Nexstar App Design
Nexstar owns and operates over 198 local television stations and is one of the world’s most diversified media companies. As their digital audience continued to grow, we were asked to completely overhaul their mobile app experience and re-imagine how their audience engages with their local news stations on a daily basis.
Project Scope
Role: Associate UX Director
Define
Our team went through a six week long define and discovery phase, identifying and outlining the strategic vision and experience pillars that would drive our design decisions moving forward and lay the foundation of the overall app experience.
Research & Data Analysis | Definition of Experience Pillars | Stakeholder interviews | Creation of the PRD | etc.
Design
One of the biggest hurdles the team faced was how to create a consistent experience and design system that can be leveraged across 198 stations with news rooms of varying size and makeup while feeling uniquely differentiated for each instance. My responsibility was to lead the client relationship throughout the UX phase and work with a team of three UX designers to create an experience that would drive continuous engagement and drive the aggressive monetization strategy set forth without compromising the user experience.
Wireframes | Prototyping | Interaction Paradigm
Development
The team handed off fully annotated designs and functional specifications (confluence) and motion prototypes to an offshore third party development team. We were involved through the first half of the development phase to provide QA support and resolve designs and experience tickets within Jira. Not all features that had been designed and proposed made it into the initial launch but are considered for a phased release over time.
Functional Specs (Confluence) | Collaborate and provide UX QA
Product Features
Key aspects of the experience was to go from a very linear content stream to creating differentiated content packages that would drive viewership and create a more immersive app experience. A continuous livestream and video viewing experience enabled users to multi-task between browsing the stations headlines and articles while station tuned into the stations broadcast. An intricate notification system based on a user’s observed behavior and enabled settings would create contextually relevant and personalized triggers to bring them back into the experience and allow the app to stay useful and top of mind.
For more information and a detailed walkthrough of the process and full features set,
