MCB.ART

ABOUT

MCB.ART

MCB.ART

ABOUT

IGN Ent. • 2016-2020

IGN Mobile App V5 Redesign/Relaunch

Overview

Role(s): Lead Visual Designer, Lead User Researcher, Lead UX Designer


IGN's mobile app had been a longstanding resource of revenue, video views, and engagement for the IGN audience. The current product had been on the market for about 4 years at this point and we saw an opportunity to boost the app's prominence and reassess what users were really looking for out of an IGN experience on iOS and Android.


My Responsibilities:


• Redefine visual design for the app as a whole and establish a new design system

• Redefine in-app navigation to allow for quicker consumption of content and speed of use

• Remove unnecessary and underused features (like personalization) and rethink what makes the most sense for our casual and power users

• Allow for more integrated and improved ad experiences within the app for advertisers

Approach

This was a project where I was the sole designer for the first 2-3 months. I worked directly during this time with the Director of Product and Director of Analytics and Product Management to develop early concepts on what a new IGN app could look to achieve.


We would get together early on and use any previous research available on our userbase, such as our segmentation study which polled 5000 people within the gaming/ent interests. This gave us a good idea of our prime users but also the ones we were underserving and could look to gain through a new app.


Soon after I was joined by a designer named Margarita Zosa and we co-designed the early prototypes of the v5 app but she departed shortly before full production design started for all screens.

This was a project where I was the sole designer for the first 2-3 months. I worked directly during this time with the Director of Product and Director of Analytics and Product Management to develop early concepts on what a new IGN app could look to achieve.


We would get together early on and utilize any previous research available on our userbase, such as our segmentation study which polled 5000 people within the gaming/ent interests. This gave us a good idea of our prime users but also the ones we were underserving and could look to gain through a new app.


Soon after I was joined by a designer named Margarita Zosa and we co-designed the early prototypes of the v5 app but she departed shortly before full production design started for all screens.

Competitive research at the time of designing the app

competitive research at the time of designing the app

Competitive Analysis

To make any app better than our previous offering, it only made sense to do some competitive analysis and take stock of the competitive landscape at the time. I primarily looked at other news apps and the way they displayed content but also took some notes from the most popular social media apps like Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram.


News apps like The New York Times also provided a look at what some of the best editorial designs could be at the time. We knew this new version of the app had to be able to go toe to toe with these competitors in the market and this research task helped in defining that.

To make any app better than our previous offering, it only made sense to do some competitive analysis and take stock of the competitive landscape at the time. I primarily looked at other news apps and the way they displayed content but also took some notes from the most popular social media apps like Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram


News apps like The New York Times also provided a look at what some of the best editorial designs could be at the time. We knew this new version of the app had to be able to go toe to toe with these competitors in the market and this research task helped in defining that

A few ideas for breaking news takeover screens and articles

Early Explorations

I always had aspirations of making the IGN app into a visual magazine of sorts that would be visually engaging right off the bat. While this flashy look was striking it provided some logistical barriers to daily production and more importantly not meet the current user's needs so it was abandoned early.

Prototyping Interactions

We knew we wanted there to be a speed and ease to jumping in and out of articles. We developed some early prototypes like this one to test the UX navigation and ultra-fast content delivery tech we had been working on.


The early tests showed us that getting into and out of articles/videos like this could be a massive improvement over the current app’s somewhat sluggish loading techniques and navigation article to article.

We knew we wanted there to be a speed and ease to jumping in and out of articles. We developed some early prototypes like this one to test the UX navigation and ultra-fast content delivery tech we had been working on.


The early tests showed us that getting into and out of articles/videos like this could be a massive improvement over the current app's somewhat sluggish loading techniques and navigation article to article

Design work by Margarita Zosa + Justin Vachon, Prototype by IGN ENG team.

Design work by Margarita Zosa + Justin Vachon, Prototype by IGN ENG team

Our aim was to offer users a diverse feed that presents a plethora of content types to engage with on a daily basis. IGN's tone has always centered around being a familiar and welcoming voice, like a "friend on the couch," and we strived to create an app that embodies that same sense of companionship for gamers every day, whether they're browsing news, reviews, or wikis.

Discussing the overall aspirations we had with the v5 app

Early wires for the article view

early wires for the article view

An early wireframe for the new IGN app feed

an early wireframe for the new ign app feed

Early Wireframes

From the early days of design work, we knew we wanted to have a feed that felt varied and provided a wealth of content types for the user to engage with each day. We looked into apps from around the media space and others in adjacent spaces to define what we felt was a feed worthy of our users time.

From the early days of design work, we knew we wanted to have a feed that felt varied and provided a wealth of content types for the user to engage with each day. We looked into apps from around the media space and others in adjacent spaces to define what we felt was a feed worthy of our users time

Variety was the key element in designing the feed

variety was the key element in designing the feed

The Feed

I had previously worked on the redesign of the mobile web version of the ign.com experience and through that process, I landed on a design using different “content cells” to create visual variety and also to make different content/story types stand out clearly.


As you can see even in this example. We had designs for news, reviews, a ported version of the 4 headline stories from the desktop experience as well as the “Today” header with our daily updated doodle image. Our final feed was by far our most used screen percentage wise outside of direct article referrals and on average our signed in-app users consumed 5x the articles/videos as referral users.

I had previously worked on the redesign of the mobile web version of the ign.com experience and through that process, I landed on a design using different "content cells" to create visual variety and also to make different content/story types stand out clearly.


As you can see even in this example. We had designs for news, reviews, a ported version of the 4 headline stories from the desktop experience as well as the "Today" header with our daily updated doodle image. Our final feed was by far our most used screen percentage wise outside of direct article referrals and on average our signed in-app users consumed 5x the articles/videos as referral users

Two screens showing saved and following actions

Saving and Following

One of the biggest improvements we wanted to add was an easier way to save articles/videos and wikis to access later for easy consumption. This also translated over to the ability to follow certain titles allowing for our users to be notified about new updates and new articles/videos posted.

One of the biggest improvements we wanted to add was an easier way to save articles/videos and wikis to access later for easy consumption. This also translated over to the ability to follow certain titles allowing for our users to be notified about new updates and new articles/videos posted

The intro for a news article vs. a review

the intro for a news article vs a review

The new look for IGN articles

The new look for ign articles

Articles (Reviews + News)

Articles are the bread and butter of what our app offers outside of the video-watching experience. The articles that existed on the desktop had yet to undergo a redesign so it left the app with an opportunity to again test the waters on what a new, more modern IGN could look like.


My goal was to provide the IGN user with an easily accessible, easily readable, and overall snappy experience when browsing and reading news or reviews on the app. This visual improvement as well as performance improvement led our users to consume 4x the articles and reviews they would be on the desktop experience and would later be translated there in the coming months/years.

Articles are really the bread and butter of what our app offers outside of the video-watching experience. The articles that existed on the desktop had yet to undergo a redesign so it left the app with an opportunity to again test the waters on what a new, more modern IGN could look like.


My goal was to provide the IGN user with an easily accessible, easily readable, and overall snappy experience when browsing and reading news or reviews on the app. This visual improvement as well as performance improvement led our users to consume 4x the articles and reviews they would be on the desktop experience and would later be translated there in the coming months/years

Two screens showing threads and activity information

Threads and Activity

Another piece that showed up in our user research was that users were looking to stay updated on their comment threads as well as their notifications for when a new reply is left. This was previously a frustrating experience in the app and on ign.com for desktop so we wanted to present an app that allowed users to stay as up-to-date as possible and engage with our comments without frustration of a missed conversation.

The new search experience on the IGN app

the new search experience on the ign app

Improving Search

Search on ign.com had been a long-requested upgrade form our most hardcore power users and we saw through our research that we needed to make an improvement of some kind when it came to a new app experience. This new app search would lay the groundwork for the current product live on ign.com and allowed us to test the waters early before doing the full brunt of dev work on desktop.

Search on ign.com had been a long-requested upgrade form our most hardcore power users and we saw through our research that we needed to make an improvement of some kind when it came to a new app experience. This new app search would lay the groundwork for the current product live on ign.com and allowed us to test the waters early before doing the full brunt of dev work on desktop

The IGN ratings on the App Store, 2023

the ign ratings on the app store 2023

Wrapping Up + Reviews

One of our primary drivers of success and knowing we made a difference was to improve our user rating which at the time before the redesign was somewhere around the 2.5-2.7 range due to many technical bugs that plagued the former app. Within months of launching the v5 app we saw our ratings grow to a consistent 4+ star rating which has yet to dip below ever since.

One of our primary drivers of success and knowing we made a difference was to improve our user rating which at the time before the redesign was somewhere around the 2.5-2.7 range due to many technical bugs that plagued the former app. Within months of launching the v5 app we saw our ratings grow to a consistent 4+ star rating which has yet to dip below ever since

Justin Vachon 2026

Justin Vachon 2026

Justin Vachon 2026