Branding; UX/UI; Visual Design | Desktop & Mobile
Chowhound Rebrand & Site Redesign
Unify Chow and Chowhound content with a premuim platform that is enticing to new users, presents an attractive package for advertisers and maintains key functionality for power users on the 20-year old site. After less than a year of concepting, designing and production, we had produced a site utilizing our beautiful photography, full-site personalization for logged in users and overall and a seamless experience for our rapidly growing mobile audience.
Approach
Working in a truly agile environment, I worked very closely with Product, Engineering and key stakeholders to create the newly rebranded Chowhound.com. Starting with recipe pages and shipping new community post pages, cutomized homepage experience, video pages, galleries, etc. we were able to launch a fully redesigned product piece by piece with a seamless experience from desktop to mobile.
Process
While I prefer an organic approach to process, I love working closely with product to define a project’s goals, followed by taking it to the whiteboard/sketchbook to start working through some ideas. I’ve always felt that whiteboarding is the easiest (and most inexpensive) way to dive into the project, translating design and product thoughts. I often return to the sketching process throughout the progression of the design phase, iterating to simplify flows and produce a meaningful experience.
Final Outcome
While I never feel like a project is really complete, we were able to produce a cohesive, completely redesinged site, uniting editorial and community content, in an attractive package for new and existing users, and sales clients. Constantly iterating and shipping pieces thanks to a truly agile relationship with product and engineering, we were able to get a full rebrand and redesign out the door in less than a year - leaving us time to focus on new products.
Homepage & Navigation
As part of the effort to integrate the community and editorial parts of the site, we created a personalized homepage and navigation for logged in users. Along with our onboarding efforts, users are able to really curate their own Chowhound experience, whether they are the first in line to a new restaurant or a hardcore home baker.
Features Product Suite
As part of the effort to integrate the community and editorial parts of the site, we created a personalized homepage and navigation for logged in users. Along with our onboarding efforts, users are able to really curate their own Chowhound experience, whether they are the first in line to a new restaurant or a hardcore home baker.
Recipe Pages
Recipe pages are some of the heaviest trafficked pages on Chowhound, so naturally this required a large effot, not only to enhance the user experience, but also to maximize revenue. The updated recipe page takes full advantage of our beautiful photography and features a locking ingredients panel - and a seamless scroll into a related recipe.
Tag, Topic & Location Pages
Released in two phases, our tag, topic and location pages ecompass every content type Chowhound has to offer. Coupled with an updated search page, we were able to make these pages a content-packed hub to organically recirculate users throughout the site.
