Challenges
One of the main challenges for this project was taking a product that users were so familiar with in its physical form and making it only available through a digital channel. How do we convince our users that this is not just business decision to save costs, but a decision to enabling our readers get the latest news through the site.
Process
As a team, we starting looking at how the major news outlets were tackling this issue, the move from print to digital was starting to become a commonplace in the industry. I started looking at different layouts and methods of making the news articles easy to scan and read. Our initial goal was having the Top Ten stories in one place easily accessible without having to go to a new page.
Using wireframes, it gave me an idea of how images would work in complimenting the articles and also how advertising placement would still be effective while not impacting the users’ reading experience.
Using Style Tiles
When the team had decided on a layout we looked at Style Tiles for typography and colour, and started applying this to the layouts we had been working on.
I then produced a working HTML prototype, which was presented to the stakeholders as a concept. Although the idea was loved, at the time it wasn’t deemed possible with time and costs restraints.
Several months later, the decision was taken to make this concept idea a reality, so I started working with the development team about what was technically possible.
End Result
The end product was on the whole positively accepted. Common feedback was that readers wanted to be able to print the Daily Briefing for areas with no internet connections. This led to how could the product be improved, by readers downloading or enable caching so their experience was not interrupted.
The work we done was later nominated for a British Media Award 2014, unfortunately we did not win but it was still a sign that the move to digital proved to be a good one.
