Ask the CIO
Creating a website that is visually pleasing, intuitive, and informative.
Final production version of the landing site launched in June 12, 2018. AsktheCIO.com
Ask Who?
Ask the CIO is a podcast audio program established in 2016. During the podcast the program’s host, Jason Miller, interviews chief information officers (CIO) about the latest technology trends and issues federal agencies are facing. Ask the CIO is owned by Federal News Network, formerly called Federal News Radio, a radio station company that provides news, information, and analysis to federal agencies in the D.C. Metro area.
Challenge
Create an engaging website on an existing digital platform that seamlessly integrates the podcast, exclusive news articles, sponsored content, and advertisements in a way that increases our audience and brand engagement.
Light Bulb Moment
During that user interface (UI) research process, which included Jason Miller, senior leadership, and marketing, we uncovered a very simple insight - our audience couldn't find the 'Subscribe' button. This was the beginning of what would become a complete UX overhaul the Federal News Network subscription model.
Output
This project’s design process was so effective that it has become Federal News Network’s standard approach for launching fully dedicated websites for other programs quickly and efficiently.
Interviews
My process began with an in-depth dive into the audiences' minds. After crafting the questionnaire, I conducted interviews with a select segment of actual podcast listeners to better understand their daily habits, behaviors, and motivations behind why they choose to tune into Ask the CIO.
Observations
My interviews with podcast listeners helped me create an affinity map of the Ask the CIO audience, a visual representation of their pain points, motivations, and personal preferences. This helped me hone in on specific trends and opportunities within the broad scope of the challenge.
Competitive Analysis
After the interview stage, I conducted a competitive analysis of competitor websites. This allowed us to establish the requirements for a minimum viable product for our new website.
Persona & Reaffirm Target Goal
By encouraging the team to focus on creating a minimum viable product instead of striving for perfection, our efforts became laser-focused on resolving our audiences' primary pain points.
Initial design iterations began.
Creating the Landing Site
At this stage, I created a user flow, site map, and wireframes.
After multiple iterations, I created a low fidelity prototype to test with our internal users and a high fidelity prototype to test with both our internal and external users.
Prior to Launch
I continued to receive the stakeholders' feedback on the prototypes and made some adjustments to the design. After the final design was signed off by our stakeholders, I worked with our in-house web developers to develop the landing page. To streamline their development process, a portion of the front-end development was tasked to me.
The landing site was launched on June 12, 2018.
....And beyond
This project’s design process was so effective that it has become Federal News Network’s standard approach for launching fully dedicated websites for other programs quickly and efficiently.