In October 2024, when the product team at the Times launched its most hefty app redesign since its 2008 launch, Emily Withrow, the newspaper’s SVP of product, saw a huge opportunity to enhance engagement. “We produce all of this journalism and have all of this lifestyle content that helps people live informed, joyful lives, but there was no direct pathway to it.”
The goal, she says, was to create a more fluid canvas, allowing the app to reflect the range of stories and content available to readers while maintaining a balanced and informed baseline between news and personalized content. Nothing could feel too curated or too filtered; the center still needed to be news.
The result, says Withrow, is a flexible, dynamic space where readers can toggle among sections, episodes of beloved franchises or favorite columns, and evergreen stories they might otherwise have missed. The app is free to download, but complete access to all Times journalism requires a digital subscription of $24.99 a month. The Times added 250,000 new digital subscribers in the first quarter of 2025.
The product team continues to introduce new features to the app. A Listen tab makes it easier to discover or search the ever-growing library of audio journalism: daily playlists, podcasts, narrated articles. “We had to build a gateway to the full breadth of our journalism and our lifestyle products,” says Withrow. “That is the key tension we were designing for.”
This story is part of Fast Company’s 2025 Innovation by Design Awards. Explore the full list of companies creating products, reimagining spaces, and working to design a better world. Read more about the methodology behind the selection process.