The feed

Upstatement’s intention was to combine characteristics of traditional media sites with social media conventions to encourage deeper engagement among our readers; more frequent visits and longer stays on site. One of the most interesting puzzles lead engineer Shaun Calhoun and I were tasked with was designing a logic to the experience and operation of the feed.

We needed a chronologically-based stream of story teases to serve the site’s core concept, taking into consideration a number of revenue-related factors — ad placements, inhouse promotional units, sponsored content — and an increased pace of story publishing on the site that our company leadership anticipated. Importantly, we had to program something our custom CMS could support.

Our solution was one that allowed for editorial curation and visual variety, while appearing random; every night, our feed layout logic re-randomized. We called it “the midnight shuffle.”

Site architecture and behavior

I conducted a sitewide content audit to simplify the site’s taxonomy and information architecture, and reorganized our primary and secondary navigation menus; Upstatement’s handoff documentation called for a megamenu consisting of both. I reduced the number of nav items by collapsing unnecessary heirarchies and combining and eliminating redundant pages. I developed a variable page model to simplify and standardize tertiary page layouts.

I proposed and launched a variant to the persistent header so the header’s content reflects user intent: sharing icons when scrolling down while reading, and the site menu when scrolling up, offering opportunities to remain engaged.

In addition responsive breakpoints, based on horizontal screen sizes, the presence of a persistent ad in the right rail required that I determine vertical breakpoints, too.

With new systems integrated into our tech stack, we redesigned our meter and sign-in flows and interfaces.