Abendzeitung Munich's Favorite Local Newspaper

How to modernize the look and feel of a popular portal without losing the distinctive and broadly recognized style? How to improve the user experience without compromising successful advertising? How to attract a slightly younger audience without disturbing the existing readership? Abendzeitung Digital decided to rely on premium, user-centric design and teamed up with intive to reimagine their online portal, boost their mobile channel, and introduce further personalization to their online readers.

To enable an agile approach, intive’s designers chose the Kanban method for their design process. During the discovery and ideation workshops with AZ they identified the main challenges and created target personas that significantly influenced their user-centered design decisions. Their goals included improving the mobile experience and introducing a clearly structured, reader-friendly format that would answer both user and business needs. The new design uses more white space which translates into better readability and a simple, modern look. Now ads seamlessly blend in with the organic content, creating an attractive and brand consistent feeling. The grey ad background clearly differentiates between the content and advertisements.

To make things simpler, a design system was put in place with reusable components and a clear structure. Based on the AZ’s existing color identity, the design team created a new color scheme for the digital channel and optimized it for an easy-to-navigate UI. Now each main news group has its own color theme which makes it easier to browse through the content. Furthermore, AZ’s readers can now enjoy a more tailored, community-driven experience. With “Meine AZ” they’re offered a personalized feed and comment history as well as customized notifications and exclusive lotteries.

Fully responsive web design called for new spacings and grid breakpoints. From mobile, tablet to desktop, users can now experience optimized navigation and a clearer content structure. On mobile devices, intive’s designers opted for accessible bottom navigation that brings the most important features closer to the user.