More than the latest article.
Our website was built around articles, but our content had grown well beyond them. Podcasts, Instagram carousels, and short videos were exploring the same topics in different ways, across different channels. I designed and built a hub to bring it all together without giving our team another feed to maintain.
Bringing everything onto one page was only part of the challenge. Each format needed to work in a way that made sense, giving visitors an easy way to explore different types of content and discover more of what interested them.
I designed the interface and interactions, then built the publishing automations behind it—keeping the content up to date while leaving room for editorial review where it mattered.
Show the actual page with articles, podcast episodes, Instagram carousels, vertical videos, and the Don't Miss These section.
The Problem & Opportunity
Our website was still largely an article-first experience, even as the team was producing more podcasts, Instagram carousels, and short-form videos. That work had a home on its own channels, but it wasn't easy to discover together.
I wanted to give visitors a broader view of what we were publishing, without replacing those channels or burying the articles, documentary, and other resources that were still worth finding.
Experience Design
I designed a visual identity and icons for the hub, with a layout that could bring different formats together without treating them all the same.
Podcast cards linked to the show's website. Instagram carousels opened on Instagram. Vertical videos played in place directly on the page. Social-channel links gave visitors a way to follow the formats they liked beyond the hub.
I also added a Don't Miss These section to keep core articles, the documentary, and other established resources easy to find alongside the latest content.
Automating Without Losing Editorial Control
I built WordPress custom post types, fields, and PHP templates for the additional content formats. Zapier filtered incoming content—identifying Instagram carousels and distinguishing YouTube Shorts from regular videos using thumbnail details—then sent qualifying posts to a custom WordPress endpoint that created entries and saved their images.
From there, I built two publishing workflows:
Automatic
Podcast could get published automatically and appear in the hub alongside articles scheduled on the Wordpress site.
Draft & Review
Instagram carousels and YouTube Shorts were created as drafts for editorial review. Not every Instagram carousel was an explainer; some were more visual or mood-driven posts that didn't fit the hub.
I set up Slack alerts with a preview image and direct links to the original post and its WordPress draft, making it easy for the content team to review, publish, or delete. Deleting a draft also automatically removed its associated images from the media library, no extra steps reduce bloat.
Automation handled the collecting; the team kept the editorial call.
Iteration & Learnings
After launch, analytics showed that podcast episodes weren't getting much click-through. The cards looked too similar, so I updated them to use each episode's YouTube thumbnail or WordPress SEO image, giving the feed more visual variety and making individual episodes easier to distinguish.
The custom WordPress endpoint also proved useful beyond the hub. I reused it to automate other publishing workflows, including user messages and Fast Facts.
Show a podcast card using the repeated featured-image treatment beside the same card with episode-specific social artwork.