Media Express is Reuters online content delivery platform. It is used in 120 countries, in 15 languages by news organizations such as The New York Times, BBC, NHK and AlJazeera.
Areas of Responsibility
• Research
• Information Architecture
• Product Design
• Usability Testing and Analysis
• Design Management
Customer
Global audience of Journalists and Editors
Initial Goal
Media Express was becoming harder to scale. New functionalities were causing unexpected errors and requiring time-consuming fixes. By modularizing the design, future development would be quicker and more effective. Additionally the streamlined look and feel would be cleaner and more consistent.
Challenges
• Many variables such as number of subscribed services, internet speeds, display resolutions, English proficiency
• We needed to make sure that internal users who depended on the tool were not hindered by our changes
• Limited analytics data and limited access to customers
• No dedicated product manager at the start of the project
• No additional design resources at the start of the project
• Confusion between editorial, engineering and design terminology
Steps to Solve Issues
• Due to the large number of use cases, we decided to make "obviousness over sleekness" our guiding principle
• A quick review of the permissioning database showed the most common number of subscribed services, which was useful when designing the Information Architecture
• Since we didn’t have analytics data and limited access to customers we focused on conducting usability testing with internal editorial users and business stakeholders
• Got ahead of the game to hit the ground running when the new PM started
• Hired a very talented visual designer
• Built a dictionary aiming to create common nomenclature between devs and designers
Learnings
We, meaning the creative team, were so busy with design that we deprioritized the on-boarding. In retrospect, we would have spent much longer on the launch communication plan
Results
The redesign helped to increase the number of users by 15% over a 23 months period
Reuters Contact Management Tool aimed to make contract creation and administration faster, easier and consistently compliant.
Customer
Reuters Sales and Legal Teams
Areas of Responsibility
• Product Strategy
• Research
• Information Architecture
• Prototyping
• UAT Support
• Product and Contract Design
Initial Goal
The initial goal was to redesign a Word document to make contracts look more attractive. Although that was the job description, it quickly became clear that what we needed was standardizing billing and contracting processes across regions.
Challenges
• Possible resistance from Sales, who feared changes to their process could cost them commissions
• Developing and then enforcing billing and approval processes
• Creating a new system from scratch
• No experienced product manager on the team
• (Eventually) working with a remote developer team that was unfamiliar with our business
Steps to Solve Issues
• In order to get sales on board, we identified the sales team’s pain point in terms of contract creation (data entry) and made sure that our solution auto-filled as much information as possible
• We decided to adhere to a co-creation process that included sales, operations and legal from the very beginning
• Staggered UAT made sure that sales teams from all regions had a chance to interact with the software and have their feedback incorporated
• Every team member on the project stepped up to fill in for the missing product manager
• In order to help tech vendors to get up to speed with the product design, we created a number of annotated documents that detail all sources of content and any interactions for the product
Learnings
We should have validated that all dependencies were covered. In this case, we relied heavily on getting access to Salesforce API, only to be told that it was against company policy.
The idea behind Showcase was to give sales a tool to show prospects the ubiquitousness of Reuters multimedia content and the caliber of our client roster.
Customers
Reuters Sales Team
Areas of Responsibility
• Product Strategy
• Research
• Prototyping
• Product Design
Concept
The reason I came up with Showcase was sales frustration with its inability to show, and not only talk about, Reuters content’s global reach. Sales wanted to have a dynamic tool that was able to show prospects how popular and ubiquitous Reuters multimedia content is.
Research showed that one of the most powerful motivators for prospects to convert was “belonging.” Reuters prospects want to join the family of respected brands who used Reuters as their source for content.
I started making screenshots of our customer’s mobile sites (which represents how end users consume news) from around the world and in multiple languages. My hope was to find a way to have a technical solution that would take screenshots of any instance of Reuters content appearing on our client’s site and dynamically update the site.
Challenges
• Individuals taking screenshots is not scalable
• Scope too ambitious
Learnings
The project was too ambitious to move forward, and I didn’t have access to a developer after the initial test, which doomed it, but following the ebb and flow of breaking news taught me a lot about the news cycle and about what makes Reuter so special. Even when the competition breaks a story, as the news event progresses, Reuters content often becomes the featured one.
Reuters ACE is a proprietary customer health dashboard
Customers
Reuters Account Managers and Sales Executives
Areas of Responsibility
• Information Architecture
• Research
• Product and Design
Initial Goal
The goal was to create a tool that gives account managers and executives all the information about an accounts health (the satisfaction with our service and likelihood of churn) at one glance
Challenges
• There was some discussion about which data was the most important contributor to churn
• Little time for design
Steps to Solve Issues
• Reorganization of data based on conversations with sales and customer service
Learnings
• This tool should be available to all teams
Olapic is a pioneer in social media marketing. Their clients include, amongst others, West Elm, Airbnb, Pinterest, Lancome, Knoll, Yves Saint Laurent.
Areas of Responsibility
• Campaign Strategy
• Design
• Production
Customer
Social Media Managers at large furnishing companies
Initial Goal
Olapic wanted to reach out to social media managers and show how flexible amateur photography can be. Their use is not limited to digital campaigns, they can also be used for print.
The original idea was to collect images from Instagram and lay them out on a grid. Each grid would represent a room in a house. The issue with that approach was that the solution lacked personality and context. People purchase furniture to make out of a house a home; their personality is reflected in their furnishing choices. Unfortunately, time constraints didn't allow us contacting every person to tell us why they chose a particular object.
After a brainstorming session, we decided to create a mini catalogue in which Olapic's employees would share their favorite spaces in their apartments and tell a small story about what makes that room home for them. This would create a familiarity between prospects and Olapic that emphasized the company's brand attributes of authenticity and friendliness.
Challenges
• Getting enough images from employees
• Catalogue had to consider that the audience was in the US and UK
Steps to Solve Issues
• In order to get employees excited, we created a competition and received record number of submissions
• Created two versions with local spelling
Learnings
• Some people were guarded about sharing images of their spaces, mentioning that they felt like it infringed on their privacy
• Initially, I felt like people would detract from focus on the space, but in retrospective I would have loved to add a sentient element in the form of a pet or a person
• The catalogue was also well received by the lodging industry
Editorial calendars are of extreme importance in the news delivery business, because customers need to structure their own publishing schedule and allocate resources accordingly.
Customers had asked for improved editorial planning tools for quite some time and it was becoming clear that we needed to build a satisfactory solution in order to remain competitive.
Areas of Responsibility
• Research
• Product Management (Requirements, User Stories, Prioritization, Roadmap, Editorial and Engineering Collaboration)
• Product Design
• Strategic Communication
• Marketing
Customer
Global audience of Journalist and Editors
Initial Goal
The first iteration of the Editorial Calendar had been launched in the fourth quarter of 2015 as an MVP by the previous Senior Product Manager. The first calendar relied on workflow in which editors for each region filled out a spreadsheet which is in turn polled by a JSON interpreter and finally rendered the calendar. The second iteration, aimed to speed up the process and free valuable editorial resources would integrate with Thomson Reuters content distribution services.
Additionally, I needed to create a launch communications plan and marketing opportunities.
Challenges
• Multiple data sources and metadata libraries needed to be mapped to each other
• Limited availability of engineering resources
• Distributed teams: 27 stakeholders ranging from Editors, Journalists, Quality Assurance Engineers, Front- and Back-end Developers located across 4 timelines in 3 continents
• Limited availability of Marketing Resources
Steps to Solve Issues
• Thorough study of existing documentation on the enterprise delivery services, their processes and metadata structure
• Asking a lot of questions and listening to subject matter experts
• Relying on previous Senior Product Manager for guidance
• Creating a tight and collaborative relationship with individual teams
• Adhering to an agile development process
• Creating styleguides to help front-end developers
• Working with other teams in order to find marketing opportunities for calendar (see sports events calendar, it includes a link to the new editorial calendar)
Learnings
• People show a lot of good will when approached with humility and an eagerness to learn from them
Results
The second iteration of Reuters Editorial Calendar improved unique page views by 34% and bounce rate by 21% (YOY)
The Causes Intranet idea was conceived during my Masters Degree program.
We were tasked with finding ways for a large multinational (in this case Coca Cola) to communicate clearly to employees in times of crisis. I proposed the idea to Thomson Reuters.
Areas of Responsibility
• Concept creation
• Product Design
Customer
Employees at a multinational
Initial Goal
It is important for corporations to communicate in one voice. Specially during times of crisis, it is important for employees to know what to say when confronted with bad news. Employees want to feel like they are not only providing for their families, but also contributing to society. Social responsibility is a large factor in employee satisfaction, talent recruitment and retention. The idea was to create an intranet, that instead of being hideous and badly organized was a space for employees to hear from leadership in times of crisis and to organize for good in their communities and beyond.
Employees would have a chance to add, vote for-, become a buddy of- of share the cause(s) of their choice. Each cause would have a page outlining what they do and who they try to reach. The individual page would be maintained by employees.
Employers could incentivize employees to participate by having yearly donations to the causes with most followers and continuous activity.
Employers could use this platform to showcase their social responsibility record to candidates.
Challenges
• Intranet modification can be costly and time consuming
Steps to Solve Issues
• Speaking to Jive, I learned of one third party company who specializes in social engagement within companies called Tembo Social which would save a large amount of development time
Learnings
• In cases like these, it would be best to get a project sponsor in the executives branch in order to get buy in and to free up the necessary funds
Olapic is a pioneer in social media marketing. Their clients include, amongst others, West Elm, Airbnb, Pinterest, Lancome, Knoll, Yves Saint Laurent.
Areas of Responsibility
• Management of designers and developers
• Roadmap
• Usability Testing
• Design of Homepage and three Product Pages
• Design of Whitepaper
• Design of Partner Pages
• Design of Powerpoint Presentation
• Developer Management
• Information Architecture Revision
Customer
Prospects (social media managers)
Background
Olapic was launching three new products, expanding its original offering substantially. Leadership wanted to tell a more holistic story about Olapic and show that they now had a number of solutions for each step of the customer journey.
Each of the products required a separate page on the website, one-page leave behinds and social media ads. The holistic story required a redesign of the homepage, a new powerpoint master deck, and whitepaper.
Additionally, the site had confusing main navigation. Prospects looked for case studies but they couldn't find them. Using usertesting.com we were able to show beyond any doubt that the navigation was incredibly hard to understand and only one of the eight subjects tested was able to locate case studies. We wanted to change that in time for the repositioning launch.
Challenges
• Time constraints
• Development team learning curve, they were unfamiliar with timber, the templating framework used in Wordpress
• Navigation made it hard to find case studies
Steps to Solve Issues
• Inclusion of every team member in the content and creative department from the very beginning
• A roadmap that clearly assigned responsibilities across departments
• The pink button on the homepage drove prospects to the case studies section
• We added a drop down to Perspectives so that users could readily find them from the navigation (hovering over the navigation was a common pattern when trying to find out more)
Learnings
Including people early in the process in order to create a common understanding of the mission is mandatory when working under time pressure
Results:
Homepage redesign and IA improvements contributed to a 25% increase in conversions as well as a 15% decrease in bounce rate
The Sochi Olympics Whitelabel Project was a collaboration between Reuters and The New York Times. The New York Times delivered the data and Reuters would design and distribute the product.
Areas of Responsibility
Visual Design
Customer
Global news outlets
Initial Goal
The whitelabel solution aimed to make it easy for news outlets with limited resources to quickly create an Olympics section. Customers had the ability to take the entire whitelabel package and allocate as many front-end development resources as needed to customize the design or they could use individual widgets to integrate them into their existing websites.
Whitelabel pages and widgets were responsive and offered in multiple languages ensuring global reach.
Challenges
• Since the product was being translated into different languages we needed to make sure that all pages and widgets remained legible and readable on mobile
• Some sports have very complex schedules
Steps to Solve Issues
• Keeping the layout very simple and making sure that any navigational items were big enough for use on mobile
• Close collaboration with the visualization team to make sure complex layouts were usable
