Assignment
The FD Media group (FDMG) had several wishes for the website of Business News radio (BNR). The news that is offered on the site is much more than only business news, which the site needs to make clear to its visitors. The new site needed to support the radio broadcasts and it needed to communicate a clear ‘radio feeling’. The old website was very basic, a refreshing update was needed. Together with VBAT User Intelligence created a new design.
Methods used
At the start of the project, the users of the website have been mapped out. After doing some research into the target audience, it became apparent that users wanted to consume the news in various ways. There are users that like to scan headlines in the morning over breakfast. Other users want to stay up-to-date on the developments of certain topics. By combining the outcome of this research with other data available within FDMG, a clear picture of the target audience emerged.
Several sessions were held in which all the various experts on the project discussed the project (strategy, experience design, graphical design, information architecture and interaction design). In these sessions, the approach for bnr.nl was discussed with the client. The choice was made for creating three different sections within the site. This made it possible for the information architecture and the interaction design to be developed at the same time as the visual design. This way of working alongside of each other made it possible to quickly share and implement new ideas.
One of the wishes of the client was to make the site a clear and well organised source of news. By visiting various different news sites, the team got a lot of inspiration and they got a feeling for what did and didn’t work. We then concluded that it is possible to offer a lot of information on the homepage, as long as it is done in a structured way. If visitors are enabled to choose their own form by means of filtering, this will greatly increase the usability of the site. By showing the date and time of all the publications, the currency of the news was emphasised.
FDMG was aware of the possibilities of web 2.0 single page interfaces. Some sections of the site were designed to be dynamic. We only introduced this kind of in-page interaction in places of which we knew that the user would benefit from it. The most important reason to choose for single-page interface elements was speed. It made it possible for users to read various articles within the headline section without having to reload the entire page.
Above all, BNR is a news radio station. This is why a prominent place on the site was reserved for everything related to the radio station. The whole left side of the page is reserved for radio related features. A radio player is present that allows visitors to listen to the station online. The player also makes it possible to listen to radio fragments or other audio files. The left side also displays which program is currently being broadcast and provides access to additional information about it. Visitors can see which programs have just been broadcast and which are still to start. Besides this, the programme of the whole week is displayed.
Results
After aligning the graphic design, the information architecture and the interaction design, the results were presented to the client. It was then handed over to the technical party that took care of the implementation.
