Yuri Victor is
Making Things

Creative technologist with 20 years experience innovating huge digital products and systems. Previously, co-founded Vox.com, launched the largest CMS in publishing, and spent eight years developing AI tools for storytellers. In my free time I volunteer at The Society for News Design helping the next generation of designers.

Who: Vox.com Role: Co-founder

“Vox is for the brainiac nerd types”

— Barack Obama

Launching a journalism startup with friends

As part of the digital leadership team at The Washington Post, we had an idea for a new platform that leveraged design and technology to prioritize depth and context in storytelling. We left and in nine weeks we launched Vox.com. I helped pioneer now-commonplace visual formats like cards, explainers, and long-form storytelling, contributed to the development of a journalism-led CMS, and helped grow Vox.com from a startup to the largest national politics site in one year.

» Read about our sprint to launch
» Visit the current Vox.com

Who: NYTimes Role: Design engineer

Screenshot of a New York Times page with an AI chatbot

Addressing Covid questions with AI

As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, The New York Times faced an influx of reader questions with no way to triage. I worked on a holistic solution, building an internal AI-powered interface for journalists to cluster inquiries, and a searchable database on The New York Times website, allowing readers to ask questions and find answers. The tool helped readers at the peak of the pandemic, and now, dubbed Switchboard, is being used to answer election questions.

» Explore the AI-powered Covid Q&A feature
» Read more about the project

Who: USA Today Role: Lead Designer

Unifying local news sites with a flexible design system

As lead designer for USA Today Network, I spearheaded a multi-year initiative to create a cohesive design system for hundreds of broadcast, radio, and newspaper websites. The challenge was to standardize components to improve user experience while preserving the unique identities of the communities they served, balancing brand consistency with local flavor, and optimizing for completely different content types.

Who: The Verge Role: Design engineer

Screenshot of Circuit Breaker bot conversation

Crafting a quirky bot with The Verge for CES

For Circuit Breaker’s debut, I built a bot that turned the concept of utility on its head. In a landscape saturated with underwhelming chat experiences, we embraced the absurd. The result was a bot of marginal utility, packed with easter eggs, and an intentional failure rate. The approach led to unexpected, and hilarious conversations that went viral across the internet.

» Read about the unconventional bot in The Verge

Who: NYTimes Role: Design engineer

Bringing print to life with image recognition

Working with The New York Times Magazine, I developed a content management system that streamlined production of Google Lens experiences. The project allowed readers to interact with the magazine using their phones, share an article, access aditional content, or see a subject jump off the page through additional multimedia.

» Read about the experience

Who:The Onion Role: Tech lead

Remaking America's finest news source

In just over 50 days, working with MG Strategy and Design, we modernized The Onion's digital infrastructure by migrating 30 years of legacy content to WordPress and implemented a more intuitive and engaging user experience. We also developed a new solution to increase reader benefits and set up a successful membership program.

» View the new site live
» Read more in The New York Times

“It’s a joke at Vox that Yuri can make you anything in 10 min. Today he made me a new tool in 7 min & I hadn’t even asked yet.” — Allison Rockey^♥

Elsewhere

Experimenting with universities in AR

Ezra Klein and I discuss Vox.com one year later

Focus on communication, collaboration, and caring

Why The Washington Post uses WordPress

Open sourcing social sharing tools for everyone

Threads

Instagram

Strava

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