Placemark Newsroom
Modular, self-serve editorial platform
Outcome
End‑to‑end redesign of a newsroom editors can run without engineers, with 4 content types and a lightweight design system.
Role
Product & UX Lead
Year
2025
Industry
Media · Urbanism & Community Development
Team / Stakeholders
Executive Sponsor, Editorial Owner, Subject-Matter Editors. My contribution: audit & strategy; IA, taxonomy, content model; UX/UI & lightweight design system; editorial governance & workflows; stakeholder alignment and delivery.
TL;DR
Problem
Legacy blog wasn’t salvageable; editors depended on engineering and recirculation/performance were weak.
Strategy
Replace with a structured newsroom (WP + Elementor + ACF + MU plugin) using narrative IA, four typed post templates, enriched navigation, and governance for assets/transcripts—prioritizing autonomy, reading flow, discovery, and CLS guardrails.
Impact
Editors publish independently; typed/conditional templates reduce rework; CLS risk mitigated with aspect-ratio & pre-sizing; hosting hard limits handled via .htaccess and conservative caching. GA4 via GTM (incl. session_qualified) verified.
Metric Tree & Success Criteria
North Star (NSM)
Qualified content consumption/session (≥60–90s on page, ≥50% scroll, ≥1 related click).
Activation
% of editors who publish end-to-end without engineer help.
Engagement
Retention
Validation
GA4 events (page_view, scroll, user_engagement, session_qualified); 60–90-day baseline post-migration.
Research insights
Editors excel with booleans/required fields that drive conditional layouts.
Recirculation improves with typed content (Article, Interview, Top 10, Elements) and predictable cards.
A 3-column mega-menu with curated slots lifts discovery.
Rapid UX/Design heuristics audit surfaced navigation, readability, and mobile-header issues; informed card rules, image aspect-ratio presets, and CLS guardrails.
Design Decisions
Why
Typed content model (Articles, Interviews, Top 10, Elements) with governance & required assets. Why: gives editors clarity and predictable display/schema, reduces errors, speeds authoring.
Trade-offs
Conditional templates + enriched navigation (mega-menu, dynamic related, series links). Trade-offs: initial modeling/config overhead, light ongoing curation, brief editor training.
Expected impact
Recirculation system (mega-menu + related modules + breadcrumbs). Expected impact: +1–3pp related-CTR within 30–60 days, higher cross-type navigation rate, +0.2–0.5 pages/session, fewer single-post drop-offs—supports the NSM (qualified consumption/session).
Solution
Patterns / Flows / Modules / Templates
Patterns: typed content (Article, Interview, Top 10, Elements), card kit (S/M/L), 3-column mega-menu, related-reading, series/episode progression. Flows: editor → ACF required/boolean fields → conditional templates; self-serve publishing; GA4 events via GTM. Modules: hero/featured, grids/carousels, Elements chapters, Interview video+transcript, breadcrumbs/JSON-LD, contextual CTA. Templates: four single templates + per-type lists; reusable loop grids; MU-plugin “Next episode.”
Responsive / Mobile-first / A11y
Responsive: mobile-first; enforced aspect-ratio on cards to avoid CLS; images with object-fit and pre-sizing; preconnect/preload for fonts/hero. Accessibility: full-card link with keyboard focus and aria-label; 44px touch targets; logical reading order; ALT text/transcript prompts; visible focus/hover states. Performance UX: custom fonts with font-display: swap; hero image preloaded for LCP; conservative caching given host limits.
Tie-back to business objectives
Editorial autonomy: publish without engineering → lower ops cost, faster output. Discovery & recirculation: enriched nav + related modules deepen reading paths. SEO trust: typed structure + JSON-LD + dynamic meta keep content consistent and machine-readable. Scalability: reusable components/rules reduce change time and errors.
Results
Metric 1
Operational autonomy: editors publish end-to-end without engineering; conditional templates reduce rework. (Window: launch week + first 2 weeks.)
Metric 2
Time-to-publish: ~1–5 minutes from CMS to live (by content type). (Window: 6 timed dry-runs per type during handoff week; baseline established post-migration.)
Metric 3
Qualified consumption per session: sessions with ≥60–90s on page, ≥50% scroll, and ≥1 related click (session_qualified event). (Window: first 14–30 days baseline for the new system.)
Method 1
Stakeholder UAT and editor dry-runs (screen recordings/checklist); role/permission checks; timed publish steps.
Method 2
Timed template runs; step logging; GA4 confirmation of page_view immediately after publish.
Method 3
GA4 standard + Explorations: page_view, scroll, user_engagement, session_qualified; per-type cohorts; internal traffic excluded.
AI Patterns
Patterns (future-ready): semantic search across posts, suggested related reading, anomaly hints for underperforming topics.
Systemization & Reuse
Reusable card/hero variants and related modules across Single/Archive. Content rules (required fields, transcript policy, schema prompts).
What I'd Do Next
Credits
Contributors: Client Executive Sponsor; Editorial Owner; SME Editors; Product & UX: Juan Ávalos. Tools/Stack: WordPress 6.8.3 + Elementor Pro + ACF; custom CSS; MU plugin; GA4 + GTM; Figma/Notion/Slack. Hosting: Webnames (LiteSpeed), SSL manual.
Tools
WordPress 6.8.3, Elementor Pro, ACF, Google Tag Manager, GA4, Google Search Console, Figma, Lighthouse/PageSpeed Insights, Webnames (LiteSpeed)
NDA / Alias Notes
Public case.
Project Links
Tags
Design Systems, Performance, Editorial CMS, UX Strategy, Accessibility, Media