RSS reader
MacOS app, let’s people read RSS news on Mac
Time-frame: 6 months
Role: UX and visual designer
Problem
Since MacOS 10.8 Apple have removed an ability to read RSS feeds from the “Mail” app. Google killed their “Reader” one year before that.
So, I’ve decided to create a RSS Reader app for Mac.
There were several requirements, that I have decided to build the product design on.
Super easy to use.
No login or account creation needed.
Ability to quickly scan through article titles.
Ability to mark some articles for future read.
I have collaborated with a MacOS engineer, and we have developed and released a great app.
🏆 Our app reached #1 top-selling app in the “News” category and got into the top 50 paid apps in many countries.
Mockups and wireframes
Structure of the app was very simple. User can search and add new channels, then user can see news from this channels, mark them as read, save and see details. User can also open this news on a website.
I created the first prototype and showed it to people around (MacOs users who read RSS news). I got positive feedback about the idea and structure of the app, so we continued to work on this idea.
With the initial concept, the app looked a bit heavy for this type of tool. What I learned from the users, that they would open an app in the morning, read through all updates, and then, based on notifications they will decide do they want to read article. I talked more about the notifications and learned that people miss notifications a lot of time and don’t read the news, so potential users would want quickly see the list of updates.
After several iterations I came up with other idea for the app.
Several additional iterations brought me to existing flow. User clicks on icon in top right corner to review latest updates. If something seems interesting user can click and read preview.
