Thurrott.com

Context and Challenge

Thurrott.com delivers a wide range of technology-related articles, including news and different types of analysis. The website also provides podcasts created by the editorial team and a premium subscription service that offers members exclusive content.

The client, BWW Media, came to us with the main requirement of modernising and increasing the speed of their website, Thurrott.com. The website was outdated, with poor performance, for example a logged-in experience taking up to 3 seconds.

To meet these requirements, we began by conducting a thorough analysis of the website’s current design and performance. We discovered that the website was using an old theme, which was causing poor performance and several security issues. In addition we found more areas in which the website needed improvements, one example being that the website’s forum was only using text, which was not user-friendly or engaging.

To address these issues and comply with the client’s requirements, we decided to develop and implement a new theme for the website. Since the website had a lot of content around Microsoft and Windows, we suggested implementing a design that will make the website look similar to a Windows App.

We used Figma to create a modern and visually pleasing design for the website, while also solving the security issues and increasing the website’s overall speed. This was done by covering all the pages of the website and all the scenarios, such as a free member’s access to 3 premium content articles and the ability to redeem tokens.

We also made significant changes to the website’s forum, including the implementation of a “What you see is what you get” editor, which greatly improved the user experience.

Result of our redesign, the logged-in experience on the website went from taking 2.5 to 3 seconds to taking between 1.2 and 1.6 seconds, a significant improvement.

Throughout the redesign process, we closely collaborated with the client to ensure that we met their requirements and delivered a website that was modern, fast, and easy to use for their audience. We are confident that the new design and improvements we made will greatly enhance the user experience on Thurrott.com, and provide a better platform for BWW Media to reach their audience and deliver their content.

The design phase of the Thurrott.com project began with the creation of wireframes and mockups utilising Figma. This phase covered all pages of the website and all scenarios to ensure all requirements were met.

Once the initial design was completed, usability testing was conducted to gather feedback and identify areas for improvement. Based on the feedback received, design iterations were made to optimise elements such as layout, navigation, and filtering options to enhance the user experience.

Challenges

Throughout the redesign process, we collaborated closely with the client to ensure that all their requirements were met and that the final product was a modern, high-performance, and user-friendly website for their audience.

Overall, developing the new theme was a complex task that required extensive planning, development, and testing to ensure it met client requirements and provided a better user experience.

When developing the new theme for Thurrott.com, we faced several challenges, including:

The solution

We executed a comprehensive redesign of the website, implementing a new theme that adheres to the client’s specifications, resulting in a modernised and improved version of Thurrott.com. The website now boasts updated aesthetics, optimised performance, and additional user-centric features.

We made several changes to Thurrott.com in order to enhance the user experience and provide a more modern and visually appealing website. These changes include:

Overall, these changes aimed to provide a more modern, visually pleasing, and user-friendly website for Thurrott.com’s users. The changes were developed, implemented, and tested to ensure that the website met the client’s requirements and provided a better user experience.

Creating the new theme was a multi-step effort that required both design and implementation phases. The initial design phase, which involved the conceptualisation and development of new features, took approximately one month to complete.

We spent an additional two months working on implementing those designs, then we continued to polish all the elements that lead to the final redesign of Thurrott.com.

The results

Enlivy developed and implemented a new theme and other changes to Thurrott.com’s website to increase website speed and performance, improve visual aesthetics, and enhance overall user experience.

The new theme was optimized for speed and performance and included a modern, minimalistic design and dark mode feature. Changes to the website’s user interface and user experience were also developed to make the website more intuitive and user-friendly for visitors.