Posted
Redesigning Unread’s sister platform around publications and writers, not one daily story.
You are now entering ( Problem )● 01 / 05
A new platformin Unread’s old coat.
Posted.mn was Unread Today’s sister platform, with a different idea: a curated, contributor-led space, closer to “the Mongolian Medium”, where publications could form around any interest and writers could build a following.
To launch quickly, Posted reused Unread’s older interface with a colour swap. That proved people would write and read there, but it confused them. A platform for many publishers and frequent updates was running on a layout built for one daily feature.
“The interface was teaching readers the wrong mental model.”
You are now entering ( Audit )● 02 / 05
What the old sitegot wrong.
I compared local platforms with contributors (UBLife, Ikon, Baabar), ran light interviews with young professionals, students and experts who wanted to publish, and audited the homepage, publication pages, articles, comments, sharing, ads and the publishing flow.
Categories sat behind a menu icon, so nobody could tell Posted was made of publications.
Yellow and white text on grey was hard to read and didn’t feel fresh.
Inherited from Unread, it made rich, varied content hard to move through.
Authors in tiny type, and quotes and links blending into body text.
A 100-character minimum on comments, and the newsletter hidden below them.
Cover images of every size and crop made the feed feel disjointed.
You are now entering ( Redesign )● 03 / 05
Publications first,writers up front.
Posted is organised around publications, small magazines with their own identity and archive, instead of category tags. The homepage shows what is new across all of them, so fresh posts aren’t buried under a single daily slot.
Four homepage layouts, before the final
Four templates
- 01
Homepage
Publications in a sidebar, a card grid of new and trending posts, publications to explore, and tags to browse.
- 02
Publication
Each publication gets a banner, its own archive and a short about, so it reads as a place, not a tag.
- 03
Article
A big headline, the writer’s card next to the text, clear headings and pull quotes, and sharing on the side.
- 04
Writer
A profile with post and view counts and every article, so readers can follow people, not just topics.
You are now entering ( Reading )● 04 / 05
Easier to read,easier to reply.
The article page carries most of the change. Bylines move to the top and the side, headings and quotes stand apart from the body, recommended posts come before the comments, and commenting is a simple name and message with no minimum length. Ads get their own clearly marked space, away from the story.
You are now entering ( Result )● 05 / 05
Approved,never built.
The redesign lined Posted’s interface up with its strategy, a growing set of publications and contributors, and was approved for build. It never went into production; in 2022 the live site still ran the old layout.
How I would have measured it. Publication visits and follows, clicks through to writer profiles, sessions with more than one article, share and comment rates (and comment quality), and ad misclicks and bounce.
I was product and UX designer on the web redesign, working with Unread Media stakeholders and a dev team.
