USA TODAY LIFE MOBILE REDESIGN
Working with Partners + Napier and the fabulous Ethelia Lung, we worked to leverage USA TODAY’s established reputation as a trustworthy news source to create a fresh, accessible experience designed for a new, younger generation.
MY ROLE
research, user flows & stories, sketching,
wireframing, visual design, prototyping
YEAR
Spring, 2017
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INTRO 
We tackled this project head-on, defining our problem clearly, identifying our goals, and
establishing our core set of users
"How can we make news relevant and trustworthy to a younger generation that’s accustomed to short, digital experiences?”
USA today reaches an older demographic but misses out on an opportunity to expose a younger audience to relevant, trustworthy news.
GOALS
Quickly Browse
Structure content in a way that encourages interaction, easy skimming, and accessible entry and exit points
Organized Saving
Enable users to effortlessly save and access their personal library of saved topics and articles
Customized Sharing
Empower the user to take control of their sharing experience, from the content they share to how they share
USERS
THE ON-THE-GO
Meet Ashley
Ashley is incredibly busy, she has a finite amount of time to catch up on news, and often does it when she's going from point A to point B.
THE ORGANIZER
Meet Pete
Pete is incredibly savvy and leans on tools (to-do lists, reminders, calendar scheduling, etc...) to help him maximize his day.
THE OWNER
Meet Josephine
Josephine values customization so that she can create and share content that represents her tastes. She likes to have ownership over the content that lives on her profiles.
FEATURES 
With a clear idea of who we were designing for and what their needs are, we embarked
on an iterative design process to develop a meaningful solution
FOR THE ON-THE-GO
Beast Mode ™
Satisfying the goal to easily browse content, we make it as easy as swiping through key excerpts and pull quotes to get the full gist of the article, without having to spend more time than you have.
Onboarding
Beast Mode
FOR THE OWNER
Customized Sharing
This feature gives you control over the content that lives in your social media. Because this generation likes to take ownership over the things they share to social media, want to empower you to add your personal touch to the content that lives on your profile.
Color Filter
Change Text
Share
FOR THE MULTITASKER
Quick Saving
Intentionally seperate from the adding to collections flow, bookmarking is an instantaneous way to save the content you want, whereas collecting requires more investment.
FOR THE CLOSE READER
Actionable Tooltip
Understanding the value of saving and sharing quotable sections, we want to give the ability to cherry-pick snippets that stand out to you
FOR THE CLOSE READER
Email Newsletter
Newsletters provide a reliable way to receive content, but we want to make this one personalized for you.
DESIGN PROCESS 
We didn’t just jump from A to B. We researched, organized our hierarchy, created a visual language,
iterated through a multitude of designs, and prototyped interactions
Establishing an organized hierarchy, outlining the interactions for the specific features, and
understanding the steps the user would be taking was essential to designing our solution
Considering our target audience, we wanted to create a look and feel that would resonate with a younger
generation, and creating a visual direction and style guide ensured that we were aligned and consistent
across our designs
Sketching and annotating allowed for us to work through the logic of how our content should flow,
and helped to lay the groundwork for the overall experience
Wireframes and annotations provided a base structure for us to work off of and allowed us to validate
and test our final product
CONCLUSION 
Working closely, Ethelia and I were able to see our baby grow legs. From getting our hands dirty with
basic user research, developing user personas and flows, to the early stages of prototyping, we got
the opportunity to experience the design process as a team
Teamwork makes the dream work 
I was incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to work with and learn from one of my best friends.This project really teaching me just how fun and rewarding it can be to make something with someone you enjoy working with everyday.
Communication is key 
Pitching to a client 12 weeks worth of work in less than 3 minutes was an incredibly difficult challenge. Learning how to communicate all of our ideas clearly and concisely, while honoring the work we put into the project was a huge learning moment.
Interested in a deeper look at how we got to our final product? Check out our process documentation to see everything from competitve analysis and user flows to our final product
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Hey Hey! I'm Abbey, a visual problem solver and interaction designer who loves motion, visual design, human-centered goodness, and the outdoors.
Call me, Beep me 
585.662.7900
alee011@me.com
© Made with ♥ by Abbey Lee