The Economist
New homepage across web and mobile apps
How do you help a global readership get abreast of what’s happening in the world today? Editors at the Economist felt hindered by their homepage experiences across web and apps. They needed a better way to give prominence to big stories whilst balancing the need to keep people updated with the latest developments.
Through extensive research and a cross-functional effort we created a modular system that gave editors the control they needed, whilst improving clarity for readers.
The new homepage introduced several new features including: The “Discover Rail” , a thin strip above the top stories designed to promote long-running content and other formats such as podcasts; and “The World in Brief”, short snippets of the what’s happening now, allowing editors to respond more quickly to breaking events.
Year
2021
Discipline
Product
For both web and mobile apps we conducted extensive user research. This co-design exercise is one such example. It helped us understand user expectations and preferences for the homepage of their mobile app and helped shaped ideas around personalisation.
