The redesign of The Guardian Website from articles to section fronts, improved navigation and a different design approach.
The previous site design had become overwhelmed with content as our output had increased. Web standards had been emerging for a while, improvements in computer screens and connection speeds all gave us an opportunity to refresh the look of the site and do more with the space.
This was a huge and expensive undertaking and obviously of great importance to the company, it took two years to rebuild and redesign the site. I was one of two designers working with development teams numbering about forty to fifty strong. This was my first experience of working with agile and I was involved in all aspects of the design and was also involved in building up the client-side (frontend)
development team.
We used persona’s and user testing to interogate design ideas and develop concepts and used great care to see them through to all areas of the site.
The Guardian design philosophy values function first and aesthetics second, but we introduced new typography and a more varied colour palette.
Above all, we aimed for a simple and usable design intended to make experience easier, more intuitive and more enjoyable.