Design Process: How Can We Encourage Users to Engage With Journalism Outside of Social Media?
This article outlines the entire design process for a recent project with DPG Media. DPG is the largest media group in the Netherlands and Belgium and they challenged us to find ways of encouraging users to engage with journalism, whilst also incorporating new forms of innovative advertising.
Reader behaviour has radically changed in the last 5 years though media firms are still reliant on traditional advertising models that are now dominated by digital monopolies such as facebook and google.
“As advertisers shift their budgets for traditional media parties to Google and Facebook. We need a competitive advantage in the market. We are looking for innovative products because innovative products are a key driver for advertisers.”
Brief
Key Constraints:
- Product solutions must be digital and mobile-based.
- Products must be suitable for a broad range of demographics.
- Scalability, DPG media is a media giant. Solutions should be applicable to a range of media brands.
Demographics (DPG reader interest insights):
- ‘Gadgetfreak’ 1.5m
- Intellectuelen 3.8m
- Creatives 2.7m
- Home manager 1.6m
- Business & Finance 2.8m
- Avonturier 219k
- Sports fans 3.3m
‘Traditional journalism relies on advertising to operate but most digital advertising is now mediated through social media’
Debrief
As a team, we analysed the brief in a meeting with the client. We conducted a debriefing from the information we obtained.
When is this project successful?
“The solutions can be long term and more speculative, but please keep in mind we are also looking for short-term, feasible solutions that can be easily implemented. There is no long term success without short-term success is our key belief” DPG media.
• Speculative long-term solutions.
• Concrete short-term solutions.
Client project goals:
• New innovative user engagement concepts to invest in.
• Actionable insights into how younger demographics engage with media.
• New innovative forms of advertising.
• Advocate for the avoidance of fake news.
Key Quotes:
- “From every 2 dollars, 1 dollar goes to Google, 0,50 is going is Facebook and 0,50 is aggregated”.
- “Our readers are consumers. It is now very normal to pay for content, while 10 years ago it was not“.
- Focus more on the behaviour of people, the journey map throughout the day”.
- “All newspapers should be involved in the product and it should be scalable to the whole market.”
• “We would like to be perceived as a digital company”.
Goals of DPG Media according to us
• Becoming relevant for a group of people that are disengaged by traditional media journalism.
• Alter people’s negative perception toward advertising.
• Find innovative ways to combine physical and digital media.
Problem Spaces DPG Media
As traditional advertising revenue is increasingly shifting, further toward Google and Facebook, the quality of content is lacking. Starving them of the direct digital revenue they need to pay for fact-based news gathering. Real news costs real money; fake news comes cheap.
There is a business model that works for publishers, but it requires a dramatic shift in mindset and the long hard slog of building a business. That means understanding what customers want, building a product that appeals to them, reaching them, moving them down a sales funnel, and retaining them.
How, where and why?
Consumer behaviour has radically changed in the last 5 years. What is your advertising model if your consumers are predominantly on social media?
Competing with Google and Facebook is incredibly difficult as they are ubiquitous. These monopolies do not fund independent journalism or pay for content. The problem is that traditional media agencies have huge fixed costs, even if you ignore old-world infrastructures like printing presses and delivery trucks; specifically, publishers have to pay salaries, but those costs, by virtue of being fixed, not marginal, have zero impact on a publication’s pricing power in a perfect market.
Concept Map
To better understand the problem spaces we developed a concept map. This allowed us to identify and organise the relevant areas we needed to research.
Initial Research
We conducted desk, user and competitor research to begin to explore how, when and why users engaged with media.
User Personas
As we were working with such a broad range of demographies, it was important for us to identify different user’s media preferences so that would we could better ideate suitable, accessible solutions. This meant we avoided bias and assumptions.
User Research / User Diary
To better understand how, when and why users engaged with media. We asked a range of twenty participants to complete a three-day diary where each logged relevant actions, experiences and thoughts relevant to the context of use. These insights were then analysed and distilled into quantitative and qualitative insights.
Desk Research
Academic Papers
- News Consumption Revisited: Examining the Power of Habits in the 21st Century, LeeCarpini, 2018.
- Fear of Missing Out as a Predictor of Problematic Social Media Use, Franchina V, 2018.
- Getting Hooked on News: Uses and Gratifications and the Formation of News Habits Among College Students in an Internet Environment. Arvind Diddi & Robert LaRose, 2010.
User Research / User Journey Map
Key qualitative insights and touchpoints were then extrapolated and referenced back to the generated profiles so that we could identify pain points and begin to identify early design opportunities that would be relevant to a broad range of users.
Ideation
Drawing from our user research insights, together with competitor analysis, we ideated rough solutions, sorted by the two distinct problem areas. These ideas were then sorted into individual concepts.
Short-listed Concepts DPG Media
• Stories’ concept, which allowed readers to able to swipe through a quick overview of the news, grouped or featured content.
• ‘Reading list’ that allows users to save stories to read at a later time.
• ‘Toggle’ ability to toggle the length of stories between long and short reads.
• ‘Community highlighting’ and sharing feature.
• ‘Audio feature’ for the ability to listen to stories, as well as a daily ‘summary’ podcast of the news.
- Saveable coupon wallet.
Stories Concept
We took our initial concepts and pitched them in a focus group as well as a meeting with the client. After feedback we decided that the stories concept best met the needs of the client brief and user needs, reflecting on our research.
Key Benefits
• Gives readers greater user engagement functionality: the ability able to swipe through a quick visual overview of the news, grouped or featured content.
• Users can swipe between stories, share with friends or save to a reading list to be read later.
• Targeted advertising can be implemented between relatable content.
• Encourages more touch-points throughout the day with live content.
Key Insights
• Users indicated from our research the ability to engage with snack-able content.
• Desk research: the psychology of Instagram (FOMO).
Wireframing & A/B Usability Testing
A range of shortlisted concepts were wireframed and tested. Users are a fundamental part of the design process and each was asked to critique each wireframe so that we could develop and eliminate ideas at an early stage. Following user testing and feedback from different demographics. We decided to develop and further test a refined list of product concepts. Though all our solutions were scalable, we decided to focus on one DPG publication (De Volkskrant) to demonstrate product concepts.
Key User Testing Insights
- The transition between ‘stories’ should be timed as well as clickable.
- Overview of how many stories needs to be visible.
- Where would my stories save to? How/where would I access my reading list?
- This feature should be built on the existing media brands, not a separate app.
- The process should be quick and simple to use.
- User should have the ability to toggle back and forth between stories. Stories are not ephemeral.
Mockups & Concept Development
Mockups were produced and several more rounds of user testing were carried out to validate and develop concepts further, before prototyping.
Prototyping
After 4 rounds of user testing and meeting with the client. The final concepts were developed into interactive prototypes. These were then tested on mobile devices in a focus group with the participants reflecting the range of demographics identified earlier in the process.
Second Concept: Ad-to-Wallet
In addition to the stories concept, we also developed the additional concept of ‘ad-to-wallet’, which worked in conjunction with stories.
Key Relatable Insights
• ‘21% of readers still subscribe to local newspapers solely to collect coupons.’ Observer American Consumer Survey.
• ‘Offer something that you cannot get online. Start with what people care about.’ The post-truth business: Sean Pilot De Chenecey.
Key Benefits
- Together with stories and editorial content, covers the entire awareness, consideration, conversion marketing model.
- Advertisers can increase their reach more easily and increase conversion rates.
- Brands can better track their advertising, demographics, content and offers for a better ROI.
- No app download or registration is required as it works with a native hardware wallet.
- Encourages footfall to physical stores.
- The concept also works in physical print.
Additional Concepts: Usability Features
As well as the final products. We also developed a range of more editorial usability features reflecting the user needs expressed from our research.
- Shareable stories: directly from the ‘stories’ feature with other users.
- Community highlighting: where users can highlight and share parts of an article.
- Reading list: where users can save stories to read later.
- Audio: The ability to listen to content and a daily news podcast.
- Length toggle: where users can choose the length of a story.
Final Solution
The final product is a mobile-based, digital solution that is scalable to other publications as expressed by the client. The product adds several user engagement features that make for a more accessible, enjoyable and legible experience. Advertising is incorporated in an innovative and conjunctive way between stories and ‘Ad-to-Wallet’ concepts, though does not hinder or distract from the overall user reading experience.
Developed Concepts:
- Stories: allows readers to able to swipe through a quick overview of the news, grouped or featured content.
- Ad-to-wallet: Users can collect relevant vouchers from ‘stories’, editorial content or in print and add to a native wallet, encouraging footfall to physical stores.
- Reading list: allows users to save stories to read at a later time.
- Toggle ability: to toggle the length of stories between long and short reads.
- Community highlighting: and sharing feature.
- Audio feature: for the ability to listen to stories, as well as a daily ‘summary’ podcast of the news.
Please click here to view the prototype at your own leisure or visit our website https://www.diagraam.com/dpg to view more videos of the final prototype.
Thanks for reading, please clap if you have enjoyed the article and feel free to follow Diagraam Design for our latest projects as well as practical help and advice on applying design thinking and the design process.
Elliott
Diagraam Design
