Reimagined South China Morning Post article page enhances readability and accessibility

September 2024 sees a new look for article pages on SCMP.com, offering readers an optimised and streamlined reading experience. Following the homepage refresh at the end of 2023, the article page redesign aims to improve readability, allowing our millions of readers globally to consume award-winning journalism with greater ease.

In the increasingly fast-paced world of news, distilling vital information and presenting key points in an accessible way is crucial. We saw an opportunity to address this need and bring essential content to our readers faster and with fewer distractions. Core elements that were refined include a more considered integration of advertising on the page, improving content discoverability (recommended content and further reading) and optimising content structure in order to make articles easier to read and understand.

The project involved multiple different teams and departments, taking the best insights from readers, Editorial, Data, Product and Research and baking them into a new page to truly reflect our readers’ needs. Working with multiple different stakeholders allowed us to holistically review problem areas and optimise core elements with dynamic solutions. The process was underpinned by hundreds of hours of reader interviews and usability testing, plus an in-depth eye-tracking study which we conducted in person at our headquarters in Hong Kong. This comprehensive process gave us a full picture of how people read online, which we then incorporated into our wider UX research methodology.

Key information at a glance

Initially, readers may spot improvements to how content is laid out at the top of articles. Many of our readers are busy professionals, often consuming multiple stories on the go throughout the day. With this in mind we’ve improved the readability of top-line information, with a shorter headline followed by a concise summary.

We also want to communicate key points at a glance, so we’ve prioritised text over the main image, allowing readers to extract the crux of the story, while still encouraging them to scroll down the page to find out more.

A more considered advertising approach

Ad placement and ratios have been adjusted to ensure they are visible but avoid disruption wherever possible, with a more balanced relationship between content and ad density. Additionally, through eye-tracking analysis conducted in person with readers, we’ve taken steps to further refine placement and ad experience, allowing our readers to concentrate on what matters most.

In summary, you’ll find more considered ad placements with more even and consistent spacing. This has helped streamline the page flow, decreasing content density and reading distractions. We’ve also gone one step further for our subscribers, totally removing “sticky” ads that may temporarily obscure content and, for all desktop users, moving ads out of the reading column to the right-hand rail. Ad experience on our app has been improved too, as we have reduced and collapsed redundant ad real estate wherever possible.