The Grady Globe Project Proposal

8 min readSep 5, 2016

The Problem:

The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication has been around for over a century, but it has yet to develop an engaging method of dispersing its news and updates. Currently, Grady puts out a quarterly paper publication for alumni that showcases what’s going on in Grady. However, this limited reach keeps other stakeholders, such as students, faculty, and non-subscribing alumni, out of the loop. Furthermore, the online news feature on Grady’s website is tucked away and the news page itself is limited to a simple blog format. So, more often than not, the most exciting things going on in Grady stick to an undercurrent that limited stakeholders are not aware of.

The solution:

With the revamping of Grady’s website, Sarah Freeman, Grady’s Director of Communication, reached out to us to build a digital publication prototype for a feature of the new website that will better showcase Grady’s news and stories. The new publication, tentatively titled The Grady Globe, will showcase Grady students, faculty, and alumni, as well as other news, in an online magazine format. The Globe will be designed to optimise user engagement and readability. Georgia Tech’s Research Horizons is an excellent example, but we will be drawing from inspiration from other online publications such as The Atlantic and National Geographic.

Like the rennovated Grady website, The Grady Globe will be managed on Wordpress so as to ensure easier management and development on the back-end for those to whom the publication will be passed on for further use and management. It will contain content that is mainly curated and created by the Grady communication staff and its interns, but we will be coordinating and organizing the content into an appealing digital showcase. New content will be rolled out as it is created; but when big events occur, such as the Centennial or the retirement of a distinguished faculty member, etc., The Grady Globe will release a package of stories surrounding the subject matter. This digital publication will signify a new era for Grady as they continue to evolve and bring together alumni, donors, and students in innovative ways.

Research:

Background in Digital Publications

There are three main methods of online publication: Issuu, a content management system (or CMS) such as Wordpress, or building the entire project in HTML/CSS/etc. The strengths and weaknesses of each will be explored here. With Issuu, while you get the print magazine feeling, the user interface and readability are severely lacking; due to an insistence on a print format thrown online, users have to zoom in to the text manually just to read a story. Furthermore, the content has a linear layout, making it a chore to get straight to content towards the back of the book. Building with HTML or a CMS have a decent amount of overlap. The primary advantage of coding the site from the ground up is that the developer has absolute control over the website; however, if management of the digital publication was to be handed off — as will be the case of Grady Digital (name pending) — the amount of control will intimidate amateur developers. Thankfully, a CMS such as Wordpress provides a less intimidating means of control over a developer’s website, and only compromises the amount of control by however much the user is comfortable with.

User/Audience Research

Our client, Sarah Freeman, was originally inspired by Georgia Tech’s digital publication, Research Horizons. Using this as my first point of study, I gathered information about what makes this publication so attractive. I took note of many elements such as a clean layout, sharing capabilities, and interactivity features such as clickable photos, tagged categories, and subscription options(Add picture?). From there, I decided to engage in user research through interviews. I received feedback from three UGA students and one alumnus, Dana Todd. Through this process, I gained insight into the habits, behaviors, and wants and needs of the publication’s targeted audience. It seems that there is a big inclination towards interactivity, specifically clickable features such as social media sharing and digital content like pictures and embedded videos. Most students seem to use their phones to go online, so a mobile friendly publication should be a priority; alumnus Dana shares this outlook as well. There doesn’t seem to be a cohesive platform where students can review the upcoming events and stories of their college, thus there is a need as all three students seemed very interested in checking it out, even if it didn’t pertain to their major. It seems there is a trend towards content more focused on entertainment and diversion. It could be beneficial to consider the idea of a digital publication that features both important informative content (research, upcoming news, etc.) as well as entertaining, relatable content. Another popular element seems to be subject organization that allows users to further click on related articles and resources, a component GA Tech’s publication utilizes well.

Web Design Trend Analysis

With an ever-changing digital environment, it is important to keep up with upcoming trends in web design and layout. Some that I’ve found to be most popular to implement in online publications and collective are card layouts, background animations/video, hover animations, and Google’s Material Design style. Modern users are often well-versed at information gathering and therefore look for fast information and efficiency in websites. Card layouts, background animation/video previews, and hover animations all provide this fast content and allow for efficient site navigating.

Target Audience

Digital-only publications attract a much younger audience on average than print publications do. To attract this audience to our online magazine, we will publish The Grady Globe on a quarterly basis, with articles dispersed on the landing page as they occur. We will also pitch to our client’s colleagues in an effort to diversify content with listicles, guest columns, evergreen pieces, charity spotlights and more.

The Plan:

From our first meeting with our client, we learned that she wants Grady’s new digital publication to be constructed using Wordpress. The publication will be ingrained in Grady’s redesigned website, which is currently being revamped using Wordpress. We are excited to utilize this platform and to ensure that The Grady Globe meets industry standards, we will follow the following preliminary guidelines:

An emphasis on visuals (or at least, an insistence on strong visuals to be used frequently): The Atlantic, National Geographic, New Yorker, and all the other great online magazines use a strong visual on their landing page that draws the user’s eyes right into the site. This will include photos, embedded video, and more.
A long landing page: There should be no lack of content on the front page of the website. A landing page full of content will keep the user on the site for as long as the content can keep them engaged and will promote more clicks.
Simple navigation: If a user can’t find what they’re looking for on your site, then your site has failed its purpose. To ensure simple usability of our website we plan to have a well-organized navigation bar, utilize design theories such as leading lines and framing to point the users’ eyes in the right direction, and more. One thing to note, though, is that the use of a sticky header is not universal, and will be discussed with the client.
Search capability: Since Google Search has obtained internet hegemony, a search option is to be expected on any website, especially on our online publication site containing loads of content. We also want to explore the option of providing related articles and clickables links for further reading. This feature is important because users want to access content quickly and efficiently.
Don’t stick to a single use of columns: We want to diversify our landing page, for example by using three columns for one section, one for the next, and four for the next after that. If a user wanted to read columns and columns of our content, they’d pick up a newspaper.

Tentative Schedule:

Week of September 5th:

Finalize project plan and begin to solidify primary features of digital publication

September 12th-27th:

Start building on Wordpress
Complete wireframe and website early draft

September 27th- October 25th:

Run all prototypes by Sarah & get feedback, go back to Wordpress and iterate
Work towards finalizing beta and practice beta presentation

October 25th- November 29th:

Refine our brand and image
Run everything by Sarah and iterate
Prepare for stage presentation
Have all final work ready!

November 29th- December 10th:

Prepare for SLAM, practice presentations
Ensure Sarah has our final version of the project and everything she needs from us
Get excited!!!

Goals:

Reach goal: Create an engaging, interactive digital publication site that brings together the news and priorities of alumni, donors, and students while featuring a variety of interactivity features that connect users and provide information and entertainment

Realistic goal: Create a user-friendly, interactive digital publication site that brings together the news and priorities of alumni, donors, and students

Base goal: Create a working, usable digital publication site to feature Grady’s selected news

Potential Obstacles:

Although our client, Sarah Freeman, seems extremely responsive, communicating and coordinating with the client still poses an obstacle. It is important that we are able to make ample time to meet with Sarah frequently as she will review our progress and ultimately decide what stays and goes. The next potential obstacle involves working within Wordpress to create a unique entity with interactive features. We will be experimenting with hacking themes etc. in order to create the most engaging format. None of us are super savvy with this technology from the get go, but we are looking forward to navigating through it together. Our final challenge will be creating a viable product that can be maintained and passed on after this semester. From the beginning, we knew we had to keep this in mind because we will not be in charge of the digital publication after its inception. Sarah informed us that Grady interns will most likely be running the site habitually, so it is important that we leave them with something they can use and add to.