Hindustan Times: Transformatory design

User Experience Design, Strategic UX

Responsive web, Mobile web

Hindustan Times is one of the oldest newspaper publishing brands in India, with its establishment inaugurated by none other than Mahatma Gandhi. With close to a century legacy behind it and its unquestionable leadership in news reporting, Hindustan Times was looking for a transformatory design that could re-affirm its position digitally as well. Thus, started our journey.

Insight and Strategy workshop

Stakeholder workshop involved thinking through the concerns of User, Business and Technology. Involving cross funtional teams, Think Design strategists addressed user segmentation, user journeys, KPIs, competitive positioning, CMS and front end technologies, usage analytics etc.,

With insights as background and strategy as starting point, we set out on our design journey

Strategic positioning and design representation

With a host of news content aggregators and new media publishing houses, competition in this space was obviously hotting up. It as all the more important to see HT in the light of newer users and newer competition.

One of the major exercises taken up was to create that positioning and using Design to manifest that position

Prototyping and user validation

Having established strategic positioning, our Next task was to run the alternatives by the intended users.

We ran A/B tests in focus group format in order to gain understanding of users’ inputs and insights on both strategic and tactical issues.

Culminating Design, Business and Technology

If there was one assignment where we really had to work a balance of the three major forces i.e,. User, Business and Technology, we would name Hindustan Times.

As a high traffic news portal and with its solid monetization model, ads required its due. However, our practice entails user advocacy and we put that to use. While at it, Think Design also needed to address technology concerns that could impact the transformation.

In a nutshell, the outcome is a culmination of all the three forces, playing their part with equally strong representation.

Rationalized responsive design

For a news content portal, presence across desktops, tablets and mobile is equally important, irrespective of its presence across app stores.

Responsive Design was thus rationalized... the portal has responsive layout supporting a host of resolutions and browsers on desktops and tablets; plus it has a unique layout for m dot site too.

Current Status

HT’s digitally transformed presence was launched in the second week of December with flying colors. It is now up to the users to give their verdict!