Readers wanted The Times to make sense of the “breaking news” that bombards us all. That meant giving them insightful and reliable reporting, up-to-date analysis and provocative comment on their own terms. The new design updates a digital edition at fixed times – morning. midday, and in the evening.

Readers can save articles in their “my articles” section of the app to read offline whenever and wherever they like. They can share their favorite articles with friends and family. And for the first time ever The Times & Sunday Times and all their great magazines and supplements are together in one place.

The Times had an important question to answer. In a digital world where news is given away for free, what is the future of iOS in the Membership Pack?

Our research showed that The Times has a unique and specific role for their readers: Consistent, trustworthy, informative, balanced, proper, authoritative. Readers exhibited different behaviours we wanted to support:

Skimming - Scanning over lots of content - Drawing on the most interesting visuals from each article - A goal in itself

Dipping - Sampling content by interacting with it - Inline and not disruptive - Built with both static and animated content

Reading - Prioritising readability and legibility - Supporting imagery and related content doesn’t disrupt the flow - A continuous experience - Content supported with calls to action

Learning - Deeper diving into related content - Supporting knowledge building - A demonstration of balance and rigour

The impact on quality journalism thanks first to 24/7 cable news networks and then infinite scrolling newsfeeds is dire. Traditional media tries to do more, faster but with less year over year. Readers feel it too. When we sat down with readers we overwhelmingly heard things like "I just can't keep up! I'm suffering from information overload," "news has become noise," "I want to slow down so I can smarten up."

Everything we did from a design perspective was judged through this one critical lens. We stopped chasing speed and instead focussed our efforts on clarity. From the legibility and density of headers to bespoke font creation, etc. But most importantly about delivering news when it was right to do so and on the reader's schedule.

The Edition -- The enormous and unique value that the Edition represents is at the heart of The Times experience.

The home screen of the edition allows a reader can quickly skim this page to get the Times take on what’s important today — in the morning, at midday, and in the evening. This gives the reader plenty of content before diving deeper into the sections.

My Saved Articles - The centralised location for articles saved for later and collections Adding content to personal collections lets readers store content from the Times. For readers, The Times is often a key part of their learning process as is returning to important articles

Sharing – peeking past the paywall Article sharing is an important part of acquisition, building on the social currency of sharing the addition of access to the TNL experience makes for a better ‘gift’ and a form of trial for future members.

200%

increase in subscriptions

4%

subscriber churn is at a record low

30,000

Free subscriptions per week

Role

Global Creative Director, Experience Design

Skills

Creative Direction, UX Design, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, Strategy, UX Research, UX Writing, Staff Leadership & Development

Team

Si Hill, Marcela Maltese

Agency / Launch

SapientNitro / 2015