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CHIP Online

Germany's biggest consumer tech portal with up over 20 Million monthly unique users. 

Product

  • Content

  • Widgets

  • Responsive Website

Roles

  • UX Writer

  • Product Designer

  • Content Strategist

  • Content Design Ops

  • Content Manager

Company Goals

CHIP aims to be the first stop for all your consumer needs: product reviews and tests, software downloads, news on tech and consumer topics. 

Responsibilites

  • Researching, designing and testing various products for CHIP Online

  • Developing content guidelines for more consistent product and editorial standards 

  • Developing content operations 

  • Liaising with the legal counsel on transparency and legal issues

  • Facilitating product innovation workshops 

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Rebrush

UX Writing / Content Design / Product Design 

The CHIP Test und Kaufberatung aims to be the first stop for users needing guidance on what product to buy. Most users visit a specific article via Google. However, loyal users go to CHIP's website directly.

Challenge

CHIP has been online for over 25 years, the Test und Kaufberatung being one of its core channels. However, the product landscape has changed a lot in this time. CHIPs structure had grown rampantly as a result, making it hard to navigate. 

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Process

Team

  • Content Design

  • Product Design

  • Editorial Team

  • Brand Management

  • Development

  • SEO

  • Sales

  • Analytics

  • CMS Management

Tools

  • InterRed

  • Adobe Analytics

  • Adobe XD

  • Sketch

  • Zeplin

  • CHIP Style Guide

1) Understand

  • What do the users need?

  • What requirements are there from different departments: 

    • Editorial​ Team

    • Development

    • Sales

    • SEO

    • Brand

  • What is the structure? 

  • What content exists?

2) Empathize

  • How should we categorize the existing content?

  • What information architecture helps the users?

  • What impact does any restructuring have on SEO?

  • What elements can we reuse to save development resources?

3) Draft

  • How can we integrate the sub-brand CHIP365?

  • How can we build a sustainable channel hierarchy?

  • How can we guide the users through the channel pages?

4) Test & Iterate

  • Was the flow intuitive and easy to follow?

  • Were the strings helpful and clear?

  • How do the users feel after completing the flow?

Before
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After
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CHIP Tables

UX Research / Content Design Ops 

CHIP Tables are an essential part of every product guide. For the table, editors select between 3 and 5 different products for different reasons like best product overall, best value, or the best product for special use cases. 

Challenge

While working well on desktop, CHIP Tables haven't been optimized for mobile use yet. This is a problem, als there is double the traffic on CHIP on mobile devices. We designed a research series to develop improvements and content guidelines. 

Process

Team

  • Content Design

  • UX Research

  • Editorial Team

  • Development

Tools

  • Testing Time

  • Hotjar

  • Confluence

  • Airtable

  • Sketch

  • Zeplin

1) Analyze

  • What can we deduce from the raw numbers?

  • How do visits / conversions / CTR compare on different devices?

  • How do competitors treat the same problem?

2) Empathize

  • How do users behave when confronted with two different designs?

  • What what of displaying information is most accessible?

3) Identify

  • What are the real reasons for the table's worse performance on mobile?

  • How can we improve the user's experience with content guidelines?

  • What technological improvements do we need to implement?

4) Test & Iterate

  • What guidelines can we develop to improve users' experience?

  • How do we improve the table itself?

  • Do the changes actually improve the users' experience?

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Autosuggest Search

Product Design / Content Design

The global CHIP search is the most used feature on the sites homepage. It made sense to integrate a search to the channel pages as well. However, the search results aren't great, as CHIP simply uses a Google site-search.

Challenge

During a hackathon, a group of participants came up with a prototype of an autosuggest search. Our task was to test the product, improve on the information architecture and design a final layout. 

Process

Team

  • UX Research

  • Content Design

  • UX Design

  • UI Design

  • Development

Tools

  • Sketch

  • Zeplin

  • Hotjar

  • Adobe Analytics

  • Testing Time

1) Understand

  • Would users benefit from an improved search?

  • How should we integrate the autosuggest search?

  • How do competitors handle the task?

3) Draft

  • What requirements do we have for different devices?

  • How can we display all necessary information?

2) Analyze

  • How do users interact with the search?

  • What information do we have in the backend?

  • What information does the user need in the frontend?

4) Test & Iterate

  • Does the autosuggest search help the users?

  • How does the feature impact the site's performance?

  • What improvements could be made?

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CHIP Boost Widget

Product Design / UX Writing

Next to the table, the Boost Widget is one of CHIP's most important features on the site. It offers the user a brief review on a product, including an image. Also, you'll find direct access to the most popular and cheapest shop. However, they hadn't been designed with an optimal mobile experience in mind. 

Challenge

Optimizing the Boost Widget for mobile use and integrating an automated data-stream from the price comparison platform BestCheck. Also we needed to make sure the new design supported a CSS grid. 

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Content Audit

Content Strategy

To grasp the sheer amount of content of the CHIP Test und Kaufberatung as well as have a good foundation for the redesign, we did a content audit of all the published articles, picture galleries and videos. We cranked down on taxonomy as well as individual pieces to develop a new structure. 

Team

  • Content Design

  • Analytics

  • SEO

  • CMS Management

  • Sales

Tools

  • Miro

  • Adobe Analytics

  • Excel

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Building CHIP 365

Content Strategy / Content Management

CHIP 365 was developed and launched in 2019. The CHIP sub-brand focuses on less techy consumer goods – from the washing machine to the sports bra. Building the brand meant: Building the content with the user, the company's goals and the brand in mind. 

Team

  • Editorial

  • SEO

  • Product Development

  • Sales

  • CHIP Testcenter

Tool

  • Confluence

  • AirTable

  • BurdaForward Content Lounge

  • InterRed

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Content Guidelines

Content Design Ops

The CHIP content guidelines include a set of guidelines of how to write articles articles and use widgets on CHIP. Since the product are the articles, we built consistency by providing the editors with a searchable set of guidelines in AirTable and Confluence.

Team

  • Editorial

  • SEO

  • Product Development

  • Sales

  • CHIP Testcenter

Tools

  • Confluence

  • AirTable

  • Testing Time

  • Hotjar

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Briefing Templates

Content Design Ops

Based on the content guidelines for editors, we also developed a briefing template for external authors. CHIP has been working with external authors for years. However, the new and more complex article structure has been more demanding. In crossfunctional collaboration, we have designed a template that guides the author through every step. 

Team

  • Editorial

  • External copywriters

  • SEO

  • Product development

  • UX Design

Tool

  • Confluence

  • AirTable

  • BurdaForward Content Lounge

  • InterRed

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Research Ops

User Research

The demand for answers from the users has increased exponentially over the years. With every department itching for answers, strain on the product designers to supply those has grown. By organizing the research operations and providing guidelines, research projects could be tackled more efficiently and effectively.

Team

  • Content design

  • Product design

  • Development

  • Sales

  • Editing team

Tools

  • Hotjar

  • TestingTime

  • Optimizely

  • Confluence

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