Web App Design & Internationalization
RightNow Media (RNM) is the world's largest video-streaming library of Biblical resources. My first project with the organization was to overhaul their web application to include an updated visual design and prepare the site for internationalization, as RNM was expanding their global presence.
Problem
RightNow Media was beginning to expand globally, yet their content and platform was built only for English and left-to-right languages. Additionally, users had reported inconsistencies and frustrations with the existing website, stemming from multiple ad hoc changes over the years.
Isolate the Problem
To establish the depth of the problem, I began by performing a component and style audit of the existing website. I inevitably stumbled upon the phrase "Design System" midway through the audit. Having no experience creating said system, I researched articles from industry leaders such as Dan Mall, Brad Frost, Hayley Hughes, and many more. I came to realize that, for the scope of this project, I simply needed an opinionated component style guide.
Localize It
One of the primary impact points for the new website was the video banners on each "library" page, which were images. I proposed creating desktop and mobile banners with empty space for the text to be set in the code. Now the banners, in addition to the rest of the text in the site, was able to be localized for the language specified by each visitor.
Another benefit to converting the banner text to HTML was a boost in our SEO rankings. The library pages are viewable even if the user is not logged in, ensuring that Google and other search engines were able to crawl them and would now find relevant banner text for the imagery.
The Strain that Shall Not Be Named
Six months into the project, COVID lockdowns sent us home. Ultimately, this delayed the project by 8 months, but also spawned a new project: the Watch Together feature, detailed in another case study.
Let 'Em Know
To not royally irritate our users, I pushed for up-front and transparent communication for the upcoming changes by initiating a dialogue with the VP of Software. Marketing created emails, landing pages, screenshots - even teaser and promo videos to prepare our users for the coming website upgrade. These efforts eased the impact of the launch and built user trust by showing we cared enough to prepare them for what was coming.
Launch
In October of 2021, we launched the RightNow Media 3.0 application! It was widely well received with our global customers. We saw dramatic increase in engagement, vast accessibility improvements, increase in organization signups, and an overall increase in video playback.
