U.S. News Homepage Refresh
Joined a group of editors, brand leaders, and executives to pitch redesigning the U.S. News homepage. The intent was to offer more flexibility in the content featured on the page and give it a large aesthetic refresh. This project was meant to act as a stepping stone in refreshing the entire design system with a project everyone could get behind.
Brief
Collaborated with executive and platform teams to relaunch the U.S. News & World Report homepage using our refreshed design system.
Challenges
Previous homepage design was static and inflexible. The section above the fold in particular proved difficult to iterate on due to the number of articles in it and the wide variety of layouts.
Homepage was centered around breaking news, which no longer aligned with U.S. News’ value proposition. Product content was pushed very far down the page.
Aesthetically the homepage had not been refreshed in some time and looked very dated.
Each vertical section shared the same layout, allowing for little variety. The vertical sections were centered around editorial rather than key products, making them hard to find.
Out-of-date content was often kept on the page to fill in the dense design. Yet, important product launches were only on the page briefly. There was little staying power for content important to U.S. News’ brand.
Solutions
Pitched options allowing for greater variability in the homepage by making use of a more flexible splash page template that allowed for greater creative freedom in the CMS.
Highlighted product content front and center with a tabbed section that allowed for editorial and products to be grouped by topic around product launches, major news events, and seasonality.
Designed the page using Material components to refresh the page aesthetics, making it less dense and spacing elements out more. This involved significant competitor research to make sure we were standing out as well as research into current user behavior on the homepage to understand what on the page users were finding valuable and where we were losing them.
Mocked up multiple variations of vertical layouts to better highlight their products. Autos, for instance, may group vehicles by type to help users find the appropriate content. These enhancements will be developed in future iterations.
Grouping content by topics and giving it more breathing room allowed for fewer out-of -date pieces to be highlighted.
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