Herding Public Media Cats
PBS.org Home Page Redesign
Role: Director of User Experience
Problem
As it is in many organizations, the PBS.org home page is a political hotcake. But in the peculiar public media environment of the United States, the greatest impediments to progress are cultural and the PBS.org Web site design remained unchanged for years as a result. Public Broadcasting Service funding funnels through the local stations rather than corporate headquarters and so every station expects to be part of any significant discussion of Web strategy or tactics. But the only thing the local stations tend to agree on is their dissatisfaction with national headquarters. The PBS culture had not yet embraced the dominance of what a Web site does over what it looks like so historically redesign efforts devolved into endless arguments about color choices and imagery.
Solution
Rather than presenting a polished design, I created a number of conceptual prototypes that intentionally took on PBS' sacred cows. I replaced brand-based local station representation with mechanisms focused on functionality; I prominently displayed commercial advertising and e-commerce avails; I committed areas of the page to provide transparency for the inner workings of PBS finances and radically expanded feedback and contact opportunities. In direct opposition to tradition, I promoted less content and did it with more space, forcing arguments about home page real estate rather than allowing compromise to dominate.
Then I went on the road visiting small, medium, and large-sized stations to gather data based on reactions to the prototypes. I opened the design process up to dozens in the PBS community, but steered the conversations away from aesthetics and over to user goals and station business needs.
