Brief
A personalized "Wrapped" experience to highlight subscriber activity, boost retention, and drive subscriptions.
Project Overview.
Project Goal
The Wall Street Journal aims to celebrate its subscribers, deepen their connection with the journal, and reinforce the value of its subscriptions while driving engagement, retention, and brand loyalty.
Solution
A personalized "Wrapped" experience - WSJ Year In Review, inspired by Spotify, designed to celebrate subscribers’ achievements, highlight past activity and introduce new content and exclusive offers.
My Role
Design Lead
Interaction Design, Visual Design, User Flows, Rapid Prototyping.
Teams
Cross Functional Teams
Timeline
Oct. 2024 - Nov. 2024
Design documentation handoff.
HIGHLIGHTS
CONTEXT
Customer loyalty is key to WSJ, supporting subscriber retention, boosting engagement, and ensuring steady revenue. Loyal readers value WSJ as a trusted source and strengthen its reputation through advocacy.
We identified the opportunities that the Wrapped experience could bring to the WSJ app and its users, focusing on enhancing user engagement, driving content discovery, and fostering a stronger connection between users and the WSJ brand.
Currently, most direct competitors of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) do not offer personalized "Wrapped" experiences similar to Spotify's annual recap.
Personalized wrap-wp significantly influences product adoption and long-term engagement. Since first launching Newsprint in 2022, The Washington Post reports that 15% of subscribers engaged with their Newsprint. Two in three completed the entire experience. Product adoption in the experience created habitual engagement, resulting in consistent returns to WaPo.
CHALLENGE
As we embark on designing the WSJ Wrapped experience, it’s important to consider the constraints and challenges that could impact the project’s success.
Ensure all subscriber data used in the experience complies with privacy regulations and WSJ's data policies.
Maintain WSJ's professional and trusted brand identity while introducing a modern, engaging experience.
Design, development, and launch must fit within tight budgets and project timelines witch is 5 weeks.
Ensure compatibility and performance across various devices, browsers, and platforms.
CHALLENGE
Captivating, Meaningful, Seamless, Value-driven.
Newsletter, Author, Podcast, Esclusive offers.
USER FLOW
The Backbone Of The Project.
Mapping the customer journey helps us identify key touchpoints, enhance engagement, and design a seamless, personalized experience. A user flow ensures a clear, intuitive path, making the experience engaging and efficient for subscribers.
WIREFRAMES
Blueprints Ensure Structure Clarity.
I crafted detailed wireframes and specifications based on research and feedback to create a seamless 'Year-End Wrapped' experience, guiding designs effectively.
Wireframe V 1.0
Wireframe - Final
VISUAL
The Wall Street Journal.
Old & new components.
At WSJ's design scale, creating a completely new design system for this project would be redundant.
Given limited resources and time, it was more practical to modify components as needed while leveraging the WSJ Unified Design System.
These tailored adjustments maintained the seriousness of WSJ's brand while introducing a more approachable and user-friendly tone.
Button Style
Card Style 1.0
Card Style 2.0
Color Palette
Font Style
FINAL DESIGN
Engaging and Seamless Experience.
Explore and discover.
The final visual design seamlessly integrates WSJ's established brand identity with a modern, user-friendly approach. By leveraging the WSJ Unified Design System and thoughtfully modifying components, ensuring an engaging and visually cohesive experience.
Animation Example
Highlights and learnings
Successfully blending WSJ's professional tone with a more user-friendly design approach enhances engagement while maintaining brand integrity.
WSJ design resources were nearly unlimited — knowing where to find them and when to use them saved immense time and overhead.
It ensured that the project was progressing holistically — effectively accounting for content strategy and technical feasibility early.
Viewing constraints from different perspectives helped brew new approaches to tackle other constraints.
