Globo.com Mobile web

Brought South America's largest website to mobile.

Fjord — Design Lead — Rio de Janeiro / São Paulo — 2013-14

CONTEXT

Globo, the world's second-largest television network, plays a central role in the lives of hundreds of millions of people across Brazil and Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking markets. In 2011, Globo asked us to help bring their vast content universe — news, sports, entertainment, technology — onto mobile.

Challenge

At that time, mobile internet penetration in Brazil was uneven, with a wide spectrum of devices from basic feature phones to high-end smartphones. Apps would have excluded a large part of the market. The challenge was to design a unified experience across four device categories, while translating Globo's rich desktop-first brand into the mobile context — at scale.

My Role

As part of the design leadership team, I defined the approach and led the design process, ensuring Globo's identity carried over consistently while optimizing usability across very different mobile environments. I worked closely with Globo's stakeholders to align vision and requirements, guided a multi-disciplinary team, and made sure accessibility and scalability remained at the core.

Approach

Defined mobile strategy with a focus on web-first accessibility. Designed for four distinct device classes (feature, touch, smart, high-end). Translated Globo's brand and content structures into a mobile-first system. Facilitated co-creation and alignment with Globo teams across editorial and tech. Iterated through testing and validation with real users.

Outcome

The new design emphasizes visual storytelling with improved image treatment and typography hierarchy, resulting in significantly improved engagement metrics.

Achievements

Successful launch of Globo's first mobile portals. Rapid adoption: 10 million unique users/month and 245 million monthly page views. Became Brazil's most visited mobile web service, surpassed only by Google and Facebook. Enabled one-third of Brazil's mobile internet users to access Globo content anytime, anywhere. Set a new standard inside Globo for designing at the intersection of brand, accessibility, and scale.