The digital press is getting more and more popular due to its interactivity, speed, variety, easy and convenient access, as well as practical and ecological aspects. Readers became interested in access to their favorite titles in the form of applications what we notice in numerous foreign examples like New York Times or The Economist. Recently, new digital solutions have also appeared in Poland. Caring for a modern, up-to-date image of the newspaper and providing standing out solutions, is necessary to attract new and current readers. Our agency was asked to design a mobile app for Polityka that will deliver great reading experience and will meet the newspaper's business goals.
UX/UI Designer at Agency
I worked closely with the client to create a mobile application from its early stage, delivering the best possible UX and reading experience for Polityka.pl readers. I worked on desk research, organized remote strategy workshops, designed lo-fi wireframes and delivered hi-fi designs with full documentation.
2020
The project took 10 weeks.
I worked in Agile Methodology in 8 Design Sprints basing on the Design Thinking process. Our agency started cooperating with Politka in 2019 redesigning the desktop and mobile web experience.
The app was launched on 2.02.2021
You can download it from the Appstore and Google Play Store.
Mobile web 2018
Mobile web 2019
Mobile app 2020
How to design a mobile app that will provide an engaging experience of digital content consumption for current and new readers of Polityka.pl?
Data from the Polityka.pl portal shows that 74% of users read Polityka on their phones comparing to 26% who read it on desktop. Due to the available solutions of the competition, the expectations of digital press readers are higher, and the responsive mobile web version of the Polityka.pl portal has its limitations. Providing easy access to content and supporting the reading and listening experience on mobile, are necessary to achieve business goals. The next step in having a competitive advantage in the publishing market is finding differentiators and additional value of the new solution.
Mobile web 2018
Mobile app 2020
I decided to focus on a few key areas in order to better understand our new challenge. Starting with articles and literature on how people read, through press digital strategies and most popular news apps benchmarks.
What did I learn so far?
1
Reading experience on mobile is different than on desktop
Because of that we couldn't copy each element from main Polityka.pl web portal and paste it directly into new application. App needs to provide more selected and adjusted content.
2
People expect to get additional value from the new solution
In order to get new readers, we had to design new features and deliver additional value proposition which will convince the users to install an app. Otherwise, the new solution won't be anything new from the current mobile web responsive version of web portal.
3
The competition in the press market is getting stronger
Foreign benchmarks showed that reading digital press on app becomes more and more popular. People expect to have their titles on mobiles. Nowadays in Poland few newspapers already introduced their new solutions, so Polityka couldn't stay behind.
Before the mobile app project our agency helped Polityka with their Digital transformation and web portal redesign including best UX practices for websites.
During that project I pointed out 2 different types of personas:
Getting interested only in selected articles. Curious about news worldwide.
That might be interesting... I will send it to my friend. Let's see what he thinks on that topic.
Simon, 32 years old
Devices: Mobile, Desktop, Tablet
Polityka subscriber for over 8 years. Reads everything from cover to cover.
Oh, Żakowski the journalist was right again...
Maria, 55 years old
Prefers reading printed newspaper.Devices: Desktop, Kindle
I organized fully remote strategic workshop in Miro
Due to the COVID situation my team I was forced to work and organize 100% remote strategic workshops with client. We managed to prepare the necessary material in Miro. I focused on finding an answer for few key questions like:
Key conlusions from users tests
During 2 rounds of users test, I had an opportunity to prepare lo-fi screens of core functionalities. At this point, I wanted to test the interactions, app logic structure, and key features instead of beautiful aesthetic design.
1
Customization is a must-have
The behavior and declarations of participants during research suggest that an important element of the application is the ability to adjust it user's needs.
2
The Possibility of sharing the news with others
From the user's perspective, another useful feature was the ability to share content with others.
3
Relation between App and web portal of Polityka
The behavior of the respondents does not indicate a strong need to synchronize the content of the application with the web portal.
4
Personalziation
Some (especially younger) participants took personalization as a guarantor. Personalization gave them the feeling of being honored, took off the necessity of preselection of interesting content, which was time saving.
Style guide
I was also responsible for delivering a Style Guide with each used component. It helps developers a lot with the implementation.
I delivered the hi-fi screens
Most of the project documentation for developers was delivered in Figma. In the last 3 weeks of the project I had to transform our wireframes into hi-fi designs. Together with client we decided only to show the most important screens and ready visuals in order to save some budget and time.
4.8 / 5
Users positively rated the new app giving an overal 4.8/5 score.
Over 2.2k ratings
downloads
Customers reviews
"Very well prepared and thought out application. In fact, it is difficult to make any extensive comment - the application works and does its job. The content is presented in a clear way, the application does not jam."
"Polityka newspaper needs no introduction, but as for the application itself, it works great and allows you to read selected content really very comfortably."
"The app works great. Everything legible, transparent and in its place. Top quality content, a pleasure to read."
"New app is really great."
"Today" Main section
The first section visible in the app is called "Today" because it updates the user about the most interesting news from each day, proving the current Polityka's Agenda, the most popular articles, podcasts, new edition of newspaper and also drawing for today. Each section has its own title visible at the top during the scrolling.
Section "For you"
This section is the answer to the personalization requirement. Under "For You" sections users can find the adjusted content suggested basing on their interests. Here is the place where readers can follow their favourite authors and find articles saved for later.
"The authors" subsection
Great Authors are one of the biggest strengths of Polityka. During tests, the possibility to follow favorite authors was rated as one of the most interesting features to the users. Here in this section they can easily reach for new articles and add authors to their list.
"Audio" section
Great listening experience was provided in "Audio" section. Users have quick access to featured audio content, playlist, and favorite podcasts. We put a lot of effort into designing a friendly player interface, with large buttons supporting the comfort of listening and accessibility.
Dark mode and offline reading
Current market trends showed us that the possibility to turn on dark mode is an expected feature. Apart from that users have also a possibility to download Polityka edition to read or even listen in offline mode.
I learned a lot about the digital press and how to design the experience for people who read online.
COVID situation taught us that 100% of remote work is possible and it seems to be even more effective than in real. We were much more focused on proper work and also didn't lose time for travels to Warsaw.
This project was super interesting for me and I hope to take part in a similar one soon.
Those 10 weeks of work were pretty intensive and not everything went in accordance with the schedule.
For example, we didn't provide enough time for feedback sessions and because of that, we had to ask the client for paying more for our extra hours of work. It wasn't comfortable situation for both of the sides so next time I'm sure we will manage to plan everything better and inform the client earlier about any delays.
