Overview
Since their inception in 2016, The Ken has grown to become India’s foremost premium business publication. Over the years, their offerings and positioning have evolved too.
They partnered with us to completely reimagine their entire platform towards this evolution — Premium, handcrafted, and meticulously thought through, from the ground up.
What we did
Multi-platform design system that spans across mobile & desktop web, the iOS app, Android app, iPadOS app and emails.
A homepage that’s always relevant
With The Ken being a not-so-typical publication, we chose to break from the typical, static homepage.
Instead, we created a design system that’s “elastic” — One that adapts daily, showcasing relevant, high-impact stories in layouts that balance predictability with a bit of whimsy.
With this, The Ken updates the home page through the day, ensuring returning readers always find something meaningful.
A system that feels just as handcrafted and specialised across all touchpoints
The Ken isn’t just a website – it’s accessed via Android & iOS mobile apps, iPad apps as well as various types of emails sent out to lakhs of users daily.
We tailored the experience for each of these platforms, ensuring subscribers feel the same amount of care and attention in their every interaction with The Ken.
A Flexible card system
We created a range of card sizes to establish hierarchy and rhythm on the page, helping readers quickly assess a story’s significance.
Designed to delight
We take pride in sweating the small stuff. We peppered custom micro-interactions that add functional delight across various parts of the platform.
Arrived at after a structured and exhaustive design process
Once we defined the design principles we wanted to follow, we went through an in-depth exercise of exploring mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive design directions.
Solving business problems with design innovation
A pricing page design that improved conversions
Comparing features between pricing tiers matters for functional products. For a premium product like The Ken, we deduced that showcasing the value of subscribing instead would have a much better impact. And it turned out to be correct! The new pricing page increased The Ken’s overall conversion rate, and also the average order value.
Increasing stories read per session via improved content discoverability
Via analytics, we observed that most users were landing directly on the story pages first. So how do we show them the meticulously curated content on the home page? Simple — we put the home page at the end of the story!
We also created a system of units to contextually prompt to other relevant stories and content on The Ken.
Increasing subscriber engagement via deep content interactions
The Ken’s subscribers are discerning and sharp, and they enrich The Ken’s reading experience by adding another layer of context & perspective.
So we built a new commenting, highlighting and sharing system that seamlessly & deeply integrates the subscribers’ interactions into the stories.
Treating subscriptions as memberships, not transactions
Being a subscriber of The Ken is more than unlocking access – it’s about being a sharp, discerning and curious individual. So instead of subscribers being shown the usual “payment successful” message, we created Cards that recognise them as members of an exclusive set of individuals instead.
TEAM
Aakash Rodrigues Creative Director & Lead Designer
Harshita Jalan UI/UX & Product Designer
Gauri Girish Jr. UI/UX & Product Designer
Poorti Purohit Jr. UI/UX & Product Designer
