Dubai Media Inc., a pioneering and high-profile UAE media group, wanted to enter the mobile realm with apps that would really make a statement of technological excellence, for the benefit of its readership but also to standout from the competition.
We developed two apps for DMI's top Arabic newspapers, Emarat Al Youm and Al Bayan, for both Android Phone and iPhone/iPad.
The challenge was to enhance the reader's experience, while working with content that was not designed for a mobile application. We took the approach that reader personalization and content optimization would be key to creating an optimal user experience. We achieved this by focusing on readability and creating a modern user interface that would work with the Arabic language.
While approved designs underwent interface build, the web team coded quite a complex proxy to clean up and process all news feeds into mobile-ready content, and to optimize performance.
The app design is an expression of the latest market trends – readers want to organize their news according to their interests. It's about a personalized reading experience but also about a continuous reading flow, one that ensures maximum visibility of all articles relevant to the user.
Due to the nature of the newspaper apps, there's more focus on images and text than graphics and iconography. The Arabic typography was a choice of the best device-native Arabic font available.
The result was an exemplary application for mobile phones and tablets that exceeds the standards for similar Arabic apps in the market, setting a new benchmark for news apps. The apps were launched on schedule and have been consistently highly rated by users.
