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Il Sole 24 Ore
The new IlSole24ore.com
Upon my first visit to Milan, Italy just over six months ago to discuss the redesign of IlSole24Ore.com, I could hardly wait to sample authentic Italian food. And while the food was wonderful as I expected, what wasn’t so great was the service at this restaurant. It’s as if I didn’t exist there, and I couldn’t understand why, until the owner justified his wait staff’s indifference to me by explaining that Inter was playing that night.
Inter, or Internazionale, is a professional soccer club from Milan. And their fans are crazy about them. That first night, I learned about soccer and specifically, the Inter team. Talented, well-disciplined, hard working and sure in their abilities. The other thing I learned on this first visit was that the team at Il Sole 24 Ore had the same qualities. And led by their fearless Editor-in-Chief, Gianni Riotta, it would take all of that and more to do what we needed to do over the next six months.
The project was ambitious, but exciting. As a designer, anytime part of the design brief includes words like “bold” and “different” you can’t help but feel a sense of adventure. Normally, that adventure is tempered once you present your version of “bold” and “different,” but I had a sense this time would be different. There was a real understanding at this company about what it takes to engage an audience, and everyone, from editorial to marketing to business development, knew that the bar had been raised and this project had to raise it even higher.
The previous site, though well-designed, needed an update to accommodate the expanding content.
ELEMENTS OF THE REDESIGN
Improved Navigation
The simplified navigation also features an expanded drop down with a glance of the headlines for that section.
There is a ton of news and information on this site. Some of it is very specific to certain industries. Blogs, videos, shopping, jobs, special features, vertical channels and a rich archive of materials, just to name a few. The first word that came to mind in analyzing the site was overwhelming. As a user I felt overwhelmed with information. And this is an audience of busy professionals. The last thing they have is time. My first suggestion was to eliminate two-thirds of the content. But that suggestions never goes over well, so the next best thing was to eliminate that feeling of information overload and organize the content to better align with user needs.
Through the research provided we learned that the categories of content that were most visited were buried in a second level of navigation, while the labeling of the primary navigation often created another level of work for the users to find what they wanted. For example, despite it being one of the most popular sections for this audience, Norme e Tributi (Laws) was buried under the general News tab. Considering the vital and constantly updated information in this section, it was clear it needed to be a primary navigation item.
The new navigation has better and more specific labeling and is broken up into four parts by function. The main navigation is the news and information “to read.” The secondary navigation are the items “to do,” like watch video, shop or find a job. The third grouping in the navigation are items “to use,” like the new topics section or the database of archives. And the fourth grouping was for the vertical sites.
Using the full width of the page
There seemed to be a trend in many of the Italian sites we studied. A long listing of news items on the left part of the page, with a narrow column of more news to the right of it, and then a third column for advertising, sponsored editorial, tools or services. Relegating these sorts of elements to a third column often renders that third column useless and users become accustomed to only using the other two columns of the page. In an effort to shorten an already long page, we knew we needed to use the full width to maximize space and make sure that all of the content would get eyes.
Our twelve column grid gave the pages a sense of order and organization, while the modules we created made the content easier to scan and gave editors the choice of positioning items on the page. For instance during the week the Finanza e Mercati (Finance and Markets) module would be more prominent on the homepage, but on weekends could move lower on the page and the Cultura (Culture) module could take its place on the page.
The modules for the bottom part of the homepage and section fronts present headlines grouped within their categories.
The article page as a mini-homepage
The article page offers users related items as well as entry to other parts of the site.
With the increasing use of social media tools, not to mention mobile and email alerts, the article page of news sites is often the entry point to the entire site. It’s from this page that rest of the user experience will be determined. Other than give users the article they wanted, this page should also do what it can to keep them on the site longer.
The new article page features a “header” area for the headline, social media prompts to encourage sharing and an indicator of related article elements. For example, if an article has a photo gallery, a poll and infographic, icons in the header would indicate that there’s more to this article. Additionally, using the full width concept from the homepage, the article is actually broken up by a horizontal strip that visually shows users the attached elements of this article: related articles, photo galleries, other stories from this section. Upon clicking on any of these elements, the header is always present so users know they are still within that article.
The “dashboard”
The dashboard is the first thing users experience when they come on to the site.
Our initial designs reflected something clean, organized and easy-to-use, but our feeling was that perhaps it was too safe. This was the opportunity to try the “bold” and “different” that was part of the project brief. After all, this was the land of Ferrari. We wanted something that conveyed the same feeling one would get sitting behind the wheel of one, or watching it as it sped by. From this was born the idea of the “dashboard,” a quick snapshot of the top stories and the market information.
Asking a financial publication to rely on photography to tell stories may seem a bit challenging, but the online editorial staff led by Daniele Bellasio rose to the challenge, understanding that for this redesign to accomplish what they wanted it to, it would take more than changing colors or page layout. Processes would have to change. New skills would have to be developed.
This was indeed a challenge that was embraced company-wide. In many cases, redesigns are somewhat compromised to fit the current structure or resources. Here was a case where the opposite happen, resources and structure changed to accommodate the redesign. With a great internal project team, led by Paola Bonomo and Karen Nahum, any wall that was encountered was scaled and conquered not skirted around.
The teams from Il Sole 24 Ore and Garcia Interactive worked tirelessly to deliver what users see now when they go to www.ilsole24ore.com. Talent, hard work and being confident worked just fine for the Inter soccer team, as they raised the European Championship trophy the same day that the redesigned site launched. Here’s to IlSole24Ore.com enjoying the same success.