The Messenger
ROLE
Editor-in-Chief, formerly Managing Online Editor
TEAM
6 visual designers
TOOLS
Squarespace, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Dry Erase Marker/Board
TIMELINE
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2.5 years (Feb 2020 - March 2022)
I wrote and lead the staff of my school's journalism class, which runs The Messenger, our school's newsmagazine. During this time, I helped lead the redesign process of our current website and the reader/user experience.
Table of Contents
1. Context and Research
2. Problem Statement and Goals
3. Website Redesign
4. Next Steps and Lessons learned
Context and Research
The Messenger is a hybrid digital and print newsmagazine run by the students of the Journalism class at Northview High School in Duluth, Georgia. Right before the COVID-19 pandemic, we sought ways to improve our website beyond simply publishing articles on a single page. We wanted to add multiple features that would improve reader experience, and we began by researching different high school publications.
Statement
PROBLEM
The Messenger's website does not offer any features beyond story publication.
GOALS
Diversify the website's features, such as adding new sections such as running advertisements.
Redesign
To bring clarity to the reader experience, I conducted a deep dive into the Messenger's viewer flow after comparing it to some of its competitor publications. I took note of what I was thinking, feeling, and doing at each stage, as well as how each section was streamlined. Our previous version streamlined all stories into a single-scroll page, but each story could be split into 1 out of 4 categories - news, features, sports, and opinions, and photos and media could go into a Multimedia tab.
NEWS
FEATURES
SPORTS
OPINIONS
Multimedia
The addition of a multimedia section allowed us to publish photos, videos, and audio materials that a traditional textual story format would not allow. One example of this is this photo essay shown right; I embedded an interactive slide deck from Adobe Spark into our page, which not only offers smoother transitions but also allows us to see viewer analytics such as the number of people who clicked to open it.
Advertisements
Another area of expansion we explored was the running ads. Traditionally, if a business wanted to offer sponsorship, they would have to manually email or physically come in-person to discuss details. However, by establishing a page on the website designated for businesses, any interested party could automatically view all financial details.
Next Steps and Lessons Learned
Leadership
Our publication rebranding process reached its height in my junior year, when I served as Managing Online Editor. This meant that I not only had to manage the technical and logistical details of the site, but also oversee which stories were drafted, edited, designed, and ready to be published. In addition, I had to communicate between photographers, designers, and writers on which graphic was to be paired with each article, which often included mentorship and advising in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. This process taught me to be both a diligent worker and patient teacher.
Product Side
As a journalistic publication, the Messenger's success is defined by metrics such as viewer analytics, website traffic, and click rates. However, as a business, too, its success is defined by its ease at catering toward its customers. In this case, those customers were local businesses, and I had to constantly keep both business and reader experineces in mind.