3 Awesome Lessons from The UX Case Study of Redesigning The New York Times App

The New York Times app has undergone several changes, and they go beyond simple bug fixes. They included a neat function named "Timely." Let me share the three key insights they discovered:

Cracking the User Behavior: Jony Vino and his team effectively took on the role of news detectives by investigating how people use the news. They looked at everything: office gossip, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. What's more, is that we use our phones 2,617 times per day! So if they can find a way to show notifications to the users every break time then there is a possibility that users will continue using the app. Therefore they introduce the feature 'TImely'.

First lesson: A great app starts with an understanding of human behavior.

Ideation and Validation: They generate 15 concepts to address the issue in the first stage. To determine the validity and durability of the concepts, they tested their idea with VP design at The New York Times and asked the 15 test groups to vote on the top concept.

Second lesson: It takes a team to win at dominating the app landscape. Join forces to avoid playing a melody that no one will like.

Design Evolution: Initially, they planned to show news like Calendar view but it didn't feel right as most of the users use portrait mode. Therefore, they performed a design tango and changed to portrait mode.

Third lesson Design is a dance floor; be innovative or you'll wind yourself performing the same repetitive routines.

Conclusion

In this project I have learned that it is challenging to roll out a minor new feature in a reputable company and before replacing a tiny button on a screen, we need to take into account the touch points.