Recent Work › Propeller.com
Propeller.com
Roles: Design Lead, HTML/CSS
AOL News wanted to enter the “social news” space, a cutting-edge service that couldn’t alienate an older incumbent audience.
Because of the demographic of the audience (legacy Netscape.com portal users), Propeller had to instantly appear simple, approachable and fun. Getting users who were accustomed to seeing editorially controlled news to instead share their own news items was a daunting business challenge.
To accomplish these goals, a multitude of engagement elements were needed to tease the user to interact with the site and the community. A simple layout and minimalist palette opened up the design, making it look less complex.
A robust Tour and Help section was designed to enlighten new users and help transition existing users from one service to the next.
Besides being a social news site, extensive social networking components were designed for users to interact with the community. Member Profiles, Friends, user Groups and syndication widgets were conceptualized to help users complete these tasks.