The fastest way to follow the news.
How we helped Bullet News improve their customer experience across multiple channels.
Sketched concept to improve Settings usability for Bullet News.
Project background
Bullet News was created to read the news fast. It delivered author-summarised news articles from large news outlets — just the headline and 3 short bullet points.
For this project, Matt worked as a sole designer.
My role
I worked along side the internal developers on improving their apps across various channels.
Project objectives
As with many start-ups, Bullet News had limited budget for both design and development. Our goal was to add the most value, but in the least time and effort.
Their apps were cross-platform, with a common codebase, which had been built without much design invention. While functioned well, the experience was basic, often unintuitive and didn't feel native on any platform.
Sketched concept for Bullet News new onboarding flow.
What I did.
I started by doing an expert UX review on their existing product and comparative analysis of competitor apps. This allowed us to prioritise a shortlist of UX improvements by importance vs effort.
I focused specifically on their iOS and Android apps, as these were the most popular channels their users engaged with.
I planned, designed and implemented the design improvements by working very closely with the Bullet News team, especially their Founder, CEO Julia Wurz and Lead Developer Phil Poore.
We focused on releasing small and frequent iterations, to reduce bottlenecks and delays.
Cross-platform design.
I then did the same for their web service, marketing site and email system.
During this process I defined and implemented a more coherent design style across channels, while implementing platform-specific conventions.
This allowed for a strong visual brand style, while feeling more native and intuitive on each platform.
Conceptualisation on new channels.
Bullet News intended to seek investment, so they could expand the team and grow their audience.
To help achieve this, I helped them to conceptualise the next generation of their news platform, which would include influencer-curated news lists, recommendations, following and sharing.
I also helped them create and explore new channels to delivery their news, including embeddable news widgets and kiosk displays.
Bullet News “Kiosk mode” mock-up, train installation.
Animated concept for Bullet News "Kiosk mode".
