We’re proud to share that ABC News has been recognised with a Good Design Award in the Digital Design category, one of Australia’s most respected design accolades. This achievement reflects the dedication of our team to reimagine how Australians experience news in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
The “Future News” website & app redesign project wasn’t just about refreshing ABC News. It was about tackling one of the industry’s biggest challenges: news avoidance. Our goal was clear: prove that authoritative, trusted journalism can be delivered in a way that feels modern, engaging, and accessible for all Australians.
Redefining News for a Digital Audience
Future News was driven by a bold ambition: transform ABC News digital experiences to be relevant for emerging and underserved audiences. We challenged the perception that news must be formal or intimidating, creating a design that is vivid, approachable, and easy to navigate.
This transformation went far beyond aesthetics. It was grounded in an audience-first strategy, shaped by extensive research and real user feedback. We looked to interrogate and bring a design & audience-led approach to foundational challenges facing the news industry, including:
The challenge of engaging and building a direct relationship with younger audiences & women, many of whom feel digital news destinations aren’t designed for them.The rapidly evolving audience expectations of a modern, digital experience and digital storytelling formatsThe industry-wide challenge of news avoidance behaviours, with people reporting news has a negative impact on mood as a key reason they are consuming less news [Digital News Report: Australia 2025]Taking a design-centred, strategic approach to understanding these problem spaces – we built the future news design project around three focus themes:Delivering digital-first experiences for the breadth & diversity of ABC’s journalism and storytellingBuilding habit and deeper relationships with readersReducing news avoidance through more inviting experiencesThe result? A cleaner, more colourful interface, dynamic storytelling tools, and features that make news consumption simpler and more rewarding.Designing with PurposeTo deliver on ABC’s forward strategy & our ambition to provide a modern news experience for all Australians. This project required a considered design process, tailored for the news context.
A core project team made up of designers, journalists, editors, product, engineering and digital product researchers helped ensure the design was built with deep understanding of journalism and audience, along with technical and production feasibility.
The design process started with an extensive industry and internal research review focused on the project’s key questions & audience challenges. We then built a design vision for the news products through an innovative, iterative design sprint process that incorporated ‘futures thinking’ workshops, a news user needs model fit for the ABC’s unique context, co-design sessions with editors & journalists and dozens of hours of primary audience research.
Every design solution was then prototyped, tested and refined with existing loyal users of ABC News and underserved, emerging news audiences from across the country. As we launched the new-look design, audience were central to the rollout plans , with audience and journalist feedback resulting in ongoing improvements to the layout and visual design.
What Changed and Why It Matters Comment by Nathan Elvery: should probably refine this list of changes e.g. new homepage layout
The redesign introduced a modern look & feel, that’s calmer and more unified experience across the website and app.
Key improvements include:
A new homepage with dynamic layout options that can reflect the news agenda & showcase our stories in more powerful waysModern colour palette for clarity, emphasis, helping audiences understand diversity of story types as they scan the newsDynamic vertical video and rich media storytelling, with audio & video cards integrated into the top storiesPersonalised ‘For You’ feed for relevant, swipeable news, and feeds tailored to suit your moodContent signposting like labels and read time estimates to help audiences more easily understand the newsWhy This Award Matters
This year’s Good Design Award is more than recognition for this project — it’s validation that design can transform how people connect with news. Future News is a step toward making ABC News inclusive, modern, and indispensable for Australians today and tomorrow. We’re looking forward to continuing to evolve the ABC’s digital news experience to better serve our audience.
A special thank you to the “Future News” project team that worked tirelessly to deliver this work: Simon Ward (Visual design lead), Sophie Brown (design research), Veronica Apap (News, New Audience Lead), Peter Marsh (News, Supervising Producer) Nathan Elvery (Group Product Manager), Francis Keil (designer), Anthony Bratovich (News design lead), Alex Sommerfeld (Engineering, Tech Lead) and Grant Sherlock (Managing Editor, News Digital).