Improving visibility of BBC Sport Premier League short form posts.
TEAM:
BBC SPORT WEB
ROLE:
LEAD PRODUCT DESIGNER
YEAR:
2023
TLDR
I designed a flexible promo that made SF posts visible on the front page, and had significantly higher engagement than other promos.
Short form posts are shorter, snappier, more snackable pieces of content. At the time, they only featured on Premier League topic page streams but data showed these posts were incredibly popular.
Our current design system of content promos couldn't render SF posts on the BBC Sport front page due to their diverse formats and stream-based nature. This meant users were missing a lot of valuable content from teams they follow.
Challenge: Design a new promo, that promotes a single short form post from a followed Premier League team, in a personalised slice on the front page.
Collaborating closely with my Editorial colleagues, I lead two junior designers through an in depth design exploration. I worked with the Web Design System team to ensure the promo worked with our current components and had been considered for other product needs.
Multiple rounds of user research validated the designs and allowed me to iterate accordingly. I consulted with engineers throughout the process and facilitated difficult discussions about unavoidable changes due to technical constraints.
By designing this promo, SF posts could now be promoted on the Sport homepage, improving the visibility of this popular content type.
The SF promo achieved an 11% click-through rate compared to 4% for standard promos, demonstrating significantly higher engagement.
In research users clearly understood the distinction between promo types due to the visual signals I'd created.
The collaborative approach strengthened design relationships with editorial, establishing the foundation for ongoing partnership on content promotion components.
