Redesigning the New York Times app — a UX case study (A Review)
This article reviews a case study on remodeling the New York Times app.
It discusses three major features I found striking as a beginner in UI/UX design. I appreciated how they were used to showcase a humanized and user centric product.
I thoroughly enjoyed the originality and authenticity of the designer. The design case study was written in a simple and yet creative manner.
Let’s see what three things stood out the most for me:
Striking features of the New York Times case study.
🌟 Description of the design project: problems, goals and objectives:
The design case study clearly states the design problem. It avoids all forms of ambiguity as it x-rays a series of reasons why the New York Times loses readers. The stated problems include competition, cost, unappealing news content and personal events in a reader's life, like moving out of New York.
The project goals and objectives were also clearly outlined. These goals were to build incentives amongst the sea of new, trending apps, to lead a lasting habit of readers of The New York Times app and to help them retain their long term loyalty.
🌟Information about the user research conducted and how it was conducted:
The design case study provided information about the form of user research conducted and what method of research was used. It stated the method of collecting and synthesizing data, the research collected data from young people who didn't have time to read the newspaper as their daily schedule was loaded. Data was gathered through research patterns such as interviews and surveys. The case study also documents user responses to help guide design decisions, some of these responses included users not being interested in formal news, having little free time to pay attention to the news or being dissatisfied with news they've read.
🌟Description of the resulting product, including sketches, wireframes and prototypes:
The case study makes good use of visual representations, using sketches, wireframes and prototypes of the new app to show how it seamlessly fits into the lives of those who engage with it. The remodeled app seamlessly syncs with the users Google calendar, which gives them news at the right time. The prototypes created also show that the app makes provision for customized news, timed to the user's preference. Along with prototypes created, the case study effectively uses a user journey map to show how the newly accomplished New York Times app would fit into the user's life. The journey map compiles a series of user actions into a timeline and then fleshes out the events in the user's life with thoughts and emotions in order to create a narrative. The use of an empathy map and a storyboard also helped to humanize the study and make it more customer centered.
Conclusively, the case study found a way to describe the design project and the expected outcome in a simple and seamless manner, it covered all aspects of the design informations, including design decisions and the impact of the design on the end user.