We interview the editor of Wired.co.uk about the game-changing redesign

Redesigns are so often chewed up and spat out in the design world, so when one comes along that simultaneously blows the socks off each and every one of your colleagues upon seeing it, you know it’s going to be worth digging a little deeper. When that redesign is an online space it becomes so much more intriguing than a print publication doing the same thing; the web is like a constantly surging ocean and to move with the tide can be treacherous.

Being at the forefront of technology-based journalism, Wired.co.uk had a responsibility to do a pretty good job of a design overhaul, but luckily with editor Nate Lanxon at the helm they pulled it off with style and intelligence. We caught up with Nate to find out a little more about redesigning a beast such as WIRED for the baying online public.

First up could you outline in a few lines what your role is at WIRED

I’m the editor of Wired.co.uk, so I’m in charge of WIRED’s day-to-day activity online as well as operational tasks for the business, such as the editorial side of product development.

What made you think it was time for a redesign of the site?

We hadn’t redesigned our homepage for some time and it looked odd having a fully-responsive article template but an old-fashioned static homepage.

Was it a tricky process?

Yes, but an exciting one. As the importance of a homepage diminishes more each year, and as mobile usage inflates alongside this, we had to really try and think “what is a future homepage going to need to be and can we do that now?” There are also commercial thoughts that tie into this to make sure advertisers are getting great new opportunities, all the while making sure there is a clear and honest difference between an editorial position on a homepage and a commercial one.

Were there any other sites you looked at for inspiration?

Not particularly. We probably spent more time looking at apps.

What did you want the audience to gain from the redesign?

A homepage that was simple and elegant enough to feel useful visiting daily.

It’s now very image-led, can you tell us about that decision?

We did a lot of UI testing and UX sampling with people. We looked at anonymised data that revealed people were more engaged with image-driven formats. Plus WIRED is traditionally a very image-lead publication with a real emphasis on gorgeous visuals and design, so it made sense to pair our UX learning with our internal ideals for aesthetics.

The infinite scroll is great – how did you end up deciding on that?

We experimented with it on our article pages and the technology worked well. Plus a homepage is just that – a page. If you’ve only got one, why not make it as big as somebody needs it to be?

What do you think websites these days need to do to be successful?

That’s a very broad question. But in terms of having a successful homepage you need to think “Why should a user come to our homepage rather than click straight into articles from social sites or other curated platforms?”

Considering the breadth of WIRED the contents section on the left is so well-edited – was it hard to break up what you do into five simple titles?

Yes, absolutely. Fortunately we built that bar to be flexible so we can change it around when we need to, prioritising categories or events as they increase or decrease in importance throughout a month or year.

What do you personally look for in a great site, and can you tell us some of your favourites?

I’m a big fan of personality-driven content. I like to think that the best thing to keep in mind as a writer is that if a robot will be able to write what you write in five years time, why are you still doing it? Aim for things a robot can’t do easily. The best way seems to be opinion and a nuanced view on a subject, reflected in a publication’s overall voice. I see this today in websites with paywalls — unless there’s a publication with major track records with exclusives, or data, then the next best reason to not just read the same stuff elsewhere is access to a specific writer’s viewpoint. As such I’ve always been a big fan of Ars Technica (disclosure: we also publish this), Re/code and The Verge. They’re all American, which probably says something about what I think about opinion in the UK tech space. I’ll leave that for another interview.