Design Director for CNET Networks

worldwide brands (2000-2003)

UNIFYING THE

USER DESIGN, AD

SYSTEM AND SITE

PUBLISHING TOOLS

WORLDWIDE FOR

CNET NETWORKS

Audience snapshot

Unique Visitors Per Month: 18.5 million

Page Views Per Month: 209 million

Broadband access 95%

About CNET

Why standardize CNET sites?

4Extraordinary CNET growth organic and unplanned

4Numerous site/product acquisitions:

4 Multiple publishing systems

4 Unique platforms

4 Practices institutionalized

in „silo‟ configuration

4 New ad types not supported

4 Unable to deliver “network buy”

sponsorships

4 Back-end systems complex,

expensive to maintain

4 CNET brand and sub-brands

diluted by lack of standards in

presentation

Business-critical issues

4 Successfully managed 2001 redesign and integration

of newly acquired ZDNet

4 Standardized design processes across ZDNet

4 ZD standards model successfully ported to CNET

Commerce sites

4 Large team management experience

4 Track record of managing large, business-critical

projects

Jonathan Bates: My experience

Domestic sites

4 Create uniform template structure

for 13 „core‟ site brands

4 Allow new ad types to deploy

network-wide

4 Develop style guides for all sites

4 Coordinate with Technology Group‟s

rebuild of common back-end

4 6 month timeframe

The mandate: my responsibilities

Domestic sites

4 Train all site „owners‟ and production

teams on best practices

4 Develop production toolkits and

common graphic devices

4 Oversee and police daily production

for all sites to ensure compliance

4 Maintain and update online

„repositories‟ for each site‟s style

systems

The mandate: my responsibilities

Worldwide sites

4 Educate site owners worldwide on

standardization plans

4 Develop best-practices guides

localized to 10 languages

4 Adapt standards to remove cultural or

linguistic misinterpretations

4 Diplomacy of getting both „O & O‟

properties and licensees to comply

The mandate: my responsibilities

Project & Site Design intranet

4 Developed and maintained

CNET‟s first centralized site and

project information repository

4 Resource for project managers

and senior management to

review current work load and

individual project status

4 Improved company efficiency,

resource allocations and

strategic planning

Design intranet: Site Detail page

4 Initially used in development

phase of new sites or redesigns

4 When project finished, page

converted to style guide and tool

repository

4 Retention of design iterations used

in post-mortem reviews to define

best practices, locate weaknesses

Design intranet: Tools and resources

Materials for site

producers:

4 Key information about site, mission,

audience and production profile

4 Templates in Photoshop, HTML for all

modules and page types

4 Tool kit of logos, bugs, HTML

fragments and graphic treatments

4 “Site emergency” procedures and

contact information

Design intranet: Ad specifications

4 Specs on all supported ad types

4 Samples in PSD, PDF and AI format

4 In page HTML samples

4 Production contact information

4 Used by sales and marketing as well

as production groups

Style & ContentRepository

Navigation& shell standards

Link displaystandards

Design processguidelines

Design intranet: Process definitions

4 Created process diagrams for all project or site components

4 Explained best practices, redesign process, “How To” collection

4 Included reasoning/rationalefor systems and standards to encourage „buy-in‟ by producers

Site standardization: U.S. properties

4 Successfully designed and

managed 10 simultaneous

major property redesigns

4 Designed and produced two

new CNET properties

4 Coordinated and implemented

new standards compliance

process across organization

4 Successfully met deadlines,

including ad system integration

network-wide

Site standardization: Worldwide

4 Within 12 month, CNET Networks sites worldwide were using common template set

4 Worldwide network able to present all ad types on virtually every page of every site

4 Increased revenue booked and improved brand standing for CNET Networks properties

4 Measurably improved coordination between US and international business units

(612) 578 0222

www.dabunny.com

Creative and products in this presentation were

either primarily designed or directly managed by

Jonathan Bates