Design proposal · 1 September 2026

The ZinUp Reader

The feed on a phone, rebuilt — and what I got wrong.

The feed on a phone

Rebuilt against your examples. Scroll it — the shape of each row changes as you go down.

The rebuilt mobile feed: full-width lead photograph, then a two-across row, then two stacked items, then briefs
New. Lead → two across → two stacked → briefs.
The previous version, with a small inset image and no variety
What you saw before. Small inset picture, one story, then briefs.

What changed

The picture
Full width, edge to edge. It was 55% of the screen with margins round it. Now 100%.
Variety
The two-across row now exists. It had been built for desktop and never carried over to the phone — which is why every version you saw was a lead and then briefs.
Density
Five stories on the first screen, up from one.
Clutter
Listen, the language buttons and our internal wording are gone from the feed. They belong on an open article.
Tall pictures
Book covers stay tall instead of being cropped into a landscape box.

Where I couldn’t do what I promised

Your examples aren’t here to compare against
I said I’d put your Guardian screenshot next to ours. I can’t — the images you sent live in our conversation, not as files anything here can open. What was built instead was a reconstruction of your example from written notes, which is not the same thing and not worth your time.

If you still have those screenshots, sending them as files would let me do the comparison properly. Otherwise judge this one on its own.
Desktop hasn’t been redone
Deliberately — the phone was what you were looking at. Desktop already had the two-across row, so it was never the broken one.
One thing removed that was there on purpose
A line reading “held in the archive, not shown in this feed” is gone. It existed so articles too short for the feed weren’t invisible. Removing it was right for the clutter, but those pieces now vanish from the feed with no trace — worth deciding properly rather than by accident.

Still yours

Mockups, or the real thing
I’d rather build this into the live reader so you judge the actual product instead of more pictures. Your site, no publishers on it, revertible in a minute.
Round photographs of people
No bubbles — does that extend to headshots?