Revolutionizing the cornerstone of E! News’ digital platform, the Ad Platform 3.0 project redefined the architecture and design of their highest-performing article pages. By addressing years of technical debt and aligning the platform with modern publishing needs, the redesign not only enhanced scalability and advertiser integration but also empowered writers and producers with streamlined tools for faster, more creative content creation. This project set the stage for future growth, ensuring E! News remained a leader in the competitive digital media landscape.
The article page was the top revenue-generating product for E! News, but years of incremental updates had led to a cluttered, patched architecture that hindered new design layouts and advertiser integrations.
Our task was to reimagine the article page architecture and its CMS (Sage) to:
• Simplify the editorial process for writers and producers.
• Allow for future scalability in content and ad formats.
• Minimize disruption to legacy infrastructure.
This project demanded a solution that balanced creativity and efficiency, ensuring E!’s articles could remain visually engaging while aligning with their advertising goals.
We began by analyzing page performance through heat maps and page analytics to evaluate user interaction and identify Key Structural Elements (KSEs). Low-fidelity layout scenarios allowed us to test potential solutions for handling:
Key Elements of Focus:
Responsive, full-browser-width designs.
Social sharing buttons.
Ad placement and engagement.
These insights informed decisions on ad placements, responsive behavior, and content hierarchy.
To streamline editorial workflows, we created a taxonomy of content blocks, each designed for specific content types and layouts. These blocks became the foundation for the CMS update:
Blocks could be combined and customized while maintaining responsive adaptability.
Each block was optimized for specific content feeds, and limitations were defined to align with editorial goals.
High-impact blocks were prioritized for launch, ensuring immediate value while maintaining compatibility with legacy systems.
The CMS overhaul focused on creating an intuitive, efficient tool for writers and editors. Key updates included:
• UX Improvements: Reduced process steps to increase productivity. For 90% of article pages, only 1–2 steps were needed.
• UI Enhancements: Made the interface more visual and user-friendly, reducing the learning curve and empowering editors to experiment with layouts.
• Default Block Optimization: The most-used block (Photo + Text) was set as the default, eliminating 2 extra steps compared to the old dropdown selector.
Results: Writers reported the new system was more engaging, enjoyable to use, and allowed them to focus on storytelling rather than technical barriers.
By turning the most used block (Photo + Text) into the default, it decreased the steps by 2 compared to the old CMS dropdown selector.
Ad sponsorships typically position logos near the top of an article, close to the title. We enhanced this by introducing sticky logic to ensure the sponsor’s logo remained visible throughout the user’s journey.
To encourage sharing while maintaining a clean design, we created social logic with two rules:
1. If a block is positioned as “Center” or “Curtain,” no social buttons appear.
2. If a block is a Text Block, social buttons display to the left, matching the text’s height and flowing seamlessly as users scroll.
This approach ensured buttons were contextually placed without overwhelming the article layout.
The redesigned Ad Platform 3.0 launched successfully, aligning with E! Online’s rebranding to E! News and receiving praise from stakeholders, editors, and users.
Key Outcomes:
Increased Efficiency: Editorial workflows became faster and more intuitive, reducing the time needed to create and edit layouts.
Endless Layout Flexibility: The new architecture allowed for infinite combinations of content blocks, keeping articles visually dynamic and engaging.
Future-Ready Scalability: The updated system enabled seamless integration of new block types and ad formats, supporting long-term growth.
This redesign exemplified the balance between creative innovation, technical practicality, and user-centric design—ensuring E! News remained a leader in digital storytelling.
The Ad Platform 3.0 project was a pivotal moment in modernizing E! News’ digital ecosystem. By tackling challenges across multiple domains—UX, UI, editorial workflows, and advertising—we delivered a solution that not only improved efficiency but also set a new standard for scalable, engaging content experiences.