ESPN Redesigns Site With ‘Mobile-First’ Mentality

Pro­vid­ing an excep­tion­al user expe­ri­ence is a top pri­or­i­ty for many brands, and espe­cial­ly so for news and media pub­lish­ers. ESP­N’s new web­site redesign shows their com­mit­ment to the “mobile-first” approach that many brands are adopt­ing, and the...

Pat Hong By Pat Hong from Linkdex. Join the discussion » 0 comments

Pro­vid­ing an excep­tion­al user expe­ri­ence is a top pri­or­i­ty for many brands, and espe­cial­ly so for news and media pub­lish­ers. ESP­N’s new web­site redesign shows their com­mit­ment to the “mobile-first” approach that many brands are adopt­ing, and the prin­ci­ples of respon­sive design, that ensure seam­less user expe­ri­ences across the devices con­sumers are using.


ESPN has announced a major site redesign to launch next spring (just in time for the site’s 20th anniver­sary), mark­ing the first rein­ven­tion of the pop­u­lar online sports news site in five years.

ESPN is let­ting users who want to expe­ri­ence the new site design sign up to the pub­lic beta, although there is a wait­ing list for eager testers.

Here are a few exclu­sive pre­views of the new-look site designs, first shared with Mash­able, con­trast­ed with how they appear cur­rent­ly.

ESPN-combo-mobile-481x640

The new mobile site in par­tic­u­lar is much more opti­mized for a clean, effi­cient use of space and nav­i­ga­tion, with three sim­ple head­ings (Favorites, News, Now) through which users can swipe and explore.

Mobile-First, Cohesive Experiences

In an inter­view with Mash­able, Ryan Spoon, ESP­N’s senior vice pres­i­dent of dig­i­tal prod­uct man­age­ment, explained the goals of the new site:

We set out to build a mod­ern ESPN.com that show­cas­es our expan­sive con­tent (scores, analy­sis, high­lights videos, and games) beau­ti­ful­ly and intu­itive­ly across all devices and screen sizes. Fur­ther­more, we aimed to cre­ate a cohe­sive aes­thet­ic and expe­ri­ence across the new ESPN.com and our native appli­ca­tions like Sports­Cen­ter and Fan­ta­sy Foot­ball. Over time, you will hope­ful­ly notice that our site and our appli­ca­tions feel con­nect­ed and famil­iar.”

A first glance at the new desk­top designs also show­cas­es a dra­mat­ic mod­ern­iza­tion of the ESPN site:

ESPN-comp

The dis­tinc­tive top score­board remains, but the nav­i­ga­tion, and white tiled cards against the off-white back­ground, are a vast improve­ment on the clut­tered table designs of the cur­rent site.

The Benefits Of Responsive Design

The new site has also been built with a mobile-first men­tal­i­ty, and to the prin­ci­ples of respon­sive design. It fol­lows a strong trend amongst news and media pub­lish­ers com­mit­ting to deliv­er­ing seam­less user expe­ri­ences across devices.

There are numer­ous ben­e­fits of respon­sive design. Here’s a quick sum­ma­ry of the key points for CMOs:

  1. Increased Engage­ment With Tablet, Mobile Users: Mobile and tablet usage is grow­ing to new unprece­dent­ed lev­els and pro­vid­ing a good expe­ri­ence for mobile users ensures they con­tin­ue to engage.
  2. Uplifts In Rev­enue, Con­ver­sion Rates: Respon­sive design ensures con­sis­ten­cy, avoid­ing annoy­ing issues for users such as tiny but­tons, and max­i­mizes rev­enues and con­ver­sions on dif­fer­ent devices.
  3. Ana­lyt­ics And Report­ing: Hav­ing a sin­gle respon­sive web­site means hav­ing the abil­i­ty to tie togeth­er all your ana­lyt­ics and report­ing. The pop­u­lar Google Ana­lyt­ics suite now allows users to seg­ment and ana­lyze data from dif­fer­ent devices.
  4. Bet­ter Organ­ic Search Vis­i­bil­i­ty: Pub­lish­ing on a sin­gle respon­sive site is much more ben­e­fi­cial from a organ­ic search per­spec­tive, avoid­ing poten­tial prob­lems with dupli­cate pages, and unit­ing con­tent in one ecosys­tem.
  5. The Offline Brows­ing Expe­ri­ence: Respon­sive design is close­ly linked to HTML5, which also fea­tures improved offline brows­ing capa­bil­i­ties. In the con­text of mobile devices, it means adopt­ing respon­sive design is also great for serv­ing users who are on the move.
Pat Hong

Written by Pat Hong

Editor at Linkdex/Inked, Linkdex

Pat covers the SEO industry, digital marketing trends, and anything and everything around Linkdex. He also authors Linkdex's data analysis and reports, analysing the state of search in various industries.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

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