Editorial and publishing UX analysis
Project Overview
This research and design aimed to map the user requirements for the future WebCMS for Elsevier journal-branded websites. Specifically, it aimed to:
- Understand current user’s behaviour and usage in relation to the WebCMS.
- Understand and collect data on what the WebCms users' day-to-day workflows are like, going through every step of the production process.
- Identify strengths, weaknesses, gaps and redundancies in content and production processes.
- Identify user needs to inform the future development of the JBS WebCMS.
Deliverables
- Workflows - map out how JBS internal users use the current WebCms.
- Content lifecycle and production workflows
- CMS User profiles
- Report of findings
- Current experience map
Project Duration
Sep-Dec 2017
Understanding the user journey
When the project began very little was known about what goes into the editorial and publishing for JBS journals.
I was brought in to conduct an UX analysis of the current state of the editorial and publishing flows and the CMS tools they use.
I started off by identifying the internal stakeholders involved in the editorial and publishing processes and started conducting contextual interviews.
I conducted over 50 interviews across different user groups including web administrators, editorial, production, marketing and product management.
I didn’t want to ask them to list all the things they hated about the system they were using at the time. Instead, I mapped out how content editors were using the current system and understanding what their day-to-day workflows were like, going through every step of the publishing process.
The research and walkthroughs of their daily tasks allowed me to build up their current editorIal workflow and learned about the steps involved. I also found out a great deal about what was good – and, more often – bad about the current process.
I realized that some steps that sounded simple — such as adding images to webpages and adding a member of the editorial board — were in reality nightmares to complete.
