Design Sprint

Tasked with enhancing subscriber engagement for the New York Times app, I joined a fast-paced, one-week Agile design sprint at BrainStation. Collaborating with a multidisciplinary team, I designed intuitive solutions that seamlessly showcase NYT’s diverse offerings—audio content, games, cooking resources, and Wirecutter. Through user research, rapid prototyping, and iterative testing, we crafted an experience that boosts discoverability, enhances engagement, and drives long-term subscriber value.

Problem Space

To define the problem, we created a dummy dataset simulating user interaction with The New York Times' product offerings. This dataset included metrics like click rates, time spent, and usage frequency. By analyzing these metrics, we identified patterns of low engagement for non-news products, which helped us pinpoint specific areas for improvement and inform our design strategy.

Data Analysis

News Leads Engagement
News content sees the highest overall interaction, dominating both time spent and click counts.

Games and Opinion Attract Frequent Clicks

These categories have high click activity but shorter interaction durations.

Moderate Interest in Cooking

Cooking content shows balanced engagement but has room for deeper user interaction.

Low Usage for Wirecutter, Audio, and The Athletic

These categories have the least engagement, presenting clear opportunities for improvement.

User Research and Competitor Analysis

We looked at user reviews across various news apps to understand what resonated most with subscribers. Users expressed satisfaction with well-designed personalized sections, as it not only kept them engaged but also simplified navigation, making it easier for them to access content they actually care about. This insight was crucial in shaping our design to ensure a more tailored and intuitive experience.

Other media-based apps use their onboarding processes not just to personalize user experience but also to increase awareness of their full product range. For example, Spotify’s onboarding process introduces users to their wide range of playlists, podcasts and social features. Netflix’s onboarding simultaneously introduces users to Netflix Originals, documentaries, and less mainstream content, increasing awareness of the platform’s extensive library.

In the current NYT app, users encounter the "Today's Games" section while scrolling their feed, similar to how Instagram promotes Threads in its main feed to drive cross-app engagement. While there has been mention of issues with this causing excess cognitive load for users, we thought it would work if used strategically.

Solution Development
Based on our research, the team moved into ideation, refining ideas by assessing feasibility, user needs, and technical constraints. We then finalized the app feature changes to boost engagement and align with user expectations.

Ideation Phase

During the ideation phase, the team brainstormed potential solutions to address user engagement challenges. We explored various concepts, prioritizing those that aligned with user needs and business goals, while considering feasibility and impact. This collaborative process helped us generate innovative ideas for enhancing the app’s functionality.

Refining Ideas

In the refining phase, we evaluated and fine-tuned the ideas generated during ideation Through iteration and feedback, we narrowed down the best solutions to ensure they effectively addressed user needs and improved engagement.

Design Considerations

The considerations section highlights key research insights that shaped our design, focusing on NYT’s priorities, cross-app functionality, and seamless user integration.

Prioritize News

News should default during onboarding to align with NYT's core identity.

Technical Integration

Pinning favorites could be challenging to code, especially when some features aren't available in the main app.

Fragmented User Experience

Promoting multiple features and apps can mess up the user experience if the integrations aren't smooth, making everything feel disjointed.

Proposed Changes

Exposure/sharing information about product range in the initial onboarding screens.

Users can configure their dashboard shortcuts, which will then appear in the “You” section.

They can remove, rearrange, and add new shortcuts in the settings.

Next Steps
Evaluate metrics, analyze behavior, and refine onboarding, which will follow after the completion of the project.

Post-Implementation Metrics

Compare engagement data across all sections before and after the changes to ensure the news section remains successful while tracking growth in other areas like Cooking, Audio, and Wirecutter.

Cohort Analysis

Analyze user behavior over time by grouping users based on when they started interacting with the updated features, identifying patterns in engagement or retention.

Onboarding Impact Evaluation

Assess how the onboarding process influences user awareness of diverse app features and ensure it continues to guide users effectively to both the news section and other offerings.

Expected Growth
We anticipate a significant increase in user engagement following the introduction of personalized onboarding and a tailored dashboard.

Time Spent and Clicks

Expected increase of 15-30% in time spent across the app due to enhanced onboarding and personalized content. Anticipated growth of 20-35% in clicks, driven by improved user awareness and targeted feature visibility.

Overall Engagement

Expected to see a balanced increase in both time spent and clicks, with stable engagement in core areas while expanding interaction with other features.

Business Outlook

Ideally, this initiative will help expand NYT’s current user base and encourage users from various backgrounds and socio-dynamics to subscribe, which will increase the number of paid subscribers.