The world's environmental stories, now living on your home screen
Mongabay is one of the world’s leading nonprofit environmental newsrooms. We turned the mobile-first experience we’d already built together into a native iOS and Android app, bringing its reporting, videos, audio and alerts into one place.
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TL;DR
Mongabay is one of the world’s leading nonprofit environmental newsrooms. We turned the mobile-first experience we’d already built together into a native iOS and Android app, bringing its reporting, videos, audio and alerts into one place, with personalised feeds and push notifications giving readers a direct route to the stories they care about.
Impact: Mongabay’s millions of readers now have a new way to stay connected to independent environmental journalism, without relying on social media to put it in front of them.
Tech Stack: React Native (Expo) for iOS and Android, GraphQL, serverless AWS backend, OneSignal, Mailchimp, Google Analytics GA4, Mapbox Globe
Services: UX and UI design, native prototyping, app development, backend and infrastructure build, API integration, app store submission, UAT support
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PROBLEM
Mongabay reaches millions of people with independent reporting on the planet, from rainforests and wildlife to climate, conservation and the communities affected by it. At a time when trustworthy information matters more than ever, getting that journalism in front of people was becoming harder. Social referral traffic was falling, algorithms increasingly controlled what readers saw, and Mongabay’s articles, videos, audio and alerts were spread across different parts of the web.
They needed one place readers could come directly to Mongabay, find the stories they cared about, and keep coming back.
In the eyes of the user:
I care about what’s happening to the planet. Give me the Mongabay stories I care about, in one place, without making me hunt for them.
APPROACH
We'd already built Mongabay a mobile-first web experience that made their content feel as fluid as a social feed (minus the doomscrolling guilt). Readers loved it. Mongabay came back and asked the obvious next question: can this be a real app?
Yes. Very yes. All the yes!
Our design team didn't hand over flat mockups; they built a working React Native prototype, so every swipe, scroll, and transition was agreed on actual screens before a line of production code existed. And because a personalised app needs a brain behind it, we built Mongabay a serverless backend on AWS, inside their own infrastructure, so their team keeps control of their data and their costs.
SOLUTION
What the Mongabay app does:
1. One feed, every format
Longform reporting, short videos, audio snapshots and environmental alerts in a single continuously loading feed, pulling in new content the moment it publishes. Watch a video fullscreen, close it, and you're back exactly where you left off.
2. Feeds readers build themselves
The headline act. Readers create custom feeds from the topics, places and formats they care about, filter and reorder them, and set a default. Rainforests in Borneo, ocean stories only, podcasts on your commute: the app learns nothing by stealth. Readers tell it, and it listens.
3. Push notifications, no middleman
Breaking environmental news lands directly on readers' phones via OneSignal. After years of watching social platforms throttle their reach, Mongabay now has a direct line to their audience that nobody can switch off.
4. Accounts without the faff
Email sign-up with a one-time code (no passwords to forget), preferences that follow you across devices, and a guest mode for the commitment-averse.
5. Explore the planet, literally
A Mapbox globe in its own tab, spinning to show environmental alerts where they're happening. Swipe an alert, the world turns with you.
6. Sticky audio
Audio clips pin to the top of the screen and keep playing while you browse. Listen to the news about the ocean while reading the news about the forest.
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CHALLENGES
Turning a web experience into a native app without losing the fluidity that made it work
Building account and personalisation infrastructure from scratch, serverless, in the client's own AWS
Maintaining scroll position across fullscreen transitions (harder than it sounds, worth it every time)
Replacing Mongabay's previous app on Google Play with the new build
Navigating app store review requirements around donation flows
IMPACT
Mongabay's audience now carries trusted environmental journalism in their pocket, shaped around what they actually care about. And Mongabay's newsroom owns the relationship with its readers again: no platform in between, no algorithm holding the door.
It's still early days! The numbers are growing, and they'll be landing right here once they've had a proper chance to show off.
Downloadthe App
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Losing your audience to someone else's algorithm? Let's build them somewhere better to be.
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