A newspaper without a paywall needs readers who are happy to pay

My role

Research and strategy, experience design & design system set-up

As part of BIRD UX, I had the privilege of accompanying the taz on its ‘Seitenwende’ from 2020 until the relaunch of its publishing website in September 2023 – the shift from a printed to a digital daily newspaper. Together with my colleague Stefanie Kegel at BIRD UX, I was responsible for UX research and UX strategy, the experience design of the publishing website and building the design system.

The project

A publisher with many voices and one bold decision

How does a national daily newspaper without a paywall stay viable through the media crisis? The taz was already asking itself that question in 2018. Its answer was bold: the weekday edition would, in future, be published digitally only. A step like that needs solid foundations – and those include the publishing website, where people take out a subscription, support ‘taz zahl ich’ or become members of the cooperative.

The taz publishing house, however, is a complex ecosystem that covers far more than subscriptions and advertising. It includes travel, events, the taz Panter Foundation, a fund for foreign reporting, the cooperative and customer service, each organised as its own department. And each department brought its own wishes, requirements and ideas of what ‘the new website’ should deliver.

On top of that, three conditions shaped the project:

• New project processes, a lot of commitment. The project team was made up of highly committed taz staff who carried the ‘Seitenwende’ project alongside their day-to-day work. Some of them were taking part in a user-centred design process for the first time.
• A pandemic for a kick-off. Covid hit right in the middle of our starting phase. All interviews, workshops and usability tests had to move online at short notice.
• Scalability from day one. We were designing the publishing website, but other digital products, such as the editorial website and the taz app, had to be considered too.

How we worked: principles before pixels

One shared vision for every department

The first question wasn’t ‘What should the website look like?’ but ‘What is the vision for the taz of the future?’ Semi-structured stakeholder interviews made the needs and pain points of each department visible to everyone. In vision workshops with the taz teams, we sharpened the strategic direction. Moderated usability tests showed what readers really need.

This gave rise to the taz’s three design principles: ‘inclusive, solidary, iconic’. They became the shared yardstick for every decision that followed. Whenever we disagreed, one question helped: is it inclusive? Is it solidary? It doesn’t always make discussions shorter, but it does make them a great deal fairer.

Our results included not only a vision and design principles, but also a problem definition including a requirements analysis.

Structure from the readers’ point of view

Next, in further workshops with the publishing house and the newsroom, we analysed and reorganised the content types of every department. Card sorts and tree tests showed how users really navigate. The result was a hub concept that groups content by topic. Since then, the navigation has followed visitors’ questions rather than the org chart.

Nowhere was this clearer than on the subscription overview. Remember the ‘too much’ from the beginning? There were too many offers with too much information, and hardly any way to compare them. Our answer: clear imagery, short, structured copy and reworked UX copy. Here, the design principle ‘inclusive’ means something very concrete: plain language and a structure that overwhelms no one. Wireframes for the prioritised business areas then laid the groundwork for the design system.

The end result: a clear information architecture for the publishing house and the newsroom, user-centred navigation and interaction design for the prioritised areas.

A design system that thinks beyond the publishing house

Alongside the concept work, we built a design system together with the art directors Janine Sack and Christian Küpker. It needed to work not only on the publishing website, but later on the editorial website and in the app as well. New page types can be built quickly and cost-effectively, and the taz’s many products look and feel all of a piece.

What we delivered: a scalable design system for the publishing house, newsroom and app, plus more efficient design and development processes.

What we achieved

The new publishing website went live in September 2023, followed in October 2024 by the new editorial website at taz.de (in German), both built on the design system we developed together. The result:

• More than twice as many ‘taz zahl ich’ sign-ups. Before the taz.de relaunch (weeks 22–41 of 2024), an average of 101 people a week signed up; afterwards (week 42 of 2024 to week 2 of 2025), it was 206 a week.
• Navigation that speaks the users’ language, rather than mirroring the publisher’s internal structure.
• Coherent experience and visual design that strengthens the taz brand and lets people experience the full range of what the publisher does.
• A design system that lives on. After the publishing website relaunch, the agency a id="a1">Palasthotel took over, developing the design system further together with the art directors.
• Happy taz readers. The taz.de relaunch went down very well with the community, as the feedback showed: ‘The new look of the website is wonderful, a real step forward for readability. I’m coming to appreciate this offer more and more and read it more often. So I’ll be increasing my voluntary contribution too. Thank you!’

And then the ‘Seitenwende’ became reality: since 17 October 2025, the taz has been published on weekdays in digital form only. It’s still a daily newspaper, just no longer on paper. The weekly edition, wochentaz, is still available in print. I’m rather proud to have helped shape part of that journey. 💙

My takeaway

Online workshops take more energy than the calendar suggests. We managed to move the entire research and workshop phase online successfully. But it was more draining than any in-person format. Wobbly connections, camera-off tiles and screen fatigue mean that people concentrate less well and for shorter stretches. That’s why, to this day, I plan online formats to be shorter, more bite-sized and with more breaks – to keep workshops genuinely productive.

Working even more closely along UX maturity. The taz team achieved great things with a lot of heart and very little time. Looking back, though, I would have made the team’s UX maturity the benchmark earlier and more systematically: which methods, what depth and what kind of handover suit a team running a project alongside its day jobs? That insight was one of many that inspired the UX Maturity Snapshot, which every new Truly XD project now starts with. The UX Maturity Snapshot is a compact assessment of an organisation’s actual UX maturity, from which realistic solutions emerge. More about the Truly XD design process.

What this has to do with your project

Not taking a daily newspaper digital? No worries. Whether you’re a university, an association, a public institution or a values-driven business: many organisations have more departments than resources and more wishes than space on the homepage. Which is why the lessons from the taz’s ‘Seitenwende’ translate surprisingly well:

• Transparency first, design second. When every department can see what the others need, everyone starts working towards a shared goal.
• Your navigation belongs to your users, not your org chart. Research methods such as card sorting and tree testing quickly show how people really search, and spare you more than one debate.
• Commitment is no substitute for capacity. If your team is running a project alongside its day jobs, the methods, pace, handover and milestones need to fit. That’s exactly what the UX Maturity Snapshot is for.
• A design system has to outlive your project. Built for the next page types, the next teams and – yes – the next agency.