Overview - 

In the Summer of 2021, I had the opportunity to intern at Forbes Media. My responsibilities included UX Work on both the Forbes.com website and Forbes' CMS Platform for authors. Below is a snapshot of some of the projects I had the opportunity to contribute.

Journalist Entrepreneur Statistics Dashboard

Goal - To develop a stats dashboard on Forbes' CMS (Bertie) for authors for streamlined stats insights for newsletters.

The goal of the stats dashboard was to help authors with accurate and detailed statistics for their trial, paid, and free subscribers without overwhelming data in an easy-to-consume layout for newsletters.

My Role in the team was to lead the process of designing the dashboard and seek feedback from my Design Director, Director of Data Products & Asso. Product Owner to design the best outcome based on the research we did.

Platform

Mobile Web
Desktop Web

Team

UX/UI Designer (Lead)
Product Owner
Software Engineers

Duration

6 Weeks (Summer 2021)

Design Process

Understanding the Difference between Articles and Newsletters.

Articles - 

Articles address any topic that the author decides to explore and can reflect the opinion, news, research, reviews, instruction, nearly any focus. Because of their relative brevity, articles typically are used to provide up-to-date information on a wide variety of topics. Articles are posted on the Forbes.com website available to the entire site-wide audience.

Newsletters - 

A regularly published collection of brief news articles of interest to members of a particular community. Articles in newsletters are typically brief, and the entire newsletter itself might be only half a dozen pages in length. These are usually internal publications that have interest mainly to people who participate in the activities of the issuing body.

Interviews

In collaboration with the Product Owners, I conducted interviews with authors with over 20 million combined views of their newsletters. The interviews were aimed at understanding which key statistics would be most important to them to understand reader feedback & conversion.

Common Trends

Article vs Newsletter?

• The authors want to know whether to post the article or newsletter first
• They would like to understand which is worth more in terms of conversion to paid subscriptions?
• Believe newsletters are small stories inside one big story.

Leverage Existing Stats Infrastructure.

• Users mentioned Bertie was fantastic in terms of the stats they offered users for articles.
• Authors wanted us to leverage existing modules for income, published newsletters, etc.

Understanding User Demographics & Feedback - 

• Authors wanted to understand more about user demographics and repeat visitors.
• Authors wanted to understand audience feedback through possible in-mail satisfaction surveys.

How Might We?

In collaboration with the back-end team, we determined different endpoints for data collection which could be gathered within the determined timeline to be included in the dashboard for Phase 1.

How Might We help authors understand conversion rates better?


Conversion Rate, Subscriber Breakdown on Subscription Models, Lists of Newsletters written to determine growth per newsletter published.

How can we help writers get a better understanding of their users/community?

Phase 2 - Open Rate, Time of Day newsletters are read.

How Might We help readers interact with authors?

Phase 2 - Satisfaction Surveys, Like/Dislike, Feedback Forms.

What do we focus on once the open rate is unreliable? (Privacy Update)

Phase 3 - Heatmaps, Google Search Sources, Forward Rate, Leaderboard (Learn Through Competition) 

Solution -

Overarching important stats which authors determine to be KPI which matter most.

Graphical Representation of Subscriber Trends to understand the evolution of gains and losses.
Blue dots represent newsletters published.

Subscriber Trends in more detail over a weekly basis. The duration can be controlled through a filter that reflects data for the entire dashboard.

Subscriber Breakdown per subscription model allows authors to have a quick insight towards understanding their main consumption of demographics and accordingly alter their focus while publishing the newsletters.

Project Detail for Future -

After we completed Phase 1 for the dashboard design, the iOS Privacy Update guidelines were released. After a thorough discussion with the product leadership, we determined the feasibility of available data endpoints and the investment of resources at this point wasn't advisable. Hence, until further scoping of the project, the progress was stalled.

Side Projects

A collection of few projects that I had the opportunity to contribute towards.

Forbes' Master Profile Design Layout.

I worked along with my Sr. UX Designer (Forbes.com) to rethink the layout of the master profile. All the other associated lists branch out of the master profiles.

A few of the tasks included - 
• Reimaging ad placements to help Forbes.com establish ad revenue as well as consider not hampering viewers' experience based on the content flow.
• Redesigning modules including but not limited to star header, list buttons, tooltips, personal stats, education, etc.

Forbes' Vetted Navigation.

I worked along with my Sr. UX Designer (Forbes.com Vetted) to redesign the navigation for the Forbes.com Vetted Page. Alongside the VP of Product, VP of Design, and Director of Design, I showcased it to the entire design team for additional feedback and consideration from a business value standpoint.

A few of the tasks included - 
• Reimaging Navigation for Vetted section for Forbes.com Desktop and Mobile Web.

Work In Progress.. A couple of more detailed projects to go.