Ari Oliveira

Product Design Lead at La Presse - Montréal, Canada - mail.ajunior@gmail.com or +1 438 390.1875

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How do you replace an app that was loved by readers, but didn’t promote engagement and wasn’t profitable?

the objectives of this project

To offer a mobile app that attracts new users and allows significant increase in engagement (longer and more frequent usage).

The app must support a profitable business model.

Create a beta version of the app to find out:

- The quality of the experience offered;
- Understanding of concepts and functionalities;
- The interest of readers in the presentation of editorial and advertising content;
- The impact of advertisements;
- The possibility of creating engagement.

The problems to be solved

The old version of La Presse's app was designed to fill the "FOMO" (fear of missing out) quickly. It did a great job.

We could saw everything in the home screen with scrolling three times.

Very compartmentalized, with groupings of the main sections, articles that has the tendency to stay several hours without changing, gave us a felling like "déjà vu", even if they weren't the case.

Our readers didn't spent a lot of time in the app and rarely return during the day. For the engagement and advertising revenue perspective, we had a lot to improve. These facts combined were the problems to be solved.

The hypothesis

A News Feed divided in two parts and several elements (modules and posts) juxtaposed, was our main hypothesis.

The editorial staff would have control over “Headlines”, and “Must see” modules depending on their interest. The "Last News" has always chronological fresh news.

High advertising density would be tested in order to increase profitability.

results

We have broken a record in readership on our application, with 753,000 unique users for the month of July 2020. This is the highest number since the launch of the application. This is a 33% increase over the same period last year and more than 50% since its launch in May 2019.

What's more, 15,000 ratings (iOS and Android) over this period, averaging 4.8 out of 5.0 stars, are an even greater reward.

These excellent results demonstrate that La Presse has succeeded in retaining thousands of new readers since the beginning of the pandemic.

Haven't downloaded it to your mobile device yet? Come discover why this application is so loved and used by Quebecers.