Alhurra app wins the SND Award of Excellence
Alhurra Television won the Society for News Design (SND) Award of Excellence for the redesign of its mobile app.
The redesigned app adds new features to accommodate Alhurra’s audience in the Middle East and North Africa. This includes a new custom designed Arabic font for enhanced readability, low-bandwidth mode, and offline saving of content. This saves on load time and user data costs which is a huge barrier in emerging markets.
Alhurra’s mobile app introduces a new live-stream television function and tying push notifications about breaking news to drive viewership. It enables its users to share photos, videos and audio from other apps and has a user-generated content section with simplified information.
“We are extremely proud of this recognition of the SND Awards. We always strive for excellence when it comes to generating content and delivering it to our audience,” stated the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) President Brian Conniff. MBN manages and operates Alhurra Television.
The Alhurra app is produced in partnership with the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Digital & Design Innovation (ODDI).
The Society for News Design SND is an international organization for news media professionals and visual communicators who create print, web, mobile publications and products. The Best of Digital Design is an annual competition that rewards skill, innovation and high-quality digital journalism. The competition was launched in 2002 and invites entries from all news sites published anywhere in the world.
Alhurra is operated by the non-profit corporation MBN. MBN is financed by the U.S. Government through a grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent federal agency. The BBG provides oversight and serves as a firewall to protect the professional independence and integrity of the broadcasters.