Back to cases archive 

Human Interface Group was hired by the VRT to assist in developing a new news portal for the existing www.vrtnieuws.net site.

The Project

The Flemish Radio and Television Network (VRT) is the public broadcasting network of the Flemish Community in Belgium.
The VRT's objective is to "reach a maximum number of viewers and listeners with a range of programs which excite and satisfy the interest of viewers and listeners". One of these channels is the www.vrtnieuws.net website, the online equivalent of the TV news, but with lots of extras.

The Challenge

VRT wanted to update their website for several reasons:

• The usability of the site needs to be improved
• VRT wants to be more creative with the content
• VRT wants to expand the content and the functionalities
• Users want more background information with the news
• VRT wants to become THE online news reference in Flanders

What We Did

Human Interface Group started with an Expert Review on vrtnieuws site and the Sporza site, dedicated to sports news. We also investigated the cross-platform compatibility and tested the old site following the Blind Surfer guidelines for the visually impaired.
The Expert Review pointed out quite some usability issues, mainly for the dimensions navigation, information architecture and graphic design.

After the design of a mockup for the new site, Human Interface Group tested15 representative users. We did not only test the usability of the new mockup, but also compared the new mockup with the existing site.
We collected a lot of useful feedback from the users. The conclusion was clear: they all preferred the new site.

The Results

The feedback VRT received regarding its new news portal was very positive:

 "As a Safari user, I am now very happy being able to use this news portal"

The press was also very positive:

"It is really striking how the news site integrates the different sections more efficiently than before. The navigation at the top makes it easier to go from one section to another. The site has also become more diverse with sections such as 'regional' and 'business', where you can also consult the highly valued contributions by Paul D'Hoore and Pascal Paepen. The site's multimedia feature is underlined in the 'mediatheek', or 'multimedia library', a rather inflated term for a section presenting video and audio extracts."

Related pages

Refer to:
Services: Evaluation for more information about expert evaluations, cross-platform tests, accessibility tests and user tests;
Services: Design for more information about user interface (re)design.