Role
Product Designer
Company
Telegraph
Timeline
July 2023 – Today
Introduction
The home of the Telegraph has evolved significantly since it's conception, becoming a flurry of interactivity and motion thanks to the introduction of Particles, and other tools that I've lead the design for, to better surface content and bring life across the website and app. I've worked alongside a range of project managers, designers, developers and researchers to introduce these tools to journalists across the newsroom; that have been pivotal in shaping the Telegraph's design philosophy and Design System in recent years. I have worked on a wide range of improvements to the site, here are some of the most impactful.
Won News Website of the Year 2023 & 2024, App of the Year 2024
Project challenges
Craft micro-experiences for readers to better enjoy the Telegraph's articles, finding more of what they enjoy and what's most important to their life and the world.
Bring life to the homepage, engaging users and highlighting the award-winning journalism of The Telegraph across Live and Life.
Establish, iterate on, and maintain a library of tools that aid journalists in telling their story — from Culture and Fashion, to Politics and Sports.
Navigation
Finding content surrounding different topics can be a challenge when the newsroom moves so quickly. Especially for breaking news or major international events. I conceived a range navigational tools that are deployed in difference spaces and hierarchies to engage users to explore related articles and topics.
The contextual navigation was introduced to expand how users interact with topics. Popularly it's used to navigate on major Special Projects allowing users to easily find what they want on the page.
Additionally it's used for different topics to navigate to related articles on the most important talking points of the event. This was especially critical during the General & US Election where debates changed near-daily on the homepage and in live blogs.
Collections
I aided in the launch of Telegraph Life, developing a new way for topics to be grouped together. The goal was to introduce a malleable and responsive way for editors to highlight evergreen content surrounding a topic through articles, lists, and Particles. Revolutionising how topics are grouped was the first-of-its kind in the Telegraph's 30 year digital history, moving away from our 'Packages' on the homepage.
Collections have been introduced on to the homepage to further drive engagement to news, business and sports. Allowing more flexibility in how editors curate the homepage, this is more useful on the weekends when the newspaper becomes more culture-focused while rounding up the most important news from the week.
The foundations of it are simple but highly effective. Collections are made up of changeable blocks with different layouts to choose from. Developing these were based off of conversations with journalists across the newsroom to identify how they best wished to curate the news in their respective sections: Travel, Money, Business, Sports. I later worked with engineering leads to best establish how tech operations can be managed to cater to the new tools, alongside a comprehensive Design System.
Award-winning sports coverage
The Telegraph are highly acclaimed for their sports coverage, from the weekly Premier League matches to Golf and Cricket across the world. They, however, were lacking a toolbox that can aid in reporting on the matches, and especially, during the games' Live Blogs. Showing substitutions in Football or blow-out matches in Cricket.
The most important introduction from my Sports work was collaborating with multiple engineering teams to carve out a spot at the top of the homepage. It began with Premier League games but has catapulted in to being the spot of all major events including my work across the 2024 Elections and Olympics, such as with the 'Mega Embed'.
Many of the Telegraph's users enjoy reading the sports coverage during the match in the Live Blogs. Each week the tools I've created populate them providing vital context and live scores for readers.
And these Particles were especially helpful for covering rather confusing events that may be important for fewer readers but must be translated for all. The 2023 Ryder Cup was a particularly fun challenge, utilising colour and typography to break down this event (with a lot of help from the Sports desk) and present a pleasant experience for readers.
Carousels
They say a picture is worth a thousands words. I agree. To aid in telling complex stories that are evolving or multi-faceted, I introduced Carousels on to the homepage and app. Incidentally, they ended up being used daily on the first package (reserved for the most pressing news) and remain popular across the homepage on the app and in live blogs.
Alongside that, I introduced a large-format version that spans the width of the page. Used on most Telegraph Life pages, it helps break up the page and encourage users to explore articles that typically share a more human touch. For content like Travel, it helps engulf users in destinations they may travel to.
To surface and drive engagement to a wider variety of articles, I transformed the image carousels to text ones. Utilising machine learning and user data, these recommend articles to users contextually that they may be interested in or have missed from that day or the past week, found exclusively on the app.
Audio & AI
Audio has become an import aspect of the Telegraph's coverage, including podcasts. I've worked on bringing modern technologies to the Telegraph helping answer "how can AI be used to encourage users to engage with more articles?". Introducing an audio player that works for curated and AI-generated articles that users can interact with. Helping them enjoy the Telegraph however they like.
Conclusion
I've been working on the Telegraph's website and app since the start of the tenure, heading Particles since my first week, and have made a significant impact to how the Telegraph's digital presence looked compared to even two years ago. A lot of the work is forever iterating to best serve readers and drive engagement across the website and topics, bringing the Design System and tech stacks up to speed with the technologic improvements and boundaries being pushed. The Telegraph celebrated winning Site and App of the year in 2023 & 2024, I think that's in part to some of the work I've lead. Engagement by users is at an all-time high with time spent on the site doubling and page views up 15%.