The Ken

Overview

Founded by a group of senior business journalists and editors from Forbes, Mint and Reuters, The Ken is a pioneering reimagination of business journalism. They post one long form, analytical business story a day, painstakingly researched and written by a team of independent journalists with a strict code of ethics.

The challenge was to reimagine the reading experience on screen.

Role & Responsibility

Started from conceptualising the flows to creating the visual design and communicating the interaction to developers.

Research

The process started with requirement gathering from the client. We understood their Competitors - The Information, Mint, Yourstory, Factor Daily, Economic Times References - The Information, New Yorker, Backchannel etc. Expected sources of visitors - email/newsletter, social media and google search Marketing plan - Social, frequent contests Required article formats - long, short, text + image, illustration only, data/charts etc. Components required for the same - pull quotes, comments, drop-caps etc.

I started with a thorough competitive and functionality analysis and gathered aesthetic references from various digital and print media

Define

Research helped me immerse into user’s experience, uncover their needs and I could chalk out the characteristics and inferences

Characteristics

• Not news site - While references were traditional news sites, it had to be clear that The Ken isn’t a news site.
• Not a blog - Ken articles share characteristics with a blog post but Ken isn’t a blog.
• Content freshness less relevant, low content volume - Unlike traditional news websites Ken releases a single article a day.
• Content decay less relevant - The importance or relevance of these stories don’t diminish over time, as it does for a news website
• Original content only - Ken only publishes original stories, no syndicated or reposted content.
• In depth analysis - Articles are in-depth analytical stories, length much more than a conventional article
• Thoroughly researched, no faff - No noise in terms of click- baity, watered down articles
• Business focussed journalism - Articles cover different categories of topics but primarily are business focused.
• Authoritative and serious - No lifestyle, food etc. frivolour articles published on the platform
• Text based - No photojournalism. Images only used for informational purposes, bulk of text content focused.
• For modern readers - Meant for urban, up to date readers who are at forefront of technology, are well aware of their environment and want to stay abreast of the latest happenings in the business world.

Inferences

• Space on website not at a premium - Since content freshness and decay are not relevant, content volume is low and there is no advertising involved, space on the website is not at as high a cost as on traditional news/blog sites. So while most news sites’ designs are optimised to accommodate as much content in a section as possible, we can be more liberal with spacing, hence also creating an aesthetic that differentiates us from the rest of these sites.
• Not like the other sites - The design needs to differentiate the site from traditional news/blog sites to ensure that users don’t interpret it as one. While the design needs to make it clear that the site is different from these, we shouldn’t be making it “different” through just whimsical aesthetic choices. The gravitas and credibility of the content should remain intact through the design.
• Focus on content - With the level of seriousness of The Ken’s articles, it is important that they don’t get watered down by the aesthetics of the design. The content will remain the prime focus, with extra design elements only being added as long as it doesn’t compromise the authenticity of the content.
• Typography focussed - Since having representative imagery won’t be very common to most of the articles on the Ken, we will be taking a typography centric approach to the design, such that the articles look good and are enjoyable without any imagery. Any imagery/media added will act as a layer on top of this
• Dynamic pages - The site will not be “static” like a traditional content site, where all the sections are laid out one below the other. Being for the modern user, the site will make use of motion to call attention to elements and create interesting effects, in a judicious amount.

This Editorial research quickly revealed two things - the reading experience on screen was boring and templatized - and the reading experience is print was far richer with beautiful visualisations, fresh layouts and layers of content around the main narrative. This set up the goal of work on The Ken - to bring the richness of print magazines to the web.

Ideate

We consolidated the feature list, divided the task in hand into several modules so we could solve for each pain point, design components separately, do quick iterations, come back and refine the design.

Discovery

• Reading List - Allow adding articles to an on-site reading list, for later reading. Add an email reminder to read saved article.
• Notifications - Daily and weekly summary emails with link to latest post
• Suggested Reading - Easy access to free articles, visual markers to differentiate free vs. paid articles.

Conversion Optimisation

• Free Article Reading List - All free articles added together in a single collection, so that users can read through some articles before deciding to subscribe
• Sign Up Bands - Sign-up options at the end of all free articles (non-signed up users)
• Conversion Funnel Tracking - Check which part of the sign up flow people are dropping off at. Can give cues as to which part of the funnel needs optimisation in terms of forms, giving incentives, etc.

Publishing

• Article and Module Level Templates - Well designed modules that can be plugged in or out of design. Immersive layouts for each type of content to ensure even standard articles are made to look unique from each other
• Weekly Digest- Ensuring Ken’s presence in user’s inbox for daily and weekly emails.
• User Engagement- Inline comments, Article comments and Social Sharing

Distribution

• Reader Referrals - Spread readership by setting up a referral program where existing readers refer their friends.
• Social Sharing - Share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Persistent through the page scroll so as to be easily accessible at any point of reading. Share numbers included as social proof.