Hey, I feel so pleased to keep you in the know that I am on the journey of learning product design with Friends of Figma, Africa. As part of the requirements for completing the Bootcamp, this week I was engrossed in reading a captivating case study of Redesigning the New York Times app, curated by Jonny Vino. I am intrigued to share the salient points I gathered. Please stick with me on this journey.

Without much ado, let's dive right in!

Lessons learned

1. The significance of user research in product development cannot be overemphasized

   The team started off the design process by looking into the reasons young Americans don't read the news despite their willingness to pay for the New York Times, a renowned news app. The team started by researching the habits of young people, the app's target audience: how they consume news. Through it, the team was able to understand the users' pain points and challenges related to news consumption and were able to tailor their solution to solving the problem by including a feature on the app, which was phrased "Timely" which helps fit news into the users' busy lifestyles by integrating with Google Calendar seamlessly, as it was discovered in the course of the research that the app users schedule their lifestyles on the app.

2. Iteration is Key

   I learned that designers should not be dogmatic in their approach to crafting usable designs. The team came up with 15 ideas to solve the problem, tested their solutions, validated them with 15 test groups, and refined their approach based on feedback and usability considerations. One of the critics was that 96% of users use portrait mode while the initial idea was to display the app in landscape view, hence the idea was not feasible and a new wireframe had to emerge, this gave room for flexibility and put the users front and center.

3. Don't neglect the place of collaboration

   The case study highlights the impact of collaboration in the design process. The design team worked closely with a team and received validation from the VP of design at the New York Times. This allowed the team to refine their ideas and tailor their solution to meet the needs of the users because designers don't design for themselves but for their users.

In conclusion, The case study underscores the importance of user-centric design, continuous iteration, and effective teamwork in developing innovative and useful product features.