Beijing Daily Youth App Redesign
Summary
Beijing Daily’s mobile app requires a modification for a more youthful and concise visual look. The new design needs to follow the overall design concept but add new features that will draw more younger users’ attention.
I worked under my mentor and helped deliver 2 versions of modification for 6 major screens, a new package of icons, and a smoother user flow for over 30 screens throughout the APP.
Initial Research
Major User Persona
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Demographics:
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Age: Primarily youth and young adults (18-35 years old)
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Education: Higher education levels, including university students and young professionals
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Occupation: Students, young professionals, early career individuals
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Psychographics:
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Interests: Current events, social issues, technology, entertainment, lifestyle
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Values: Staying informed, social connectivity, career development, personal growth
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Behavior: Active on social media, engaged in online communities, regular consumers of digital content
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Usage Patterns:
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Frequency: Daily usage for news updates and content consumption
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Preferred Content: News articles, opinion pieces, multimedia content (videos, podcasts), interactive features (polls, discussions)
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Engagement: High engagement with content through comments, shares, and likes; participation in-app features like forums or interactive news
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Competitive Analysis
Analysis Objectives:
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Analyze the layout design of news media apps.
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Compare the interactive design features of news media apps.
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Propose optimizations for the interaction and layout design of the Beijing Daily News app.
Selected Apps for Analysis:
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NetEase News
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Toutiao (Today’s Headlines)
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CNN News
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BBC News
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The New York Times
Reasons for Selection:
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NetEase News and Toutiao are representative Chinese apps with a large user base, making them suitable references.
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CNN, BBC, and The New York Times are well-known news media outlets in the U.S. and U.K. with distinct app design practices, serving as valuable learning references.
Current Challenges
Content Saturation
The app competes with numerous other news apps and social media platforms, making it difficult to capture and retain user attention.
User Retention
Keeping users engaged over the long term, especially younger users who may switch to trendier platforms.
Technological Advancements
Keeping up with rapid technological changes and ensuring the app remains cutting-edge.
Differentiating content through exclusive stories, high-quality journalism, and unique multimedia experiences.
Regular updates, personalized content, gamification elements, and loyalty programs to incentivize continued use.
Continuous investment in app development, incorporating new technologies like AI for personalized news feeds, and augmented reality for interactive content.
Design Package
The new design package builds on the original color scheme and the logo, which was created in 1949, to maintain its traditional historical undertone.
Also, consider the differences when designing mobile apps with Chinese characters from English characters, fonts, font sizes, and text line distribution are being chosen carefully. Chinese characters convey more meaning in a single character, leading to shorter text strings. However, Chinese text requires more vertical space due to the complexity of the characters.
