Magazine and Online Publisher

Process & Techniques
#1

A publisher wants me to perform some UX research for them, whatever is needed to be able to assemble wireframes, and eventually, a website design. They want to redesign their website and promote their paid membership plans.

They’ve been in business for 70+ years, and have largely generated revenue via ads in the magazine they publish. They want to eventually want to grow their membership plan. They have about 70k emails in their email list. I don’t know exactly how much traffic they currently get.

I largely work as an interaction designer - I draw boxes and lines, wireframes and user flows, prototypes… But I haven’t done much on the research side besides reviewing competitor websites. I’m not exactly sure what kind of research I should do here, this is a bit new for me in practice.

Any guidance would be mega appreciated!

Best,
Marcin

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#2

Calling @Researchers

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#3

Start off with what you know how to do. Competitive research is a big piece when starting from scratch. What works well, what doesn’t, and what are some best practices you can implement?

I’d also spend some time speaking with the internal stakeholders. What content do they see as their future growth channels? What direction is the company headed in the next year in terms of editorial voice and discretion?

I’d also start to dive into some of the basic analytics. What are their most popular topics, authors, and columns?

This should help give you an idea of what to feature prominently, and what can be shuffled further back. From there, it’s all about creating initial wireframes and low-res designs to test internally and externally.

I’m sure the researchers group will have more thoughts on the matter. However, I hope that sparks some thoughts about how you might go about breaking down the project into smaller, more purpose-driven and manageable chunks.

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#6

I appreciate it. I’ve been doing a lot of grunt work building out platform for the past couple weeks. Needed to reset my perspective a bit.

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