Case Study
g1 app election experience
Creating a curated approach to the daily news experience during the Brazilian election 2022
Context
g1 is Brazil's number one digital news coverage platform. The election period typically increases its website and app audience, representing a major event where the role of journalism is reaffirmed in the public’s mind. The 2022 elections faced the added tensions of a polarized political scenario, with informal communication channels directly competing for voters’ attention.
This was an opportunity to target our major goals for the year, assist the app gain and retain users and engagement, and create value to the users by positioning the app as a reliable, friendly and accessible source of information.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I’ve omitted confidential information in this case study. The information that follows is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Globo and g1.
My Role
Product Designer | Globo
User Research, Quantitative Analysis, Dynamic Creation, Facilitation, Visual and Interaction
Team of 2 designers
Feb - May 2022
The Challenge
Loyalty
Creating a new, cohesive experience for the app that both captures new users and retains old users, positioning the brand as trustworthy and valuable.
Adaptability
Catering to many different types of users with polarized views and differing levels of technological literacy, accommodating them seamlessly.
Accessibility
Information must be understandable even to users with low technology literacy, while still maintaining good design principles and journalistic integrity.
Rigor
Election dates are fixed, so deadlines cannot be moved. The process must be held to the highest level of quality, to ensure a smooth implementation.
Loyalty
Creating a new, cohesive experience for the app that both captures new users and retains old users, positioning the brand as trustworthy and valuable.
Adaptability
Catering to many different types of users with polarized views and differing levels of technological literacy, accommodating them seamlessly.
Accessibility
Information must be understandable even to users with low technology literacy, while still maintaining good design principles and journalistic integrity.
Rigor
Election dates are fixed, so deadlines cannot be moved. The process must be held to the highest level of quality, to ensure a smooth implementation.
Design Process
Our process was geared towards research and prioritization, gathering a solid base of information about our users that would allow us to save time during development.
Research
Desk research, development of proto personas and user interviews
Consolidation
Development of user personas and journeys, brainstorming
Ideation
Ideation group dynamic, “how might we”, impact/effort dynamic
Creation
Sketching, refining, final layout and adjustments
Implementation
Intensive testing and staggered release
Analysis
Monitoring and day-to-day performance evaluation
Based on internal insights and metrics, user interviews were key to recognize trouble areas and demands, instead of getting bogged down in assumptions, so we included a diverse pool of both g1 users and non-users. These interviews did not completely satisfy our needs, so we moved on to a complementary friends and family interview, which proved to be the best decision within our budget and time constraints.
Simultaneously, we conducted a quantitative analysis of user activity during previous election cycles and an ideation group dynamic, in which the team gathered with 27 participants, including journalists, POs, PMs, developers, UX designers, data scientists and business managers. This ensured our approach was multifaceted and addressed every aspect of the user experience as well as internal company needs.
Insights
- The perception of bias in the largest news outlets bothers most of the readers.
- Users reported starting the day with local news on TV or g1. They perceived the 24-hour news cycle as monotonous and lacking in journalistic content, causing disinterest.
- Historically, the app does not register a major peak in number of users or user frequency during election cycles.
- The policy plan and candidate's history are the most important points for the users when deciding their vote.
- App engagement rises a few weeks before elections, unlike web engagement, in the voting days themselves.
As a result, we chose to focus on the campaign leading up to the election, where we could show users the app's value daily, rather than limiting ourselves to coverage of the results. This meant features would have a staggered release, being implemented one by one in a continuous timeline.
All of this work consolidated into user personas and journeys, meticulously curated to suit the reality of our users. Each profile catered to a reading preference (news, politics or both), political leaning (right, center, or left), and level of engagement (active or passive). These combinations lead to a variety of approaches and products.
We had two months to design and test the election features. That meant we couldn't move further with some ideas. Rigorous prioritization was key for the project, so we created an impact/effort dynamic chart with a representative of each product area and arrived at the final choices that made it to the development stage. Creation moved fast since we had all the information we needed and knew exactly what we wanted to achieve.
Our testing process was meticulous, to ensure that implementation would be smooth. The high stakes of the election and users’ overall skepticism towards politics meant that any flaw in the project could have a negative impact on the company as a whole.
Solution
To develop the new features, we worked side by side with the editorial team and with our product stakeholders. This was crucial to building a seamless and exciting experience.
Additionally, since the features were released in a staggered schedule, this allowed us to manage live feedback from users. One of our most successful features was the personalized “good morning” message, which featured a countdown to important dates and milestones. Users felt that this message positively impacted their day, giving a friendly face to a complicated subject and making information more approachable. Office coworkers also loved this feature and made sure that our team knew that, giving us an even greater boost to morale.
Election Central
We grouped all election-related content in a dedicated tab to make user access to relevant content more direct. This included podcasts, latest news and videos, a fact checker column, and other helpful resources. Not only were the individual content sections important, so was the information architecture that facilitated its navigation.
New Feed Components
We improved layouts for live content throughout the app, making them clearer and distinguished from other types of content. Independent feed components were created specially for the election, such as a “good morning” message and an election timeline. We also temporarily adapted the search tab, prioritizing election and fact-checking content in the results.
It was inevitable that some features wouldn’t perform equally well since we had so much variety, and in this case we found that audio and video content did not perform at the same level as other features. Views and engagement didn’t stand out, so consequently neither did their dedicated tabs, but the overall visual presentation of these types of contents was an improvement on the previous model and is still being used today.
Results
Overall, all features were successful and came together to create a welcoming environment that kept users coming back to the app daily, retaining their attention and providing valuable insights into a complicated subject. The app saw an unprecedented growth in all metrics, most notably registering over 100% growth in total users and sessions and tripling page views.
+141%
+221%
+108%
+55%
views/sessions
+15%
sessions/user
9,8%
g1 sessions
All in all, the project was a resounding success. We were facing a highly polarized and sensitive topic, and we achieved our goals not only in metrics, but also in providing value to our users, presenting a complex topic in an accessible format, delivering information directly to the user instead of putting the labor of research on them. This effort communicates to the user that the g1 app is reliable and reinforces daily use.
We developed features that can be reutilized in other circumstances. We also created a catalog of ideas and projects that could be implemented in future election cycles and other important events, continuing to improve the overall app experience.
On a personal note, this project taught me how to facilitate discussions with stakeholders and test new app features efficiently. It was a valuable experience in managing resources effectively and implementing design solutions that catered to a wide variety of users without losing sight of the project’s focus. Controversial topics like elections are difficult to work with since they create high stakes environments involving high consumer sensitivity, but we navigated this environment successfully, meeting user needs with a multifaceted product.
