The redesign of the White House live stream section was the first major update to WhiteHouse.gov since the transition of President Obama into office. The updated design supports live captioning, a device-agnostic responsive structure, a refreshed navigation, and new ways to keep user engaged with White House content during their visit.
Redesign Goals
So that all Americans can understand, navigate, and interact with the White House via the audio and video streaming section of the platform.
Consistency: Consistent representation of the content across devices or regardless of the device the content is being accessed from. A single live destination from which to access the live stream schedule.
Accessibility: Improved site structure and live streaming capabilities to ensure that visitors to the section can jump past the navigation to the main content area easily, access captions, video controls, and descriptions of images regardless of their physical ability.
Speed: Improved interfaces for content administrators, enabling quick and accurate posting of content, correction and updates to live stream data as necessary, and scheduling of live streams months in advance or in as little as a few minutes.
Engagement: The new panel selector allows site administrators to choose what content gets highlighted and how, accommodating various calls-to-action and ways to engage for the site visitor.
User Feedback
In conjunction with the release, an online form was promoted to take feedback from the public on the new section. Some bugs were reported and addressed based on this feedback, however the vast majority of respondents stated that the experience and look of the updated section was "much better" than the previous experience. Here are some highlights:
“Thank you for considering people like me who are working hard to stay informed… To some this new new player may not be a big deal. For me it is. many thanks”
“Outstanding. I look forward to your implementation throughout the entire website. I also love that it’s responsive! That’s what I’m talking about!”
“I don’t know how the previous player was, but LOVE the current player and think it’s so great that these events are made so accessible. Thank you!”
The Obama administration WhiteHouse.gov is archived so no events will be featured or streamed on the live page.
CLIENT/EMPLOYER
The White House
DESIGN
July 2014
DEVELOPMENT
July 2014 - Late August 2014
LAUNCHED
Late August 2014
NOTES
As part of this project, the technical team made the White House's first moves from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7, starting a new foundation for WhiteHouse.gov that the following phases of the redesign would build on.
TEAM
WHITE HOUSE
Ashleigh Axios: product direction, creative direction, design, content strategy
Kasie Coccaro: project management
Leigh Heyman: technical approach
Acquia Team: development & technical product management
Idesha Hardcastle: livestream publishing workflow & testing
Alex Estes: livestream publishing workflow & testing
Nathaniel Lubin: review & internal project promotion
Daniel Pfeiffer: project approval
SUPPORT FROM
Kit Rodofla: traffic insights
Adam Garber: historical livestream insights
Thomas "TK" Kelley: historical livestream insights