5 Key Pillars of the USA TODAY Redesign
Redesigns are a big undertaking, especially when you must consider the goals of various key stakeholders: our users, the newsroom, marketing, sales, and various executive sponsors. Each group has their own needs and we must balance them all.
USA TODAY’s last major digital experience update was for our 30th anniversary, back in 2012. We were overdue for a refresh. Everyone agreed: we needed a more modern and “premium” look and feel to remain competitive.
We focused first on our full-screen (desktop, laptop, tablet) experience, since there’s more ‘real estate’ to work with and these formats attract our most loyal power users, who come back day after day for our signature journalism. (In parallel, we’ve continued investing in features which are increasing mobile user engagement, including more personalized content within USA TODAY’s mobile apps and improvements to photo galleries.)
Our full-screen consumers’ primary jobs are to stay informed and go deep on their areas of interest. On desktop, we can provide for a more immersive viewing experience by promoting different content types, leveraging the larger layout to optimize photo galleries and story images.
How Did We Start?
The Product Design team began the journey of refreshing the USA TODAY desktop experience by listening to feedback, observing and testing (and testing some more). We looked at a full year of metrics to better understand where our users engage: What were common user journeys? How deep did they scroll? What were common search terms?
We also listened to consumers’ direct feedback. User insights gathered via our on-site feedback form and iterative testing showed us that our users are looking for:
- Organization: clear navigation options and content hierarchy with visual distinction is needed to find information quickly
- Transparency: readers value our Opinion content and wanted clear distinction between Opinion pieces and USA TODAY’s reporting
- Performance: faster page speed and less “jumpiness” as advertisements load
Our editorial partners most often requested:
- More pathways to content — we produce a wide variety of content, in various formats, and our product experience needed to do better incorporate them in a user-friendly way
- Longer headlines — to quickly convey the context of stories
- Flexibility — to integrate text, video, images and adjust modules as news evolves
Our challenge became: How might we improve the overall desktop user experience while maintaining audience engagement and not disrupting advertising revenue.
What Did We Do?
To tackle this, we focused on five key Product Experience pillars:
1. Color: USA TODAY is a brand known for its iconic use of color. We put the palette to work through a mix of bold splashes and subtle integrations designed to help users find and keep their place. Our signature blue is introduced throughout the site via user controls and actions like the video play button, email sign-up, and text links. We introduced color gradients aligned with our main sections to reinforce that USA TODAY is more than just “the news” and has never been black and white.
2. Speed: Our ambition was simple: to become the fastest content site in the world. We know our readers’ time is precious and there’s a lot of content to digest. So we scrutinized every element of our pages, and built a site that goes from herky-jerky sedan to zippy roadster. This not only benefited users, but also improved ad performance for our clients.
3. Transparency: USA TODAY’s content strategy focuses on being smart, accessible and making an impact in our communities. To “walk the talk” of transparency, we added:
- A unique call out — a “virtual highlighter” — to clearly distinguish when you are viewing an opinion piece versus USA TODAY’s reporting
- A new article labeling system clearly indicates which content is analysis, a review, sponsored, or exclusive content
- Updated templates for branded and sponsored content provide advertisers a more “ownable” experience, while the content source remains clear for users
4. Content Organization: We focused on how we organized our content, thinking about the way our readers actually consume it. We studied a year’s worth of engagement and search trends and tested nearly a half dozen organization options. Our guiding principle was “less is more.”
As a result, we:
- Cut menu options in half
- Introduced new, prominent pathways to trending content, signature franchises and more
- Improved site search
- Added Entertainment as a top-level section (after learning that our old navigation didn’t intuitively communicate our popular coverage of celebrities, movies, books, games, etc.)
5. Content Discovery: Users told us they wanted to see a range of topics at a glance. To support this need, we introduced new methods of wayfinding.
- Flags: at the top of each page, you’ll see prominent pathways to new, trending, or featured content
- Discover section: take a break from news headlines and listen to a podcast, check out a signature franchise or watch one of our popular video series
- Spotlight: we’ve invested in and are proud of our original enterprise and investigative reporting. You’ll see this content more boldly showcased.
The Results
The changes to USA TODAY’s website launched on Nov 1st. Check us out at www.usatoday.com
