Shaping the fastest-growing Croatian news portal

Net.hr is one of the internet’s media pioneers. 2.8 million people in Croatia use the web and 65-70% visit net.hr regularly. But numbers started to drop and it was clear the portal needed thorough change.
Net.hr is one of internet’s media pioneers. 2.8 million people in Croatia use the web and 65-70% of them visit net.hr regularly. But numbers started to drop and it was clear the portal was in need of thorough change.
Like any other massive media, net.hr is made for a wide audience - one can find both entertainment and relevant information at this address. But since August 2020, net.hr numbers have been decreasing steadily. The challenge was to revive the brand without detaching from its legacy and losing an existing army of loyal readers.
We aimed high and set an ambitious long-term goal: to become the No.1 news portal in Croatia. Our vision: position net.hr as an approachable, fun, and relevant medium.
Plan - establish close daily cooperation between Human and net.hr teams. Take a holistic approach and cover three key segments of the portal: user experience, technology, content.
We analyzed the old website and the competition. Looked into how users consume the content, what the most popular content is and why, and which elements don’t contribute to a positive user experience. Lastly, we’ve matched all the insight from the consumer world with editorial staff’s strategic decisions and the new content concept.
We’ve tested multiple options for design, typography, spaces, sizes, lengths, number of elements, information architecture and functionalities. What we got was a cleaner and clearer layout with some elements added and others removed. We’ve brought back short headlines that enable easier content scanning and given extra space to innovative formats such as original video stories, investigative journalism and long-form native content. And tuned up hundreds of other details.
600 Figma artboards later, Net had fresh aesthetics while keeping it’s beloved, recognizable character.
The new Net has a shiny new technological foundation: Human Content Platform. proprietary content management and delivery product that includes API and CMS. Having the freedom to utilize its features specifically, we’ve arranged the workflows to best suit the Net editorial processes. We ran the website as a Single Application (SPA), using Microservice’s distributed architecture and a spread of top technologies - React, NodeJS, Elasticsearch.
Human CMS, a part of the Human Content Platform, is now adjusted to specific net.hr editorial needs. We simplified the process and made it easily accessible through mobile devices. Journalists can now publish news quickly and on the go. Some other useful CMS features:
Spoiler alert, growth was goood. How do we know? Our long-term goal was to become portal No. 1 in Croatia so we had to grow faster than our competition. We’ve set up the KPIs accordingly. And nailed it. After the expected drop in the first month after launch, Net prints a constant growth. We’ve managed to shift Net’s position from a falling giant into the fastest growing online portal in Croatia.
Total reach
With total reach growth +9,5%
Average Daily Real Users
Pageviews
Net.hr’s growth beat that of the competition
Monthly users
For the first time ever net.hr exceeded this number