Brand Amplification
Responsive Web Design
A+E Networks
TV Entertainment
B2C
Team
1-Design Director, 2-Product Designers, 1-3 Engineers, Branding Team, Marketing Team
Role
Sr. Product Designer
Responsibilities
UX/UI Design, Competitive Analysis, High-Fidelity Prototyping, Usability Testing
Challenge
The existing A+E Networks website grew outdated in both content and design, failing to reflect the company’s modern media brand or engage its primary audiences—job seekers, ad sales teams, and general users. The inaccessible CMS hindered frequent updates, leaving information stale. By redesigning the website we aimed to create a visually engaging, functional site that aligned with the brand and facilitated seamless content management. The challenge was addressing the website's visual and content imbalances, ensuring it was accessible for frequent updates, and making it more engaging for users to easily digest important information.
Business Objectives
Update the website to maintain alignment with A+E’s modern branding, ensuring consistency with it's evolving media identity.
Increase user engagement by creating a visually appealing, intuitive, and user-friendly design that resonates with the target audience (job seekers, ad sales teams, and general users).
Empower content producers to independently manage content updates and reduce dependency on developers for faster, more efficient updates.
User Needs
Job seekers required a clean, professional interface that mades exploring career opportunities straightforward and engaging.
Ad sales teams needed dynamic, visually compelling content presentations to effectively showcase the company’s value to potential advertisers and partners.
General users desired an immersive, visually engaging experience to easily explore A+E’s media content, fostering deeper engagement.
Ideation & Concept Development
Brainstorming
My design partner and I conducted design sprints with cross-functional team members to generate innovative concepts that emphasized minimalism, focusing on clean, streamlined visuals. We prioritized media-forward layouts that highlighted engaging content while ensuring ease of use. Additionally, we explored modular design principles to offer flexibility and scalability for future updates and content management.
Wireframing
I developed low-fidelity wireframes to outline the website’s navigation flow, ensuring a seamless user experience. These wireframes evolved into high-fidelity prototypes that incorporated key components such as media galleries, flexible modular text blocks, and strategically placed integrated CTAs, enhancing both functionality and user engagement across the site.
Research & Discovery
user research
I conducted in-depth stakeholder interviews with job seekers and content producers to gain insight into pain points related to website navigation and content updating processes. Additionally, I analyzed site usage analytics to identify high-traffic pages, user behavior patterns, and drop-off points, helping to inform design decisions and prioritize areas for improvement, ultimately aiming to enhance user experience and site functionality.
competitive Analysis
I benchmarked several leading media company websites to assess industry best practices, focusing on how they effectively balance visual media and text with the help of our Brand and Marketing teams. This analysis included evaluating navigation strategies for ease of use, as well as identifying techniques for optimizing user engagement. By understanding how top companies approach these elements, I was able to apply similar strategies to improve A+E’s website design and user experience.
key insights
Visual media plays a crucial role in engaging users within the media industry, as it captures attention and enhances storytelling. Simplified navigation is essential for improving user retention and satisfaction, ensuring visitors can easily find relevant content. Content producers need a modular, intuitive CMS that offers flexibility in creating and updating pages efficiently, empowering them to maintain a dynamic and timely website without relying on developers.
Design Approach
I designed a comprehensive library of reusable UI components, including media carousels, modular text blocks, and interactive CTAs, to streamline the content creation process across all responsive breakpoints. Aesthetically, the design embraced a clean black-and-white palette, accented with bold imagery, fine lines, and dynamic transitions to reinforce A+E’s branding. The components were optimized for seamless integration with WordPress, allowing content producers to independently build cohesive pages without developer assistance.
Accessibility was a top priority, ensuring compliance with WCAG guidelines by implementing high color contrast, keyboard navigation, and ARIA labels for screen readers, making the site usable for all users. This combination of functional components, aesthetic design, and accessibility standards aimed to create a visually engaging, easy-to-use platform that supports both content creation and user experience, aligning with A+E’s branding while ensuring broad accessibility and ease of management.
Design Principals
Prioritized user-centered design, ensuring accessibility and inclusivity for a broad range of users, including those with disabilities.
Adopted a mobile-first approach, ensuring a seamless, responsive design that functions smoothly across various devices and screen sizes.
Emphasized brand-centric aesthetics, incorporating bold imagery and refined typography to align with the company’s identity and enhance visual appeal.
Iterative Process
Prototypes were continuously imporved based on valuable feedback from usability testing sessions, in-depth stakeholder critiques, and thorough compliance reviews to ensure alignment with user needs, business goals, and regulatory standards.
impact
Significantly enhanced brand perception among target audiences by delivering a visually engaging and user-centric website that aligns with A+E Networks’ modern identity.
Streamlined content management efficiency, empowering internal teams to make real-time updates without needing developer assistance.
Reduced reliance on developers, enabling faster content updates and greater flexibility in website management for improved operational efficiency.
The end Product
Final Solution
A fully redesigned, visually immersive website now effectively showcases A+E Networks’ branding, with a modern aesthetic that enhances user experience and content presentation. (link to website)
The modular CMS allows content producers to autonomously update and manage the site, streamlining workflows and reducing reliance on developers.
The site’s design reflects A+E’s identity while offering flexible, user-friendly tools for easy content management, keeping the website fresh and aligned with business goals.
Usability Testing & Validation
Usability Testing
I conducted comprehensive remote user testing sessions with job seekers and content producers to validate the ease of navigation and content updating processes. Additionally, I gathered continuous, actionable feedback from key stakeholders and producers throughout the design and development phases, ensuring refined interactions and improved features.
Success Metrics
By enhancing site navigation and improving content accessibility, page drop-off rates were reduced by 30%, leading to greater user engagement and retention. Content producers were empowered to independently update the site, resulting in a 40% increase in content freshness and significantly reducing their dependency on developers. Additionally, the intuitive design contributed to a 25% increase in user satisfaction scores following the launch.
Conclusion
The A+E Networks website redesign transformed an outdated platform into a dynamic, user-friendly experience that reflects the company’s modern branding. By leveraging a modular CMS and bold visual design, the project achieved its business objectives and addressed user needs effectively.
Strong collaboration across teams ensured alignment and a cohesive vision. Modular design system empowered producers and simplified ongoing updates.
Tight timeline of 3 months required extending the scope to 5 months for thorough QA and stakeholder alignment. Balancing aesthetics with accessibility posed initial challenges but resulted in a more inclusive design.
Effective communication and feedback loops are critical in time-constrained projects. Modular design systems provide long-term scalability and ease of maintenance.
Implement additional analytics tracking to continuously optimize user experience. Explore AI-driven content personalization to increase user engagement.
A+E Networks’ website is sleek, easy to navigate, and full of engaging content. It’s the perfect hub for exploring their incredible lineup of shows and brands!