Lead UX/UI Designer.
Led the end-to-end design of a responsive Author Page system for Meredith Corporation, improving content discoverability, reader engagement, and editorial efficiency across 25+ national media brands.
Overview
Role: Lead Product Designer
As the lead UX designer, I guided the project from problem definition through final delivery:
Defined requirements and strategy based on editor interviews.
Designed responsive wireframes and high-fidelity mockups.
Collaborated with design management, product, and engineering teams to align on implementation and system standards.
Focus: Leading the end-to-end design of a new page called ‘Author Pages.’
While user reach was being conducted user interviews with editors across Meredith’s 25+ brands, I identified a recurring pain point in the CMS experience: author names in article bylines were not clickable, preventing users from exploring other works by the same author and extending dwell time on the platform.
This insight led to a new initiative — the creation of Author Pages, a scalable template built for desktop, tablet, and mobile that enhanced content discoverability and author visibility.
Problem
Article bylines at Meredith linked to no additional information about the author, limiting opportunities for users to continue engaging with related content, weakening the sense of editorial voice across brands and limiting the potential session duration for users on the platform.
Process
Discovery
The problem emerged organically during CMS usability interviews with editors. After the product team prioritized it, I was given general guidelines, however I was tasked with defining and brainstorming specific requirements and vision for the author page experience.
Since neither editors nor product stakeholders provided detailed specifications, I initiated exploratory discussions and framed key design questions:
What user goals should this page fulfill beyond article discovery?
How might this feature encourage deeper engagement?
Which elements from our design system could be reused or reimagined?
What patterns do competitor author pages use effectively?
These questions guided early ideation and positioned the project for strategic impact rather than a narrow feature build.
Exploration & Ideation
I began with low-fidelity sketches exploring multiple layout concepts.
Concept A featured a simple layout: author photo, bio, and a chronological list of articles.
Concept B explored system reuse, incorporating existing design system components (e.g., category cards and entity cards) to test modular flexibility.
After discussions with the design manager, Concept B provided a promising structure but required refinement to maintain visual balance and hierarchy.
Concept A
Concept B
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
I translated sketches into wireframes across four responsive breakpoints (XL, L, M, S).
Initial stakeholder feedback highlighted two key opportunities:
Simplify the layout by removing the bulky entity card.
Introduce functionality for editors to pin featured articles to the top of their pages.
Iteration & Redesign
After a design review with stakeholders, the general consensus was that the reuse of the entity table design was a strong direction, but that it visually felt clunky and off balance. An additional pain point that was communicated by editors during this stage is that they'd like to have the ability to highlight articles that were noteworthy in some way (by views/popularity, importance, etc.) and for those articles to remain pinned at the top of their author pages.
I revisited the visual hierarchy, drawing inspiration from social media profile layouts where bios, avatars, and social links are presented intuitively. Ultimately I:
Moved social icons into the bio card for improved cohesion.
Added the author’s title and location for richer context.
Introduced a “pin” icon to mark featured articles — improving editorial control and personalization.
On mobile, I adjusted this feature by using a star icon overlay on article images to preserve clarity in tighter layouts. This design was approved unanimously by stakeholders.
High-Fidelity Designs
After final review and stakeholder approval, I skinned the final design in a Meredith brand style to demonstrate scalability and brand adaptability. The responsive Author Page system was then delivered to engineering for implementation and QA across Meredith’s portfolio.
XL (desktop) breakpoint
S (mobile) breakpoint
Impact & Learnings
Quantitative Results
Increased average time on page and scroll depth across pilot brands.
Improved cross-article navigation and recirculation rate.
Qualitative Results
Editors described the author pages as “a simple but powerful way to amplify our writers’ voices.”
Stakeholders adopted the layout as a design system pattern for future use.
Leadership: Driving a loosely defined problem into a system-wide design solution required initiative and strategic alignment.
Systems Thinking: Reusing design atoms while introducing new scalable patterns balanced innovation with maintainability.
User Empathy: Insights from editorial interviews shaped decisions that improved both reader and editor experiences.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Continuous dialogue with stakeholders ensured feasibility and strong adoption post-launch.