hether audiences are
accessing the news on an
iPhone 6 in Moscow, via
proxy server in Tehran, or
at a Kabul café with glacial speed
Wi-Fi, US international
broadcasters want them to have the
best possible experience when
viewing the content, regardless of
the device and network they’re
using. That’s why they’ve switched
to responsive web design.
WORKS ONANYDEVICE
Responsive web design (RWD) is a
single code base that works on any
device, as opposed to maintaining
separate back ends for mobile and
desktop sites. The RFE/RL award-
winning Pangea Digital team,
which also supports the web
operations of US international
broadcasters Voice of America,
Middle East Broadcasting
Networks, and Marti (for Cuban
audiences), began developing
RWD in 2013 and completed its
rolling launch of responsive mobile
sites in July this year.
In addition to an improved user
experience, RWD offers higher SEO
rankings, cost-effective design,
development, and maintenance, as
well as ease of publishing for
journalists. Aladin Telalagic who
heads our Pangea team sees the
added efficiency of RWD as its
main appeal – without the need to
maintain two code bases, you can
reduce the number of servers and
accelerate the development process
in the future.
DIVERSITY OF AUDIENCE
Pioneered by
The Boston Globe
in
2011, in recent years CNN, BBC,
The Guardian
and other top news
sites have moved to responsive.
What sets the Pangea team’s task
apart from these other major
international news organisations is
the size and diversity of its
audience and content.
The websites powered by the
Pangea content management
system have a global audience of
1.5m daily users from 200 countries
and territories in 60 languages; the
BBC is a distant second in this
regard with 29 languages. Many of
the target countries rely on old,
slow networks and many readers
have older, slower devices. In
countries where independent
media is censored, such as Iran,
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,
users have to go through proxy
servers to access the content, a
further drag on screen loading time.
So we have to be disciplined. If
most of your audience is in the US
using fast networks and brand new
phones, the code can be a bit
bloated. But many of our users are
in countries that don’t have that
infrastructure. Our RWD solution
has to be light so that sites load
quickly with the best display on
any device.
LOADING IN3 SECONDS
In order to achieve that optimum
performance, Pangea partnered
with well-known RWD experts
Dan Mall and Tim Kadlec who
understand the importance of
bringing independent news and
information to users who wouldn’t
otherwise have access to it, even if
the outdated IT infrastructure
presents a challenge. RFE/RL’s
target markets are anything but
predictable and stable so they fully
appreciated that excluding
someone because of their slow
network connection or their old
device or their limited browser was
simply not an option – this
information is far too important for
that sort of casual dismissal.
User studies have shown that if
a site is not perceived to be loading
after around three seconds, nearly
half of users will give up and
abandon it. So no matter how fancy
or pretty a site is, if it doesn’t load,
it’s worthless. Our goal is to keep
the load time under three seconds.
For us at RFE/RL and our sister
broadcasters, the move to RWD was
intentionally a cautious process, to
avoid the pitfalls others had made.
Now that the foundation is laid
with all mobile sites on responsive
design, Pangea Lead Product and
Innovation Manager Victor Cala
says the next step in that process is
to continue gradually adding new
responsive features like info graphics,
audio and video playlists, and live
blogs that help journalists bring
their audiences uncensored news,
responsible discussion and open
debate – now with the best possible
interface across all devices
n
.
All OCB, MBN, VOA and RFE
mobile sites are moving to
responsive design – that means
60 languages, 95 websites, six
brands. Kim Conger, Design
Director and Deputy Director,
Internet Technology and Strategy
at Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty says they are the only in-
house design/development team
launching responsive news sites
for so many languages on the
same platform
PANGEA
RESPONSIVE
W
54
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ISSUE 2 2015
|
THE CHANNEL
www.pangea-cms.com
