Web
Good product designers think not only about how things look, but also how they work . I lead teams using the latest front-end web technology like React and Gatsby and concentrate on performance and UX. I consider the physical device in hand and how everything from geography to bandwidth to accessibility affects the quality of the experience. I collaborate and deliver with business, content, and engineering teams to make amazing sites . There are a million things to think about, and I love exploring them.
Forbes Next Century
At Forbes I headed a redesign of the site, from top to bottom. I was a key part of transitioning the the 100 year-old-year publication from a print orientation to thinking digital-first.It was a complex project with a very fast deadline. I lead internal design teams and achieved stakeholder approval and coordination. My team and I launched a deeper homepage showing the breadth of the content and audience reach. I introduced a live-time data visualization showing current readers on the site and what they were reading.
Results: The site traffic increased from 70M users to 140M.
I created a streamlined article page that served advertising and content with speed, performance, and clarity. We even created a new template to show off our in-depth stories with richer multimedia. This new template made it simple to make bespoke styling and interactive elements. It's been a huge help in selling paid content to partners.
The results of the redesign were an instant success. The first in-depth article set records with more than 1 million page views in the first day.
The annual list of the world's billionaires is a major part of Forbes. The redesign enabled a robust experience featuring interactivity, data visualizations, and links to go deeper on every subject.
The new Billionaires package was a group effort from engineering, content, product, audience development and revenue. The effort paid off with fantastic metrics. The package received huge traffic and engagement. Time on the lander page increased from 3 minutes to over 6 minutes. Repeat visitors increased 24% from the previous year.
One Code for All
As a publisher of mulitple sites, Rodale needed a way to unify the creation and maintenance. I led a team in creating a repeatable architecture and code base to use for all of the sites. With all sites using the same code in Drupal, lots of efficiencies were made: advertising could be delivered on all sites easily, code maintenance was simpler, and resources could be shared among the sites.It was a complicated project that required lots of stakeholder approval and coordination. I worked with four different editorial and revenue teams to make it happen.
With the new architecture, MensHealth.com was able to showcase more of its special features and video. Larger photography displayed on desktop and mobile gave the site a more premium look. Advertisers responded and digital ad revenue from the site rose $4 million in one year.
The WomensHealthMag.com site editors are able to publish faster and easier with the improved architecture. Daily slideshows, videos and article content was tripled. More capacity and output has lead to more traffic: the site uniques grew 130% per month according to Comscore.
RunnersWorld.com changed to a responsive design. Pageviews increased 30% from the year before. Time on site increased 26%. Revenue from affiliated commerce partnerships increased 58%.
Features + Sponsored Content
I like to push boundaries and show off content in new ways. The below story started as simple slideshow idea about best winter sports to stay fit. I worked with the writer to transform it into a dynamic interactive experience with big lush photography, video, and graphics.The parallax scrolling and smooth user experience performed well. Then I used the same architecture and code to create native/sponsored content version all about the best dogs.
The best dogs content was sponsored by Pedigree and the client and our audience loved it. This was the #1 time-on-site url for several weeks.
Big Stories
These long form pieces break from typical templates. They provide more in-depth writing and informative payoff for readers. I was able to apply more design and visual display. These pieces are all responsive and earned high engagement metrics.
Runner's World: "Running While Female"
This story was initially a print magazine article. We reconstructed it to highlight the graphics and quotes. We added infographics and a custom color palette. We had heard the NY Times was working on the same story and published this story within 30 hours.
Men's Health: "The Mountain"
This character from “Game of Thrones” is a huge man at 6’9” and 409 pounds. Using hand coding and a custom template gave us the flexibility to show all of him. The full-browser photography and typography and embedded video gave users an exciting look into his life.