Enhancing breaking news coverage
US ELECTION 2024
The Trump assassination attempt sparked discussions on how major unfolding news events are covered at key entry points such as desktop homepages, mobile homepages, and app homepages. This provided a critical opportunity to reassess and enhance how breaking news coverage evolves across Nine’s platforms.
The last major review of these layouts occurred several years ago. Given the significance of the US Election, we aimed to explore new options while leveraging existing CMS capabilities to enhance homepage experiences for AFR and Metro subscribers.
The primary objectives of this project were to:
Reassess and optimise big event homepage experiences using existing CMS capabilities.
Provide editorial teams with greater flexibility in content execution.
Improve engagement for subscribers through evolving story formats for breaking news.
Create a great experience for our subscribers during the election and provide several clear and well-designed graphs.
We began this part of the project by conducting a competitor analysis to examine how other publishers approached coverage of major events. However, it was challenging to find compelling insights, as publishers rarely deployed their big event layouts, and we had limited access to screenshots from past events.
Following a meeting with the CMS team to establish what was technically feasible, I developed several iterations of different takeover templates. Based on early feedback from Editorial and discussions with the wider team, I identified the key priorities for these templates:
Multiple image format options to provide Editorial with greater control.
Larger image placements for richer storytelling.
Seamless integration of the latest posts from live coverage to enhance real-time engagement.
After multiple iterations and discussions with editorial stakeholders, I developed 8 new defcon/takeover layouts (up from the original 3).
Iterations done in Figma
These layouts provided the Editorial team with greater control over their storytelling, offering a range of image arrangements and the ability to display live posts. Additionally, the new layouts enabled the editorial team to effectively highlight the progression of a story. Starting from a breaking news event to one that has evolved with multiple articles.
Breaking story template
Evolved story template with portrait image
For the elections, we received a series of widgets from the Associated Press. We implemented:
Live tickers with dynamic data placements across homepages, live articles, and topic pages.
Interactive maps and additional components to support editorial storytelling.
As a team, we carefully determined the widget placements and conducted a series of technical reviews to ensure consistency and alignment with each brand’s visual style. This approach guaranteed a seamless, brand-specific experience for US election data across Nine’s mastheads.
Balance of power widget on nine.com.au
Full US widget
Additionally, the Editorial teams have shown strong satisfaction with the new layouts, which have been used across several breaking news stories since their release. They have since requested further improvements, and a Defcon Phase 2 project is currently underway.