Microsoft News:
Content Framework
Content Views Re-design
Microsoft circa 2015-17
- Senior UX Designer
- Design System
- UI Design
- UX Design
- Visual Design
The leadership team wanted to transform MSN into a destination worthy news source by improving the reading experience and minimizing distractions from advertising. Our design org had taken over MSN to fix it's reputation from within the company and audience.
The objective was to redesign all content pages for MSN and future news products by designing a flexible framework to support all content types. Additionally, the new content designs needed to positively support monetization and lead audiences to engage with more content.
Pain Points
TBD
Overview
TBD
Readability
TBD
Would You Like Content with Your Ads?
TBD
Right Rail Blindness
TBD
The Framework
TBD
Overview
TBD
Body Copy
TBD
Monetization
TBD
Recirculation
TBD
Motion Studies
We used motion design as a way to sell our ideas. This became a norm within our design org as it allowed us to tell our story in a brief, succinct way. With these videos, we were able to successfully get approval to move forward with the redesign.
Iterations
We landed on a simplified layout. Based on user studies, user's prefered this versio of the layout because it looked more "elegant" and was easier to read; some of it attributed to less distracting ads cutting into content and more breathing room between each line of text which especially improved readability for neurodivergent folks.
Hated It
The first series of content designs were presented to our leadership. They were angered by the first iteration. PM and engineering basically ignored the request for cleaning up the experience because they did not want to commit to a complete redesign.
Thumbs Up
The goal was to design an experience sans display ads for this next iteration. During this time, leadership wanted to look at a future where we didn't have display ads, instead taking the opporutnity to drive users to the app store and monetizing on apps somehow, using context to display relevant apps and supplementary content embedded intot he experience.
Moving On
This was where I left the project off as I was transitioning to work on Microsoft Edge.
Epilogue
Having revisted the feed on the new tab page in Microsoft Edge several years later, I do have a good chuckle at how they eventually got to the same conclusion 😝