Project Overview
As Australia's foremost science magazine, Cosmos Magazine needed an online experience that was as cutting-edge as it's print edition.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Andy Hibbert - Commercial Director
Hannah Dingli - Project Manager
Duncan Legge - UX & Design Lead
Lindsay Gaines - Drupal Development Lead
Eric Chen - Drupal Developer
Mike Hopkins - Front End Developer
Jack Mahoney - Front End Developer
Project Brief
Winner of 47 awards for high-quality journalism and design, Cosmos Magazine Cosmos is a leading literary science magazine, published in Australia but with a global reach.
With the traditional world of print publishing having to adapt to today’s digital age, Cosmos came to Monkii looking to completely refresh their online digital presence.
The key objectives were clear: to re-engage with its core audience (both enthusiasts and teachers), inspire new interest and drive paid subscriptions by offering its readers great, interactive content that they can read anytime, anywhere.
Project Innovation/Need
One of the core aims with Cosmos was to replicate the high-end magazine experience online, across all browsing devices and without the need for a costly dedicated app.
As all content would be shared between the print and digital version of the magazine, special consideration needed to be given towards making the site feel like you were reading a premium magazine, and not a blog or news site. A special focus on considered typography stood the article layout out from the pack, while responsively scaling images meant that every illustration and photograph on the site looked amazing, no matter the user's device or connection.
Design Challenge
A big challenge was in providing the ability for the user to flip through multiple articles, just as they would flip through pages in the magazine. We developed an innovative 'side-by-side' loading method, that meant that the user could instantly click, swipe or scroll through all articles in an edition without needing to wait for each article to be loaded.
Additionally, each article on the site needed a high degree of flexibility in it's layout, so reaching the sweet spot between editability and consistency via the CMS was paramount.
User Experience
A core aspect of the user experience was on making all the content as near the 'surface' of the site as possible, so the user never felt like they had dig deep to find the content they were after.
To this end we wanted as little reliance on menus as possible, and more on the browsing experience. The content on the site is released on a weekly basis, with the intention being for the user to revisit the site each week for a fresh batch of articles and news.
This makes the site extremely easy for a user to comprehend - simply scroll through the central home content area to go back through each week's content. Then, if the user wants to dive a little deeper, the sidebar contains a variety of exploration methods. The simplicity of the navigation belies the breadth of content on the site, making it easy and appealing to explore the hundreds of articles on the site.
Digital Experience - Website - Publishing
This award celebrates innovation and creativity in design of a unique user experience in the combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content for websites. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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