Deisgning for Trust
Gallant/The Richmonder | Lead Designer
Executive Summary
A nonprofit news organization needed to launch a digital platform that helped readers navigate election coverage, candidate information, and voting resources ahead of a major election cycle.
At first glance, this looked like a content organization challenge. In reality, it was a trust challenge. Readers needed quick access to complex information, but the experience also needed to feel credible, intuitive, and editorially responsible during a time-sensitive moment where confidence in information mattered deeply.
I helped shape the platform’s information architecture, navigation model, and visual direction to create an experience that made complex news content easier to consume while reinforcing trust in the platform itself. The result was a cleaner, more intuitive product that helped readers find important information faster while maintaining confidence in the source.
The Process
I began by helping the team better understand how users would likely move through the platform.
We initially approached the project like a traditional content platform, but early planning revealed a critical insight: users weren’t consuming information in linear ways. Some entered through specific candidates, while others arrived looking for races, voting logistics, or broader issue research.
That realization reframed the project from building a news site to designing an information system that helped readers quickly find trustworthy answers.
From there, I helped shape the platform’s navigation structure, content hierarchy, and visual design system to reduce friction while reinforcing editorial credibility. The visual language intentionally balanced modern usability with institutional trustworthiness, ensuring the platform felt approachable without undermining confidence.
The Problem
News organizations often assume trust is built solely through editorial quality. In reality, product design plays a major role in whether information feels credible, understandable, and worth engaging with.
Readers arrived with very different goals. Some wanted to research candidates. Others needed information on local races, district-specific issues, ballot initiatives, or basic voting logistics. Many entered the experience under time pressure and needed answers quickly.
The problem was that users weren’t following predictable paths. Without thoughtful structure, the platform risked overwhelming readers with dense information, unclear navigation, and too many competing pathways.
When users struggle to find what they need quickly, trust begins to erode. The real challenge became designing an experience that felt both highly navigable and highly credible.
Results & Learnings
The platform launched successfully ahead of the election cycle and gave readers significantly easier access to important information.
More importantly, the project reinforced a principle that continues to shape how I approach product design:
Trust is often built through clarity.
When users can quickly understand where they are, what they’re reading, and how to find what they need, confidence grows.
This project strengthened my ability to design products where usability and trust are equally important, and reinforced how deeply product design can influence credibility in high-information environments.