The Times & Sunday Times
Notes Mode
My Role
Lead UX/UI Design & Research
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Overview
During my two and a half years at News UK, I worked across 2 major internal systems, the Authoring system, and the Curation system.
These systems were used by journalists and Chief Editors to create digital content for The Times & Sunday Times. I worked on numerous pieces of functionality for these systems, but for portfolio purposes I’ll present the research and design for a piece of functionality called ‘Notes Mode’.
*Majority of the project time was spent during covid, so all research activities were conducted remotely.
UX Research
Qualitative research
One on one user interviews
User experience mapping
Persona creation
Remote user testing
Remote workshops
UX & UI Design
Wireframing
Prototyping
UI design | Figma
Design system utilisation
Stakeholder communication
Agile methodologies
Team hiring/management
Research Phase
I conducted a series of remote one-on-one interviews with a selection of journalists and Chief Editors. During these sessions I learned about the authoring and editorial processes for creating print content for The Times.
My task was to capture the key user needs and current pain points of these processes, and then design an improved solution for the creation of digital content for The Times online platforms.
This interview discussed the ‘Notes Mode’ functionality that existed in the print tool, ‘Methode’.
The Users
I provided guidance in the creation of Personas for the wider business.
These focused on the current pain points and current needs of the users.
These personas provided a useful reference when clarifying the needs of the designs.
Research Findings
I created a research deck to communicate the research findings with my team and key stakeholders, this research was also shared around the wider business.
This period of research was crucial for understanding what features I needed to focus on for the UX design.
User Experience Mapping
I collaborated with the wider design team to create a user experience map, documenting the authoring journey, user actions and current pain points.
This map provided holistic clarity to the whole process, and allowed me to specify where to focus the design effort.
What is Notes Mode?
So what is 'Notes Mode'?
During the editing process, a journalist is never supposed to delete any of their edited content, they are just supposed to ‘cut’ the content, or remove it from the draft version for legal reasons.
‘Notes Mode’ is a version of this draft that shows all of the edited content, alongside key facts that have been checked as correct, via 'COR marks' and user written comments added to explain editorial decisions and the reasons behind cut content to more senior Editors in the publication process.
First Design Attempt
This was one of my first design attempts for the ‘Notes Mode’ UI. I tested this design with users and received the invaluable feedback that the design choices were too bold, because they were more primary than the actual article content.
From this testing I learned that the design choices for Notes Mode UI needed to be more subtle, and that the article content should still be the primary content.
Design Iteration
As you can see, from the learnings of the user testing, I created a more subtle set of ‘Notes Mode’ design elements, keeping the article content the primary focus of the UI.
These designs were received much better after the next phase of testing and I received sign off from the end users.
COR Marks, Cut Marks, Legal Edits & Commenting
Here is a better view of the 'Notes Mode' UI elements mentioned above.
These consisted of ‘COR’ marks, which are indicators designed to show an editorial 'fact' had been checked and authenticated. ‘Cut’ marks, to show content that had been cut. ‘Legal’ marks to show content that had been removed for legal reasons. And finally comment icons designed to indicate that a comment had been added to the draft, for the future understanding of the Chief Editors who were responsible for approving the article during the publication process.
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Further Design Work
Alongside ‘Notes Mode’, I worked on numerous other pieces of functionality for the Authoring system.
These included an image editor, component builder, links to related stories and a new ‘Search’ engine functionality for existing stories.
These designs were aimed at improving user pain points captured during the research phase.
Conclusion
The design work completed during my time at News UK was widely praised and much of it was implemented into their existing systems.
The research and concepts developed during this time are being actively worked on and used to drive the internal systems of The Times & Sunday Times going forward.
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