Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose, acclaimed interviewer and Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, engaged Method to redefine and redesign his television program's website, CharlieRose.com. Not merely a video repository, Charlie Rose envisioned a compelling branded online experience that would convey the thoughtful, intimate, and purposeful history and legacy of the conversations that take place at Charlie Rose's table. Charlie Rose has a deep and rich archive of unique content, a loyal audience, and a prestigious and respected brand. The existing website, however, failed to expose the true breadth and depth of the exceptional material that it housed and was not representative of the brand. The challenge for Method was to design an experience that would allow easy and intuitive navigation of over 4,000 hours of video and to surface this content in a way that would engage users and motivate them to browse deeper, longer, and more broadly. Method worked collaboratively with the Charlie Rose web team to explore solutions. Our multidisciplinary team brainstormed approaches and prioritized features to establish a work plan that honored technical constraints, budget considerations, and project timelines. A phased rollout of features was planned and designed, including future content sponsorship integration and enhanced video controls. Method's user experience and design teams explored numerous conceptual solutions to develop an approach that would provide users with the greatest navigational ease and the ability to quickly surface interesting and relevant content. The system selected allows the Charlie Rose editorial staff to promote shorter highlights from the long-form interviews, expose unique thematic threads and collections, and emphasize timely and relevant content from current and archival shows as well as web-exclusive material A revised taxonomy supports the needs of visitors seeking specific information or video clips on the site, and enhanced tagging and thematic organizational structures support and encourage discovery of a broader variety of content. Charlie Rose staff can edit interviews into shorter clips directly through the custom CMS that Method implemented. Finally, we developed an aesthetic approach for the site design that mirrors Charlie Rose's engaging interviewing style and sophisticated set. Elements from the show, such as the black background used on the studio set, are incorporated to reinforce the core elements of the brand. Method's team of technical developers ported an existing Java-based CMS into Python. The robust frontend systems (HTML/CSS/Flash) are designed to support Google video, as well as future alternative video player solutions.

Method

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