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CTV News is Canada’s most-watched news organization, with national, international, and local coverage across the country. Key actions like changing sections were either hidden behind labels like “Customize” and “Top Stories” or tucked into icons in the header.
My focus was on understanding how users actually navigate news content, validating those patterns through research, and adjusting the structure so essential information surfaced faster.
Before shaping the new CTV News experience, I spent time studying how leading news apps structure their home feeds, present live video, and surface local coverage.
The focus was on identifying patterns that made it easy for people to scan the day, switch topics, understand what’s live, and move confidently between national and local stories.
I packaged these findings into a short competitive review and presented it to product, editorial, and engineering. That session helped us align on direction and feasibility before moving into concepts and user testing.
Before moving into high-fidelity design, I sketched and wireframed multiple options for Home, Local, and Watch, then turned the strongest directions into clickable prototypes.
The goal was to make three actions effortless: checking top stories, local news, finding live video, and switching cities.
As part of our agile sprint cadence, I walked the team and lead engineer through updated wires and prototypes each week to check feasibility, refine flows, and close gaps in edge cases.
Once we were confident in the structure, we moved into visual design and set up the next round of testing.
Based on team feedback and early testing, I iterated on the designs for Home, For You, Local, Sections, and Watch.
Our strategy was to reduce time-to-information, elevate editorial storytelling, and give users straightforward controls to personalize their experience.
We redesigned the Home tab to surface a clear Top Stories feed and introduced a 'Live Now' module that updates automatically based on what’s currently on air.
I worked with the editoral team to ensure breaking news and Top Stories are consistently prioritized.
Market research showed users wanted quick access to topics they follow daily, so we introduced the For You tab to bring customization forward for the first time. Users can now build a feed around what matters to them in one tap.
The Local tab now includes a prominent weather widget for the selected city and horizontal city switching. This replaces the small header icon and makes it easier to scan conditions and move between regions
Users struggled to find content and often took long paths to find articles. We introduced a dedicated Sections tab to reduce navigation friction and make business verticals easy to reach. This helped users get to the right content faster and aligned the app with how a newsroom organizes information.
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Market research showed users wanted quick access to topics they follow daily, so we introduced the For You tab to bring customization forward for the first time. Users can now build a feed around what matters to them in one tap.
After launching the new CTV News app, I ran a SUS usability benchmarking study to see how the redesign performed against the previous experience.
I reused core tasks from earlier rounds so results were comparable, including watching the CTV News live stream, checking the weather, customizing My Feed, and finding a local newscast like CTV News Calgary at Six.
I measured success rates, time-on-task, and SUS scores to understand where users hesitated and why.
This project reinforced how much structure matters in a news app. Once we fixed navigation, clarified “Top Stories,” and brought live and local forward, small details like labels and widgets started to work harder.
The patterns we landed on for Home, Local, Sections, and Watch are now reusable across other Bell Media products, which reduces design and engineering effort the next time we update a news experience.