A powerful newsroom to drive superior editorial

Project: Comprehensive media platform redesign
Role: System design, information architecture, editorial experience design

@MIT Technology Review

I led the comprehensive redesign of MIT Technology Review’s digital platform, synthesizing concepts from Upstatement and Pentagram into a cohesive system. The redesign increased reader engagement through social media-inspired infinite scroll functionality while maintaining the historic publication’s journalistic integrity during a complete technology rebuild.

Brief

MIT Technology Review is an independent media company founded in 1899, dedicated to explaining how emerging technologies impact our lives. With over a million monthly readers, they needed to modernize their digital presence while maintaining their authoritative voice in technology journalism.

This effort culminated in a full-scale redesign, replatforming, and complete rebuild of the company’s technology stack. It was a lot of change all at once, and our newsroom needed to continue to write and publish throughout.

My challenge consisted of three primary areas of concern:

  • Integrate Upstatement's product concept and Pentagram's brand redesign with an evolving publishing format and extensive archive

  • Optimize and extend the newsroom’s existing workflow with a custom CMS that serves multiple timelines, technical requirements, and user profiles

  • Facilitate alignment and critical decision making between internal stakeholders in business, editorial, marketing, product, and design

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Approach

I started by refining and reducing the number of styles and component variations in our design system, applying accessibility standards and extending that system throughout the site. I established a responsive 12-column grid that met the demands of our highly-trafficked story pages as well as our redesign’s central concept — an infinite-scroll, social media-style feed of story teases in various formats, which lived on our homepage and at the bottom of every story.

As lead designer and product manager, I participated in daily standups with engineering team, held frequent syncs with newsroom editors, and led presentations for senior leadership to report on project status and maintain stakeholder alignment.

Phase 1: Foundation

  • Audited existing site: 1,200+ pages, 47 templates, 156 component variations

  • Assembled design system and 12-column responsive grid that supported both traditional article layouts and dynamic feed components

  • Established WCAG-compliant accessibility standards

Phase 2: Information Architecture

  • Simplified navigation from 6 levels to 3

  • Consolidated 23 section pages into 8 clear categories

  • Created unified taxonomy system

Phase 3: Feature Development

  • Built chronological story feed with smart ad placement

  • Integrated sponsored content without disrupting reading flow

  • Developed CMS tools for editorial control

Results

Through leadership changes and an evolving business strategy, I took a systematic approach to advocating for our readers and solving problems for our editors.

Our successes included:

  • “The Midnight Shuffle”: An algorithmic content randomization system that refreshed the homepage layout daily, creating a fresh experience for returning visitors while maintaining editorial control

  • Rhino 2.0: significant redesign and integration of our inhouse CMS, based on extensive user feedback from our newsroom

  • Ready for what’s next: Balanced traditional long-form and multi-medium journalism with modern engagement patterns, including increased support for publishing velocity and new revenue models