Why Zikoko’s website got a facelift and the team behind it

Do you recall when MTN stripped its brand of all vibrant colors? The Pan-African telecom large, recognized for its signature “Y’ello!” greeting, bid farewell to its iconic yellow shade, italics, and pink underscore in favour of a strong oval, extra minimalist look. Despite the flurry of criticism surrounding the minimalistic rebranding, the firm insisted that it mirrored a “refreshed strategy.”

Nigeria-based digital media outlet Zikoko has lately undergone a related visible transformation, in the type of a main website overhaul. 

Personally, I’ve discovered the new website to be seamless. With its extra intuitive interface, navigation to its exhilarating content material seems like a breeze. There is now a fundamental menu that options all of Zikoko’s classes, a facet menu that gives entry to varied flagship content material, a part for trending articles and a video part known as Shows. There’s even a widget that results in all of Zikoko’s newsletters.

Zikoko, which is owned by Big Cabal Media, has made a identify for itself by telling tales about the experiences, views, and humour of African youth by way of participating and usually hilarious content material. 

Perhaps most excitingly, the website revamp seems like a reinvention, particularly given the latest launch of Zikoko Citizen, a flagship for African youth who’re more and more excited about politics. It’s as if the website has been rebooted to align with modern tradition—”A brand new website for a new age.”

I assumed you would possibly wish to hear about the design technique of the website of one among Africa’s greatest youth-focused publications. So I had a chat with the members of BCM’s in-house design team that labored to grasp this dream: Tuntamilore Tawak, Barbara Odusola-Stevenson and Osemudiamen Ehiabhi. Here is how our chat went:  

Me: What had been the first steps you took to execute this undertaking?

Osemudiamen: We needed to perceive what the enterprise objectives had been and guarantee that they really aligned with the customers’ wants. It is feasible for a enterprise to see the issues customers are going through from a utterly totally different perspective than the customers themselves. Moreover, there may be generally a conflict between enterprise objectives and customers’ wants. For instance, a media firm would possibly must promote a lot extra adverts, however the customers would possibly discover the advert placement distracting. So our aim was to seek out a approach to merge each.

Barbara: Yeah, so we did a lot of analysis. Our viewers may be very participating so each time we despatched out surveys, we got lots of of responses from customers telling us what they appreciated and didn’t like about their expertise on the website. We had restricted time, so we did a thematic evaluation of the numerous responses to seek out the frequent ache factors and set up a  hierarchy of wants. No matter what number of grand concepts we had, we needed to concentrate on fixing the most essential issues for the sake of the enterprise.

The greatest drawback was discoverability; there was a lot content material on the website that even the most lively customers had been lacking out on. So that’s what we centered on fixing.

Me: Aside from the specific wants of the enterprise, was there a artistic inspiration behind the new design?

Osemudiamen: Our temper board was full. The enterprise and customers we surveyed really helpful the aesthetics of sure web sites they loved . We additionally had concepts of our personal, and ultimately, we drew inspiration from throughout the place and filtered them by way of Zikoko’s signature vibrant vibe. 

Me: How was your expertise working with Zikoko? Did you expertise any challenges? 

Osemudiamen: It was an fascinating few months. They are a very artistic team, and I’m happy with what we had been in a position to obtain collectively.

 Tuntamilore: The most difficult half was the suggestions course of. During our weekly conferences, it was tough to get actionable suggestions from the editorial team. They had been saying a lot about what they appreciated or disliked, however it was difficult to distil all they mentioned into sensible data for sufficient implementation.

I let loose an unpleasant giggle on the name. Designers have had an age-long love-hate relationship with their shoppers centred round this topic of communication. There are lots of of memes making jokes about the matter. I discovered it fascinating to be taught that even the expressive writers of Zikoko weren’t spared from the curse.

Me: So what recommendation would you give editorial groups or companies on easy methods to talk suggestions to designers?

Osemudiamen: It actually isn’t straightforward determining easy methods to implement “scented candle vibes” in a design, so it would assist either side to be affected person and clear of their communication. It’s additionally essential to know that we’re all on the identical facet. Sometimes it can really feel like designers are in a totally different world from the others in the enterprise, and which may have an effect on the approach suggestions is communicated. 

 Barbara: I believe it’s additionally essential for all stakeholders to be in any respect the conferences in order that we don’t stroll again from selections and undo the progress now we have made as a result of somebody who missed the final assembly doesn’t like the place the design is headed.

Osemudiamen: That’s proper. Meetings are essential. Before we started designing, we had tons conferences with totally different stakeholders in the enterprise, together with the tech team, editorial, biz-dev, and so forth. They all want to offer their enter earlier than the design begins and all through the course of it. 

Moments later, I spoke to Ruth Zakari, Zikoko’s managing editor. I advised her about the design team’s feeling that the communication might have been higher, and she agreed.

Ruth: The work of the design team was completely sensible. But I utterly agree that communication was a very onerous a part of the undertaking. I didn’t understand it could be so mentally taxing to speak design suggestions in a sensible approach. It all labored out in the finish, as they had been a very useful and understanding team. We had a imaginative and prescient, and they stunning a lot materialised it. Overall, it was an fascinating and rewarding course of transferring from ideation to the ultimate product. 

Me: Why was the redesign needed?

Ruth:  The website is engaging, however it was not a self-importance undertaking. We had a enterprise aim: our customers had been having bother discovering the content material we printed on our web site. Zikoko pushes out a lot of content material persistently, however when customers got to the web site, it was onerous to navigate to the place all the new stuff was and to seek out previous stuff they actually appreciated. On the previous website, it was simpler to seek out the hottest issues, akin to the hottest quizzes, the hottest flagships, and so forth. The new web site makes it straightforward to seek out every part, standard or not. It has a higher navigation bar and sidebars that present all the flagships that you just like.

Me: In basic, how essential is design to Zikoko?

Ruth: Design conveys all Zikoko’s content material—articles, movies, occasions, and all that we create. It channels our work to our viewers with a vibe that actually displays what we stand for and our honest wishes for our viewers. 

Me: Now that this design is completed, it should really feel like a new age for Zikoko. What are the objectives Zikoko hopes to realize in the close to future?

Ruth:  Zikoko has come a great distance. We have advanced and come to a level the place our aim is to turn into as unique as doable. We don’t need Zikoko to be described as, say, the “Buzzfeed of Africa” or the “Rolling Stone of Africa.” We need Zikoko to simply be Zikoko, and we’re working in direction of attaining that aim by protecting African tales and publishing African content material in our personal distinctive approach.