HSBC News Aggregator App

The app needed to pull in content from several internal sources as well as external news sources. This created challenges as each source provided images in different formats (if at all), different meta data, and article content formatted differently.

The app needed to be personalised so users could set what sectors, regions, theme, sources and companies they were interested in. It also needed to allow users to follow colleagues to see what articles they were reading.

The app needed to be able to share articles with other app users as well as clients who were not using the app. This created challenges on how best to manage this process.

We needed to understand the format of the meta data that we would receive from each source so we could create a consistent experience. Based on this, we were able to determine a suitable aspect ratio for cover images, character lengths for titles and excerpts, and categories for content.

We researched other news aggregators to see how they managed these challenges and worked closely with engineering to determine the most suitable approach which would give a good experience whilst not creating major technical issues.

We engaged with a number of Relationship Managers to understand their experiences of news apps and how they currently engaged with clients.

We delivered the app over three phases. The first was an MVP, aggregating content and allowing this to be shared. The second phase introduced personalisation, search functionality and general enhancements. The final phase (when the product was officially launched) introduced onboarding, further personalisation and general enhancements.

We received excellent feedback from stakeholders and users of the app.