for ways to optimise reader experience and improve content discovery to showcase the depth and breadth of our news coverage.
“The Product team employs the design thinking framework so our starting point was to empathise with our readers and figure out their pain points. We conducted extensive research to ensure all of our readers’ feedback was identified which meant we could zone in on the areas that needed improving. This was a twofold process, as we also needed to find the right balance between the needs of our audience and the needs of our newsroom.
“As such, the homepage redesign has taken the best part of a year. We’ve worked around the clock to ensure the revamp offers the best possible experience across desktop, mobile web and our app. The process has been lengthy but 100 per cent worth it, allowing us time for discovery and exploration, design iteration and prototyping, user testing and build. The result? A new homepage that is truly reader-first.”
Alison Wong (Product): “With this reader-first approach, our readers can now enjoy a cleaner, faster, and more personalised experience. The simplified design has enhanced content visibility and reduced information overload.
“Page performance was another key area we wanted to focus on so we’ve worked hard to optimise this, specifically the loading speed to help make navigation seamless. All of this has taken the combined efforts of teams across the SCMP; we’ve worked really hard to get to this point.”
How did different teams collaborate and were there any issues?
Ben: “From the outset we formed a cross-functional team to ensure we had the right expertise drawn from Editorial, Advertising, Digital Product, Product Design, Engineering and User Research. We wanted this to be a multi-collaborative approach, with input from different departments to achieve the best possible result.
“Of course, this wasn’t without its challenges. When bringing together so many different stakeholders, aligning on the priorities can be difficult, so we agreed on several overarching goals; increasing engagement, improving content discovery and optimising the advertising experience both for readers and advertisers alike.
What were the design challenges and can you describe key aspects of the new design?
Bryan Poon (Product): “From a design perspective, we had to strike a delicate balance between the needs of our readers – allowing them to find the right content more easily – and the needs of our business stakeholders.
“The primary challenge lay in prioritising the needs of different users alongside wanting to deliver the best possible experience. Throughout the process we embraced an iterative methodology, honing and refining until we were satisfied with the result. We also embarked on a comprehensive design sprint, diligently gathering feedback from all stakeholders involved.”
Alison: “Readers will notice things look a bit different. As Bryan said, our product design team poured over the designs for months, exploring and iterating, and building multiple prototypes to help visualise and test various different approaches. The end result is a streamlined design that incorporates a subtle linear flow down the page. We accomplished this by moving from three to two columns and by retaining white space in strategic locations to focus readers’ attention and help guide them down the page.
“Additionally, the top menu is now a sleek one-liner, which has improved the navigation. Section and topic labels have been updated, offering a more diverse and tailored browsing experience. We’ve also introduced new content categories like ‘Multimedia’ and ‘Things to do in Hong Kong’, to help balance our content variety and cater to different interests.
Let’s talk about research. What role did that play?
Mattia Ferreira (Strategy & Data): “The Post recognised the importance of a reader-first approach a long time ago, but user research as a scientific discipline was a relatively new practice within the company.
“User research became fundamental to this project, allowing us to continuously get, analyse and prioritise readers’ input at every stage, from the discovery of user experience issues to the release of this new homepage.
“Our research process was a collaborative journey divided into two key phases: first understanding and then translating our readers’ insights into actionable improvements. We initiated conversations with our readers to gain insights into their preferences, identify pain points and uncover unmet needs. Additionally, rigorous quantitative usability testing was pivotal in evaluating and benchmarking our previous homepage against the new design.
“Simultaneously, we harnessed the expertise of our internal teams, including Data, Product, Technology and Editorial, to obtain a comprehensive perspective on user experience issues and potential improvements.”
Can you talk us through a specific example of something we wanted to improve?
Shea Driscoll (Editorial): “One example was that the editorial curation team found that readers weren’t always scrolling far enough down the homepage to interact with all articles. This made it difficult for us to AB test headlines for those articles, potentially forsaking traffic. One element of the redesign is that it encourages readers to scroll deeper, giving us additional opportunities to optimise and curate our content.”
Alison: “And we’re pleased to say it’s working! Since launch, we’ve already seen a remarkable 41 per cent surge in web homepage scroll depth, which we’re thrilled with.”
Speaking of results – any more so far?
Alison: “Yes, as well as the surge in scroll depth on the website – which was one of our top Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – we’ve also seen significant scroll depth improvement on our mobile app for the same metrics; 9 per cent (iOS) and 18 per cent (Android). These outstanding results demonstrate the success so far in increasing user engagement and diversifying content exploration across web and mobile platforms.
“Another big win was that our secondary KPI – total page views per user for the website – saw an uplift of 10 per cent. This means our new design is making it easier for readers to find articles they like, which in turn transforms their browsing experience.”
How about from a technical side; what were the learning curves and processes?
Raymond Cheng and Ken Cheung (Product): “The revamp marks a positive move that addresses legacy code debt and outdated software packages. While enhancing the user interface, we ensured compliance with Google Core Web Vitals, resulting in a significant improvement over the old homepage.
“The AB test set up was a big challenge for the team as this was the first time we’d conducted a full-page A/B test. At the same time, we were faced with the retirement of Google Optimize. In the end, we decided to go for an in-house solution to help us to achieve our business goals.
“For future projects, I think we can increase flexibility by incorporating canary releases and feature flags to identify and resolve potential issues. This will ensure a seamless transition and the ability to revert users to their old homepage if necessary.”
Finally, can we expect more changes on the Post’s digital platforms soon?
Mattia: “For sure – this project has been a great learning curve and we’ve found out a lot more about how our readers’ experiences are influenced by the evolving digital landscape. Today’s digital environment is fast paced; navigation behaviours, reading habits and content consumption patterns are constantly changing. The Post’s homepage revamp is the best expression of these changes and I’m sure more developments will keep coming.”
Alison: “Yes, this really is just the first chapter. You can expect other upcoming enhancements across the Post’s digital platforms in the coming year, with learnings from our homepage project baked in. Two big areas of focus will be an overhaul of our other index pages, followed by a project to optimise reading experience on our article pages. All of our improvements will be driven by our reader-first ethos. Stay tuned!”
We do hope you enjoy exploring the new homepage on SCMP.com. If you’d like to find out more about the homepage redesign, including what’s new, check out this article: Refreshed South China Morning Post homepage elevates reader-first experience. If you’d like to register your interest in participating in South China Morning Post reader experience research, please sign up here.
