10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
(New York time)

How do we truly think about the small screen first? What are the assumptions we need to make? The consumer trends we need to know? The internal data to help us make decisions? In this module we will bring best practices and insights to help your decision making.

10:00 a.m.-10:15 a.m. (New York time)
Welcome and introductions





10:15 a.m.-10:55 a.m. (New York time)
Keynote: The fundamental elements of building for a mobile audience

Karen is a content strategist and author who specialises in responsive design and mobile content strategy. Well poised from the depth of her work with clients, including The New York Times, Condé Nast, Disney, and Citibank, her teaching of design management and her books, Karen will provide valuable insights on how to adapt news content for mobile audiences.

Karen McGrane, Partner, Autogram, and Author, “Content Strategy for Mobile and Going Responsive.”, United States



10:55 a.m.-11:25 a.m. (New York time)
Difficult decisions: Why we killed the app to make mobile Web great

Do you ever feel like you are spinning plates and trying to keep all your mobile products up to date, let alone improve and innovate? Standing back, Rodney and team realised that they needed to make some hard decisions in order to make a couple of things great, rather than many things good. In this session, he will take you through the prioritisation, frameworks, and data points the Texas Tribune used that led them to killing their app to focus on mobile Web, along with how it paid off.

Rodney Gibbs, Product and Audience Consultant, The National Trust for Local News, United States



11:25 a.m.-11:55 a.m. (New York time)
Changing processes to change mindsets: making a newsroom mobile first

When your mobile traffic goes from 50% to 90% over a few years you need to rethink how a newsroom operates to be truly mobile first. In this session GerBen will take us through their huge transformation. Not only did language change but so did processes so that journalists could see what their story would look like on mobile in real time. You will also see how resourcing changed internally to focus on mobile.

GerBen van’t Hek, Deputy Editor in Chief, Holland Media, Netherlands



11:55 a.m.-12:25 p.m. (New York time)
Rethinking advertising for the mobile web

A small screen means less space for advertising. Or does it? In this session we’ll talk about how placement of ads differs for mobile web, why the New York Times developed proprietary formats, moving from selling space size to optimise engagement (with first party data) and how they are thinking about multi modal formats beyond an ‘article page’.

Sasha Heroy, Executive Director, Ad Products & Platforms, The New York Times, United States



12:25 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (New York time)
Overtime and wrap-up

10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
(New York time)

From theory to action: You have the information and the right people involved in the conversation. What do the best performing mobile home pages have in common? How are these being iterated, and what can we learn from those that excel outside news?

10:00 a.m.-10:05 a.m. (New York time)
Welcome, recap and intros
Jodie Hoppperton, Product & Tech Initiative Lead, INMA, United States



10:05 a.m.-10:45 a.m. (New York time)
A sports home page for the next generation

In the 2023 Global Media Awards, sports site Relevo won an award for “A News Front Page For the TikTok Generation.” This new product was created to attract younger readers and enter into a category that the main company was not known for: Sports. In this session, Germán will take us through the many decisions they made to build and maintain this breakout mobile-first site. We’ll have a frank discussion about the challenges that were faced, and those they are still working on.

Germán Frassa, Digital Strategy Director, RELEVO, Spain



10:45 a.m.-11:15 a.m. (New York time)
How we created a new impactful mobile site in 4 weeks

NTM realised that they needed a big update for the mobile website and made it a company priority. Jens will take us through the before and after, how key decisions were made, and some new design features that are proving impactful to page views and revenue.

Jens Pettersson, Head of Editorial Development, NTM, Sweden



11:15 a.m.-11:45 a.m. (New York time)
How to double scroll depth and improve ad revenue

After analysing many other content sites to see what works best on mobile Web, ONET moved from a classic news format of many headlines, to a single big, bold visual for the first screen. Using much inspiration from social in terms of layout, UX, and functionality, they have doubled scroll depth and increased ad yield. In this session, we’ll learn about the frameworks they used, the decisions they made, and the final designs that have made such an impact on their numbers.

Grzegorz Krawczyk, Chief Product Officer, Ringier Axel Springer, Poland



11:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (New York time)
A Core Web Vitals Health Check

Page load speed affects your site's search rankings and a customer's qualitative experience of your brand, both of which have a direct impact on revenue. Google's Core Web Vitals provide a set of key metrics (LCP, FID, CLS and, coming soon, INP) that can be tracked as a way to improve your page performance and user experience. In this session, Noah Robischon will illustrate each metric, and reveal specific technical changes that Condé Nast implemented to improve its scores and remove its sites from Google AMP.

Noah Robischon, Vice President Product, Global Platforms, Condé Nast, United States



12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (New York time)
Overtime and wrap up

10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
(New York time)

There is a lot to fit into a small space, especially as offerings such as summaries, videos, audio products, and more are offered. How do we build the best UX to get consumers what they want in the fastest way possible, improve engagement, and retention? Experts and real-world case studies will share what has worked for them.

10:00 a.m.-10:05 a.m. (New York time)
Welcome, recap and intros
Jodie Hoppperton, Product & Tech Initiative Lead, INMA, United States



10:05 a.m.-10:50 a.m. (New York time)
Best practices in design and content layout for mobile

On a small screen designers have to be ruthless about what is included, and what isn’t. In this session we will look at best practices in typography, design and layout to give users a clutter free experience while keeping a distinctive brand appearance.

Oliver Reichenstein, CEO and Founder, Information Architects, Japan



10:50 a.m.-11:10 a.m. (New York time)
Designing with user journeys in mind

In this session we will look at The Atlantics mobile design based on their three main user journeys: the loyalists who check multiple times per day, the socials who are directed through another medium such as social, Apple or other news organisation, and lastly newsletter readers. Christopher will take us through how do they each experience The Atlantics Mobile Web and the design decisions they have made to create a clean, clear site.

Christopher Chester, Senior Product Designer, The Atlantic, United States



11:10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. (New York time)
Why thinking minimalist, then scaling up is an effective design tactic

The FT is a well-established brand with its iconic salmon pink shade. As a business title, it is a feature-rich Web site and has been desktop focused. So, what happens when focus needs to shift to mobile? How do you make a prestige brand more modern? Who are these readers, and how is their behaviour different? Louise will talk to us about all this plus how to think about designing for the most pressing user needs and scaling up from there and, importantly, promoting mobile design literacy and the peculiarities of scaling design teams.

Louise Robertson, Senior Product Design Director, FT, United Kingdom



11:30 a.m.-12:10 p.m. (New York time)
Q&A with Christopher Chester and Louise Robertson


12:10 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (New York time)
Takeaways from the Master Class

To wrap up the 10 hours of speakers and case studies, Jodie Hopperton will review and recap the key learnings from the three modules to bring everything together.