The Development of EXP Magazine News Blog

EXP News Site is a final year project that would centrally bring together gamers to get all of the latest news, reviews, and information regarding the gaming world. It’s made to be very useful to gamers, esports fans, and industry professionals as well with its easy to navigate interface.

EXP is a gaming news site with the mission of connecting content and community through breaking news, in-depth reviews, esports headlines, and featured content about new releases or industry news. It isn’t only about information, but a lively and immersive experience in tune with the booming gaming culture.

This was the outcome of UX and web development talents, research, design and technical skills all coming together to build a responsive and user-friendly website. It focuses on being user-friendly, with easy navigation, beautiful design and cross-device support. It is also the most concrete instance of how to leverage cutting-edge design, web technologies, and a reader-centric approach, and thus a key achievement in career and academic development.

Research and Discovery

The project started by doing some serious research about the audience and the gaming news. The top users were gamers, esports players and industry insiders who enjoy real-time updates, detailed analysis and visual storytelling. Comprehensive competitor analysis revealed the strengths and weaknesses of all existing platforms and inspired and set the path forward. The idea was to make a news site that was contemporary, dynamic and straightforward while still representing the fast-paced gaming industry.

Information Architecture

For content to be oriented naturally, information architecture was concerned with having a format. The website was divided up into Home, News, Reviews, Esports, Features, and Contact sections where one could simply find specific topics of interest. The homepage focused on breaking news and trending topics, and the more relevant articles were grouped by categories for easy scrolling. A sticky menu and quick-search bar were included so that users could quickly find the content they wanted.

Wireframing and Prototyping

We used wireframes and prototyping to envision the site’s structure and functions. Low-fidelity wireframes set the architecture with a preference of text, images and white space to make it easy to read and visually appealing. Interactive prototypes emulated user journeys and were used to get an early look at usability and flow. We paid special attention to the active parts like video embeds, image carousels, and polls that made users feel like they were there.

Visual Design

The look of EXP took the heart and soul of the gaming world with it. A futuristic colour scheme, drawing inspiration from gaming trends, mixed neon blues, blacks and bold accents. Typography was focused on legibility and legibility with contemporary sans-serif for headlines and body text. High-resolution images, game art, and custom icons were included to bring out the site’s look and match the game theme.

Development

Development was centered around speed and usability so the site looked good on every device. Developed using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, the site scaled to desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. Some were dynamic (like a live news ticker, video embeds, interactive comment sections, etc) to keep readers busy. It was also optimized for page loading times and ranking on search engines so that the technical side of the website was as beautiful as the aesthetic.

Testing and Iteration

Trial and error was the key to iterating on the site. We ran usability tests with the gamers to get their opinion on navigation, readability, and uX. Feedback from these meetings spawned fixes like, removing category labels, making buttons visible, and improving mobile. Cross browser and device testing also made sure that each and every user had a safe and repeatable experience.

Launch and Reflection

The EXP News Site successfully launched as a final project with a professional and unified design that the gamer’s needs. The project is the result of an intensive UX cycle with research, design and technical accuracy. It is both a useful tool for gamer’s as well as a showcase of career development on building creative and interactive digital products.

• Category : Development & Branding
• Date : 11/09/2015
• Client : Freelance

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