Oracle has three magazine properties: Oracle Magazine, Profit Magazine and Java Magazine. Up until this redesign, Oracle had a long history of offering a print magazine supported by online versions of the periodicals available in a gated digital asset.

The magazine properties all needed to be modernized. Primarily, they needed to be updated for a better experience on mobile and web. Not only did they need to be responsive for various screen sizes and devices, they had to be easily discoverable, sharable and searchable. The new magazine’s formats would need to be Oracle branded user experiences while retaining individual brand identities. Each magazine would need to have similar sitemaps and user flows, but be designed to connect with their specific audiences.

Solution

User data was unavailable because the current format of the online iteration of the magazine did not have detailed tracking so interviews with the magazine editors were the first point of research to define the user profiles. With that information user flows were defined and a sitemap structure was developed that could apply to all three magazines keeping them similar but flexible for subtle differences.

After interviewing the editors and various stakeholders, we agreed on a unified sitemap and user flow, but unlike Oracle Magazine and Profit magazine, Java magazine required a more developer centric design. For example, while Oracle Magazine and Profit Magazine both use a more visually traditional magazine format including photos and graphics to accompany articles, Java Magazine has very few images and tends to contain a wealth of programming and engineering content often containing code snippets and sidebars with notes.