NOS 2024
Reimagining wartime storytelling for deep emotional engagement
In 1945, the streets of the Netherlands were filled with the sounds of celebration, fear, and uncertainty as the country was liberated from Nazi occupation. The stories of those who lived through that last year, from resistance fighters to civilians and soldiers, are still echoing today. For the 80th anniversary of this historic event, Dutch broadcaster NOS tasked us with creating a digital space where these voices could be heard throughout the year. With a tight budget and a limited timeframe my team and I were up for a challenge.
My role
As the UX designer (and the WW2 nerd) on the team, I was responsible for creating the core conceptual ideas, crafting the storytelling approach, leading group discussions to find solutions and designing flows and interactions. While I chipped in on some visual design work my primary focus was on UX. Let's take a look at our solution.
Personal wartime stories
Our core concept revolved around immersing users in the war's final year through deeply personal narratives. We aimed to make it relevant and captivating by emphasizing emotional connections and showcasing diverse viewpoints from various characters.
Following the eywitnesses
At the heart of the experience is the idea of following eyewitnesses on their personal journeys. Each character offers a unique perspective, giving users the chance to experience history through their eyes. Fittingly, we named the online experience The Eyewitnesses (or 'De Ooggetuigen' in Dutch).
Each character has a dedicated page with detailed information, an overview of their episodes, and related historical events.
Scrolling down reveals the episode list and a map of their journey, which simultaneously displays the liberation of the Netherlands.
Snackable cinematic experience
With the majority of NOS’s audience accessing content via mobile, we took a mobile-first approach and designed the stories in way that they would be short but engaging. They consist of a mix of content formats—audio, video, and photos—narrated by news anchors and supported by music.
Unlocking new stories throughout the year
To keep users coming back we unlocked new chapters and characters as the year progressed, corresponding with key moments in the liberation's timeline 80 years ago. This feature allowed users to explore fresh content that aligned with real historical events, creating a sense of progression.
Context
The brief & the pivot
The public broadcaster, came to us with a clear but challenging brief. Having successfully launched a time-based liberation website for the 75th anniversary 5 years ago, they wanted to take a different approach for the 80th. Their hypothesis: people are more interested in what happened in their own location rather than following a strict chronological timeline.
From "time-axis" to "place-axis"
Based on this hypothesis NOS created an initial concept centered around an interactive map of the Netherlands combined with a time slider. Pins on the map would open articles from the chronological 75th anniversary website. Their idea was to shift from the previous "time-axis" approach to a "place-axis" approach, making the liberation story more locally relevant.
The 75th anniversary website was a traditional chronological news site showing articles from 75 years prior (left). The initial 80th anniversary concept focusing on location-based content (right). Design and development by NOS.
The Pivot Moment
But that wasn't the approach we went with in the end. Our kick-off discovery workshop with the NOS team revealed a crucial insight. While place-based content was indeed relevant, we discovered that people connect more deeply through human stories than geographical locations. The emotional connection and personal relatability of individual experiences became our north star.
We discovered that people connect more deeply through human stories than geographical locations.
A 10-week pressure cooker
The project operated under intense constraints that shaped every decision:
10-week timeframe: 4 weeks for discovery and design, 6 weeks for development
Fixed budget with no room for scope expansion
Pre-committed technology: the Micrio storytelling platform, designed for interactive visual narratives
Process
Constraints as catalysts
Working within a 10-week timeline and fixed budget meant every decision had to be both creative and pragmatic. Rather than seeing our constraints as limitations, they became the driving force behind our most innovative solutions. Here's how we turned pressure into breakthrough thinking.
Creating the concept
Following the discovery workshop insights, I led our internal ideation sessions to translate "intergenerational dialogue" into a digital experience. Through rapid whiteboard sketching and ping-ponging between group discussions and individual exploration, we focused on our core expertise areas - for me, that meant concept development, interaction design, and user flows.
Concept exploration in action - sketching ideas while continuously checking "can we actually build this?" with our dev team.
The Netflix effect for World War II
We wanted users to connect with real people from the war, not just read about historical events. By putting diverse characters front and center, from wartime mothers to teenage resistance fighters, we created what we called the Netflix effect: compelling personal stories that would bring people back for more.
Our cast characters ensured there was someone for everyone to follow, touching on subjects that still divide and connect today's society through cinematic storytelling techniques.
Bringing history to life with AI
While designing, I realized archival content was predominantly black and white, creating emotional distance. From previous experience, I knew colorized images could bring history to life. Through AI colorization, we transformed these photographs into vivid, relatable portraits and scenes that made the stories feel immediate and real.
Designing the journey
Moving from whiteboard sketches to wireframes in Figma, I mapped out the complete user journey to identify remaining design challenges and technical hurdles that needed solving.
Navigating four critical challenges
With our concept defined and user flow mapped, we hit the reality of our constraints. The tight timeline and technical limitations meant we faced four make-or-break challenges that would determine the project's success. Each required creative problem-solving that balanced user needs with practical feasibility.
Challenge #1
Map complexity vs. development reality
How do we create an engaging map experience that's technically feasible within our timeline?
Challenge #2
Context vs. personal connection
How do we tell personal stories while providing enough historical context for users with limited WWII knowledge?
Challenge #3
The CMS Dilemma
How can we enable NOS to update content without investing all our development time in a complex content management system?
Challenge #4
Return engagement
How do we ensure people come back throughout the commemoration year?
Challenge #1
A video-based map solution
While researching map tools and discussing with the developers, we concluded that interactive maps like Google Maps or Mapbox would be too time-consuming to implement. I then led a discussion on alternatives, and we decided to create video maps showing each character’s path. Sliding through the episode carousel plays 3-second segments, giving geographical context and progression without added technical complexity.
Various stills from the character map videos. Map design by our visual designer, videos produced by NOS.
Challenge #2
Introducing a contextualizing character
Users needed historical context to understand the liberation's progression without overshadowing personal narratives. I proposed creating created "De Opmars" (The Advance): a contextual character delivering news-style episodes about major war developments. These episodes were woven into character stories and collected on a dedicated page, balancing the bigger picture with human connection.
News-style episodes received distinct visual treatment to differentiate them from personal character stories.
De Opmars' (The Advance) provided essential historical context through news-style storytelling, balancing personal narratives with broader war developments.
Challenge #3
Pragmatic CMS approach
We decided to hard-code everything outside of Micrio on the main website. Since NOS only needed to add content for one year, we could handle the technical complexity while they focused on storytelling. This pragmatic approach saved weeks of development time and avoided the "hidden costs" of misusing Micrio as a full CMS.
Challenge #4
Strategic content scheduling
We implemented time-based content unlocking tied to historical dates (per the schedule shown earlier) and I designed outro screens guiding users to related stories.
To amplify this strategy, I identified opportunities to leverage NOS's existing reach: prime-time news, WWII Instagram channels, and successful WhatsApp channels. I specifically proposed a dedicated WWII WhatsApp channel to notify users of new character releases.
The website launched with a big bang thanks to news coverage during the 18:00 and 20:00 NOS Journaal broadcasts.
Instagram and WhatsApp integration for ongoing user engagement.
Outcomes
Strong engagement with meaningful time investment
Results
95.000 visitors
At launch The Eyewitnesses attracted nearly 95,000 visitors and generated over 200,000 page views. These strong initial numbers demonstrate that there is a genuine appetite for character-driven historical storytelling among Dutch audiences.
5-minute sessions
The nearly 5-minute (!) average session time significantly exceeded typical website engagement, proving that our cinematic storytelling approach successfully held users' attention. This deep engagement validated our strategy of prioritizing emotional connection over location.
With new stories releasing throughout 2025, I'm eager to see how engagement evolves. As a WWII history enthusiast, this project was particularly rewarding, combining my passion for the subject with the challenge of making these important stories accessible to new generations.
"We have beautiful first results to build upon throughout the year, ones where the eyewitnesses will continue to be enriched with compelling content."
José de Vries, Head of Product NOS
