iOS App Redesign
Evolution vs. Revolution
EMPATHIZE
Change is Risky Business
CNBC’s iOS app serves their most loyal and engaged customers, and making big changes is risky business. So, we asked them what works, what doesn’t, and what they really want.
Research showed that people wanted personalization. We reimagined the app’s architecture, carried over the broader design system, and added a suite of new features including customization, personalized feeds, free live TV preview, immersive video playback, enhanced charts, Apple Carplay, podcasts, and more.
The goals were to maintain and enhance current features customers depend upon, provide frictionless opportunities for users to customize and personalize the experience, drive them into higher consumption tiers, increase video consumption, and improve the overall design and UX.
“For years you had the premarket in the same place in the old app. I’m 73. I’d like it to be in the same area”
— Barbara
"When you're scrolling up and down I quite like it when you get the tickers at the top, it would be nice to have the watchlist up there too.
— Martin
"It shouldn’t take me four solid swipes to get to trending now if other people read it."
— Shaun
"I think I am seeing more of my watchlist on my old app vs my new one."
— David
RESEARCH AND DEFINE
A Customer-focused Approach
The process began with defining the product vision and goals, as well as determining the methodologies needed to achieve success for each.
Once goals were identified and validated, they were prioritized with specific experiences.
User Personas and Journey Maps were created to better understand segmentation of most loyal customers who use the app multiple times a day.
Customer interviews, surveys, and user testing helped guide interaction and visual design decisions.
Low-fidelity transitioned to high-fidelity and design worked seamlessly with engineering to build and refine the final product.
RESULTS
Reimagined & Reliable
The result was a completely reimagined app that feels fresh and new yet is still familiar to loyal users who depend on it daily.
NPS score is at an all-time high and the app has surpassed the highest customer satisfaction score compared to any previous release.
Designed responsively for both iPhones and iPads, a great deal of attention was focused on the layout for different orientations, interactions and animations, image sizes, typography, and of course, utilizing Apple's latest iOS features and functionality.
The beautiful and bold new look carries over the palette, typography, and visual cues from the broader design system created for CNBC.com, elevating the overall brand and rewarding diehard fans and new customers with a seamless experience across products and platforms.
Adding customization and personalization, as well as more robust charts, features like Carplay, free Live TV preview, and podcasts enhance the experience and keep customers engaged.
Rebuilt with a Swift codebase, the new app performs faster and more reliably than ever before enabling teams to continually test, iterate, and measure.
