Guardian Editions
Native apps Visual design The Guardian, UK
The UK daily, Australian weekly, and special editions, directly to your phone.
It’s October 2019, the Guardian has just launched the Daily app redesign. Boris Johnson is now PM after Theresa May resigned in July and “Maleficient” and “Joker” have just been released in cinemas. No one has heard of Covid yet.
The Guardian’s business strategy is to expand the reader revenue beyond the UK market by publishing special supplements and local editions (like Australia weekly) on the Daily app.
● Business needs
Expand the reader revenue streams beyond the UK market.
● User insights
There was an appetite for a product in the Australian market, which is already familiar with the Guardian thanks to the Guardian Weekly AUS edition in print and the website edition.
Based on user research, readers wanted to navigate separately between editions and sections. This meant we had to keep the edition switch and the content menu separate in the new design.
● Editorial insights
Making special editions available in the app allowed us to re-use content we know works well and resurface it in key moments in the year.
It also allows us to have another bonus feature for people to subscribe.
The Guardian has an Australian newsroom that understands the nuances and differences of the readers in that market.
● Results
The Australia Weekend launch went well with acquisitions during the marketing campaign (26th October - 22nd November) 1.6x above target with the base of Australian Digital Subscribers growing by over 20% since early October (over 2,000 new AUS subscribers since launch).
Activities surrounding the launch of Edition Earth (the first Special Edition within the app) also had success with over 5,000 new Digital Subscribers added in the month long climate moment (5th October onwards), a 20% increase on the previous 4 weeks.
Also, almost 30% of Digital Subscribers signed into the Editions app in the week after launch, the highest usage figure since the original launch of the Daily in October 2019.
L: UK daily and AUS weekly cover cards.
L: Daily app.
R: Editions app with new edition switch.R: special edition cover cards. Using a frame and highlighting text for the special editions allowed us flexibility in the system and differentiation between products.
By adding an icon to the header, we managed to keep the switch obvious but without adding too much noise.
The icon in the switch was the same one we used for the new app icon, since we were transitioning from Daily to Editions. This allowed us to integrate the concept of the editions onto the switch.
It was key to keep the menu for sections and editions separate, as we learnt in the user testing sessions. Adding a new icon (rather than reusing the burger menu on the right) would allow us to do so without hiding the switch.
TIMELINEPhase 1 (March-October 2019): Re-design of the UK Daily Edition (DE) app and launch in all iOS and Android platforms.Phase 2 (October 2019 - October 2020): Launch of AUS-specific product and Special Editions.TEAMS INVOLVEDEditions Huddle
Editorial (UK + AUS)
Apps
Ophan (metrics)
Editorial Tools
User help
Acquisitions
Retention
Subscriptions & Contributions
Digital reader revenues
Brand & Awareness
Oliver (in-house marketing agency)EDITIONS HUDDLEDirector of Digital Reader Revenues: Juliette Laborie
Senior Delivery Manager: Huw Prior
Head of Digital subscriptions and Membership: Charles Minty
Group Product Manager: David Blishen
Agile Scrum Manager: Shraddha Pande
Engineering Manager: Yusuf Faraji, Grahame Oakland
Engineering: James Miller, Philip McMahon, Jean Lauliac, Mohammad Haque
Design: Alex Breuer, Ana Pradas
UX Design & Research: Paul Lamey, Priscilla Melo, Aoife Corbett
Editorial Production: Katy Vans
Special Editions Editor: Mark Rice-Oxley
Digital Marketing Manager: Sherri Jordan
User Help Manager: Andrew Findlay