The Arc, a seed-funded news media startup, has its finger on the pulse of India’s high-growth companies
January, 2025
Product and Brand Design
Owner
The Arc
Founders
Aditi Srivastava
Madhav Chanchani
Team Members
Ishita Taak
Aditya Sah
Priyanka Satyarthi
Sakshi Garg
Sushant Ajnikar
Industry
News and Publishing

Brand Design

Problem

The old brand language and UI was dated, and the team even faced functional issues with its the brand elements, like the font.

Target Audience

Early career professionals as well as high-level executives in multibillion-dollar companies.

Process

Moodboarding
UI Sampling
Font selection

Impact

A consistent brand language that was able to communicate the brand’s message and offerings across all communication channels.

AUG '24

User Flow Research

Why we started this research?

Once all the features of the MVP were in place, we received user feedback on the product, but we did not have a data-backed view of the typical user/user experience on their product. We had multiple questions, like: what are our user groups, what are the users liking/disliking in the website in terms of UX and UI, what topics are they following, etc.

It was time to understand the users of The Arc through real data.

The problem arose–how do you get personal data from top-level executives of multi-billion dollar companies? Their hesitance is understandable, so how and where we ask for this data will be crucial to the accomplishment of our task.

Next steps?

• Pick out news media companies with a similar DNA to The Arc, who have been pursuing the gig at scale and have perfected the user journey.

• Note at what point/s in the user journey they have introduced the login wall, and what's accessible without login

• Notice the benefits of the login wall for the user experience

• Document what the login nudges look and read like

Ideal solution

Pre-login: mobile + desktop
• Login modals at multiple touchpoints (TBD)
• Login flows for Google, apple, email, LinkedIn

Post login: mobile + desktop
• My Account
   - Manage topics/categories (for alerts/notifications)
   - Manage newsletter
   - Manage notifications
   - Manage personal information

Cookies preferences

Additional features (like, save articles, create reading lists, comment, etc.)

Prototypes

• Complete login flow: mobile + desktop

Co-creation with founders and engineers

We conducted workshops with founders and the tech team to understand the most relevant and fastest way to implement the login wall.

Insights from the workshops:

• Least effort login method–for the devs and the user–is through gmail auto-login. Additionally, given The Arc's context, LinkedIn might be a good second option.

• There needs to be functionality on the backend to keep selected articles inside or outside the login wall to gauge traction.

• Need to keep phases of login testing with close monitoring, where we start with blocking off the user's primary needs on the platform.

Decided Scope

• Pre-login components (mobile + desktop)

   - Gmail, Linkedin and custom login
   - Login pop-up, minimised modal, login page, article and company page login wall, search feature login wall

• Prototyping and testing

SEP - OCT '24

Design System

Problem

Rapid additions to the product started to demand a common truth among founders, designers and developers, and a desperate need to reduce time and efforts in the development process.

Impact

A cohesive design system to ensure consistency within the product as well as the brand language–all in a month's time.

Process

• Create the building blocks: grids, spacing, type-scale, colours, image aspect ratio.

• Collate and categorise existing components by type: Atoms > Molecules > Organisms

• Implement the building blocks on said components

• A/B testing

• Prototyping

OCT '24

Editorial Design

What is this report?

The report is the materialisation of The Arc's tagline "Mapping the arc of high-growth companies". It provides a macro as well as the micro-view of Swiggy as a company in the food-delivery and quick commerce industry.

The opportunity that The Arc's editorial team wanted to grab was Swiggy's much-awaited IPO. The team created an extensively researched report, with an exclusive interview of Swiggy’s founder, Sriharsha Majety, plus over a dozen interviews. They also explored the organizational structure of Swiggy’s top management team, how its product strategy differs from that of Zomato, and what Swiggy's future may hold.