[ Case study ]
WSJ+: Subscriber Onboarding Design Sprint
A design sprint that turns a brand-new WSJ subscription into an engaged, personalized relationship. The three-step onboarding gets readers into the app, learns their interests and professional profile, and makes WSJ's 50+ newsletters genuinely discoverable through recommendations. Designed responsively across web and app in parallel, it earns engagement instead of demanding data, never blocking the path forward.
- Client
- Dow Jones - The Wall Street Journal
- Role
- Lead UX Architect
- Year
- 2026
- Disciplines
- Onboarding, Personalization, Design Sprint, Enterprise UX, Responsive Design
3
step onboarding: app, interests, newsletters
50+
newsletters made discoverable and recommended
2
surfaces designed in parallel: web and app
[ Information architecture ]
Get the app
- QR code
- SMS link
Personalize
- Interests
- Professional profile
Newsletters
- Recommended
- Browse all
Confidentiality notice
This work spans active platform strategy, shared AI capabilities, and multiple product surfaces. To respect that, this case study stays intentionally high-level, focusing on the cross-brand design problem, platform principles, and reusable outcomes rather than brand-specific implementation details.
The moment right after someone subscribes to The Wall Street Journal is where engagement is won or lost. In a focused design sprint I designed the onboarding that uses that moment well: instead of dropping a new subscriber onto the homepage, it walks them through a short, considered flow that turns a transaction into a personalized relationship.
The challenge
A new subscriber arrives motivated but un-oriented. The flow had to do three jobs without ever feeling like a data-collection wall: pull readers into the WSJ app where engagement is highest, learn enough about each reader to recommend the right coverage, and make WSJ's deep catalog of newsletters genuinely discoverable. It had to work as one coherent system across both desktop web and mobile.
- Drive app adoption - the highest-retention surface - right at activation
- Capture interests and a professional profile to power recommendations
- Surface 50+ industry newsletters without overwhelming the reader
[ Protected layer ]
The full case study is available on request.
High-fidelity screens, information architecture and the detailed process for this enterprise project are shared under NDA. Enter the access password, or request access and I will share the full walkthrough.