Project Details

theSkimm, an American media company is based on a subscription-only newsletter, approached Postlight to help redesign their outdated web experience.

Problem

theSkimm’s website not only felt outdated but was also a bit of a disjointed web experience due to a lack of an overall design system that was adhered to. Additionally, too many unconnected styles have been applied which resulted in the overall look and feel not aligning with how the company saw itself. Their current system at the time was not scalable so it was difficult for them to highlight new products for their users as well.

GOALS

• Create a seamless web experience that allowed Skimm’rs (their identified users/audience) to effortlessly find and read content of interest.

• Raise awareness of the value of theSkimm’s digital products. 

• Work with another creative agency to implement branding and visual design. 

• Create opportunities for future success in different product areas.

CONSTRAINTS

• In the middle of the project, we lost to key stakeholders who both left the company

• The third-party branding agency blew past its deadline to deliver brand assets. 

• Stayed in the wireframing phase too long, which resulted in a lot of spinning for our team

• The client team was more junior, not understanding the risks and implications of delayed timelines

STRATEGY

ROADMAP

Once we were able to fully assess the situation, I knew the best strategy to keep the project moving was to get all parties aligned around a roadmap and timeline. I created a shared Google calendar that clearly delineated expectations around when my team was to deliver work and when we would need key things such as design reviews, decisions from leadership, assets from the branding agency, and feedback from their UX team.

RESEARCH

Collaborating with their UX team, we were able to leverage their findings on their users and the current behavioral patterns of how they were navigating the current site experience, where they were seeing the most dropoffs and friction, and understanding the different pathing journeys for new versus returning users. From this research, I worked with the IC designer to define and illustrate how users’ journeys change depending on where they were in their relationship with theSkimm: new, returning, and power user. From there, my IC designer produced multiple IAs to talk through goals with clients, and they ultimately landed on a megamenu which would allow for scalability as the company continued to build and offer new products to their audience.

DESIGN

DESIGN INSPO + WIREFRAMES

At this point of the project, the branding agency had yet to deliver the redesigned brand assets, so I directed my IC designer to put together design inspiration moodboards to help to start the conversation around look and feel. I suggested that beyond looking just at UI possibilities, to also document sites with text treatments, content hierarchy, and interaction patterns that could potentially inspire theSkimm’s website. Once this was presented to the client and we were able to align with potential directions, my IC was able to explore the structure in wireframes. Unfortunately, we were still waiting on the brand assets to be delivered, so we stalled out in this portion of the process longer than would have been ideal. However, my IC was able to leverage that time to push content treatments further.

ASSET DELIVERY + DESIGN SYSTEM

Because were spinning our wheels in the wireframing stage because the branding agency had still not delivered the rebrand, to compromise and to mitigate the risk of our team not delivering, I negotiated with the agency and the client to simply give us two key elements: the brand colors and the typefaces. Because of my previous experience working for digital branding agencies, I identified an opportunity for our team to go above and beyond for our clients, defining a design system for their digital identity.

I directed my IC to start to explore how the colors could be translated into not only a digital space, but a scalable brand language which was built on a modular system that could leverage a certain amount of defined components that could be used over and over again to create a fully defined digital experience.

FINAL DESIGNS

Because of the strategy, approach, and flexibility of my team, we were able to deliver a fully redesign website despite the constraints, setbacks, and missed design asset delivery deadlines. The client was beyond thrilled with the final product but also our ability to continuously be a good partner to them throughout.

Outcome

WINS

• Being a good partner to our client

• Shipped product!

• Implementing brand into their digital experience

• Happy client

NICE TO HAVES

• Longer timeline

• More time to research

• Access to User testing

Development Ryan Williams in collaboration with theSkimm development team
Project Manager Ernie Deeb