CNN.com Relaunch Case Study
with Lori Adams and Dermot Waters, CNN
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(17) Loading ...CNN.com recently unveiled the latest evolution in online news: an intuitive, integrated Web site that gives users the global, national, and local news they find most relevant to them. The goal of this undertaking was to enhance and simplify online news for consumers to allow them to interact with news in more ways than ever before. With the site’s enhancements and redesign, users can access the news of the day through an integrated storytelling experience that provides text, images, video, commenting, and other interactive elements all within one cohesive package.
The site also incorporates the latest technologies, such as AJAX, a recommendation engine, and a “From the Blogs” feature to enhance the user experience. Another core offering — live, streaming video previously available by subscription only — became free and integrated into the fabric of CNN.com. All CNN.com video including on-demand clips, live breaking news and an archive with access to over 50,000 news videos is now available to users for free.
In this session, we will walk through the user-centered process undertaken in this project, including the early user research and analysis all the way through implementation and post-launch feedback mechanisms. We’ll also discuss the challenges involved in a project like this in a company of CNN’s size. We’ll explore how the early research evolved and was refined throughout the process, leading to the site that was recently launched.
In this session, you will:
- Discover the steps of the process required to bring such a huge project to market, including some tips and tricks on how to get stakeholders and participants fully invested
- Find out how the user was involved in shaping the requirements and end product
- Learn why CNN.com plans to never “relaunch” again
About Dermot Waters
Dermot Waters is the Director of Technology and Business Strategy for CNN.com, most recently working on the relaunch of CNN.com where he co-led the effort from the beginning research phases through launch. Since joining CNN.com in 1999, Dermot has developed and managed a wide range of products across many of the CNN and Turner brands, including search, social media, mobile, registration, e-mail services, weather, and syndication.
In his tenure, Dermot has lead CNN.com’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and been the product manager for Turner’s Digital Media Technologies managing the search platform across Turner brands; working closely with Google, Yahoo!, Verity/Autonomy and other 3rd parties in this area. He is a point person for management of vendors across a variety of technical areas, most recently working on partnerships around blogs and social media.
Dermot holds an MBA in E-Commerce/CIS from Georgia State University, an MS in CIS from Georgia State University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Georgia.
About Lori Adams
Lori Adams is the Director of User Experience and Site Integration at CNN.com. Along with Dermot Waters, she led the CNN.com relaunch project, steering the effort from the beginning phase of user discovery through implementation. Since joining CNN in 2004, Lori has managed hundreds of site changes and brought with her a focus on user-centered practices, overseeing the implementation of several user feedback mechanisms and qualitative research methods such as personas.
Lori’s background includes work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she served as Lead Information Architect and Usability Specialist for websites dealing with topics such as flu, anthrax, and smallpox emergencies. Her experience also includes several years as a senior information architect at an agency and freelance work for a variety of companies in Atlanta. Past clients have included BellSouth, Coca-cola, Ritz-Carlton, TravelSmith, Ballard Designs, and WebMD.
Lori holds a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Communication from Ohio University.
5 Responses to “CNN.com Relaunch Case Study”
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Supporting Documents
- Session Slides 2mb PDF
- Session Audio 22.7mb MP3
Keynotes
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Dan Saffer, Adaptive Path
August 16th, 2007 at 7:40 am
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August 17th, 2007 at 8:42 am
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August 20th, 2007 at 11:12 am
While I’m sure that this was an interesting session, some aspects of the CNN.com site still really need work.
For example, no matter how you try to differentiate the Business, Sports, and Time.com headers/tabs on the front page, the massive difference in the look-and-feel of those are still really off-putting.
In addition, the content and advertising is way too busy. It’s just too much and is not organized in a simple, consistent way that is pleasing to the eye. You can add all of the Ajax and Web 2.0 features you want, but it needs to be easily scannable.
Finally, the site doesn’t take advantage of the space available. Specifically at 1600×1000, it has a large grey area on left and right sides.
Sites that have it together like http://slashdot.org/ have a consistent look-and-feel, are easily scannable, and take advantage of the space provided by the screen.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
I’m also a bit skeptical of this redesign. I think integration of video into the story pages is the big win here. I sincerely thank them for abandoning the video ghetto. But the rest of the site is mostly a visual and technology update — not a real “re-invention.”
I agree with Gary S. Weaver, the home page and section pages are very disorganized and demonstrate a lack of focus, ability to self-edit and scannablity.
I would love to know if anyone asked about the connection between the strategic objectives and eventual site design. I think the objectives listed on Sam Felder’s blog sound solid, but I’m having trouble seeing how they are connected to the experiences on the site.
I see limited integration between online and on-air brand offerings. And the general elements don’t seem to be any different than what they had pre-redesign.
Does the “content align with user behavior and interests”?
Well, the way the home page changed between the beta and the launch (and all of the feedback on the behind the scenes blog about the desire for text version of video only stories ) makes me think that they didn’t quite achieve this one. I also can’t believe that everyone is only interested in Paris Hilton and crazy off beat video stories.
Besides the recommendation engine on the bottom of stories (which doesn’t even allow me to adjust the weighting of terms) — I don’t see what they have added to “connect users with content personally relevant to them.”
I don’t find the canned search pages very useful (perhaps more the design than the concept) — although I do like the tag-like topic implementation at the top of the home page.
With all the talk about automation of Topics/Special Reports I’m not sure how they are “maximizing the value of CNN’s human perspective, assets, and expertise.”
In the behind the scenes blog, we learn about making the site. But I still don’t know the names of the main content editors for CNN.com. Why should I trust their NEWS JUDGMENT more than the anonymous editors behind the automation at Yahoo!?
(I read Adaptive Path’s blog for a reason and it isn’t that the design is innovative.)
“Improve productivity, agility, and flexibility of CNN.com.” I can see that this was achieved in terms of ad size flexibility, but I hear the new site is far more work to produce than the old site. And from the number of images sizes they are using now, it has to be more production busy work.
If “linking” is the great innovation from this redesign, these folks are lucky their competition isn’t any better.
I will agree that they have moved the bar for news site presentation with video/gallery integration on the “mosiac” page. I would love to know if we have Adaptive Path to thank for that idea.
I’m sorry I couldn’t attend this session, because I know it is difficult to move such a big ship and I give these folks credit for trying.
But if the point of learning from case studies is to cut through what you wished would have happened to focus on the reality of what was accomplished (good and bad), perhaps CNN.com needs to be more circumspect. (Although I loved that they admitted to throwing out the inclusive process and hid the team away in a corner.)
When I look at this redesign I see that they refreshed the visual design, improved the video presentation to serve more video ads, created more flexibility in ad sizes, cut section pages, streamlined the story page (adding more automation and comments), implemented some AJAX features and switched to Google contextual ads/search.
I would love to know from the Adaptive Path team that worked on the research, if this “relaunch” lived up to their expectations.
I’m sorry to say that they built up my expectations with all their deployment talk about “relaunching” and innovating the format of a news site. So I’m disappointed.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
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