New design challenge!
Socialj students start with audience needs, not content
Journalists are waking up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it’s not all about *us.* What does our audience need? What makes the news we all know is important also relevant in ways that can grab tired, overwhelmed people’s attention?
Design thinking is among the tools we introduce students to in the social journalism program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Just today, I read two great pieces about how the New York Times used the principles of human/user-centered design in launching a new product, The New York Times En Espanol, “which will offer readers 10 to 15 translated-into-Spanish Times stories daily, supplemented by Spanish-language reporting and curating of other relevant media out of its new center in Mexico City,” according to Ken Doctor.
Juliette Melton of the NYT describes how her design team used interviews, observation and other ethnographic techniques to better understand latent needs, “meaning something that could make someone’s life better, but which they might not flat-out ask for” in their pre-launch work in Mexico City. Ken Doctor offers a detailed analysis of the entrepreneurial approach the NYT took in combining rich qualitative insights with A/B testing to find the sweet spot for its new product.
Here’s our design challenge. Given limited time, our approach is a little bit shallower than might be ideal, but we wanted to give the students real-world practice with some of these techniques. Thoughts or advice for them welcomed!
2016 Design Challenge: How can public media develop new relationships with potential donors?
To grow and remain vital in the digital age, public media needs to explore new strategies for membership that go beyond the traditional pledges and paywalls. As modes of listening shift, it is increasingly difficult to cultivate donors.
The key to membership, former NPR digital strategist Melody Kramer found, is “building relationships with potential donors.” This is what leads to the potential for sustained support.
If we are going to help public media develop stronger relationships with readers, we need to deepen our understanding of what people like to listen to and how/when/where they listen to it. WHY do people listen? Why do they listen to certain things at *this* time, but don’t listen to it at other times? What defines those boundaries? Ask if they will share what’s on their phone/other device, if they listen to podcasts.
We need to understand people’s relationships to shows/hosts/stations. We need to begin to understand what problems people have that a stronger relationship with public media could solve. We need to understand how people develop loyalty to media and how to strengthen it.
Our main focus here is on non-music content…but be open to insights from music listeners as well. Music listeners’ habits — including how they find new music, what they look for from music, if they ever listen to talk/podcasts and if not, why not — could also be very revealing.
We’ll be taking a design thinking approach to this problem and reporting back by giving a presentation to some representatives of interested public media stations. Your insights here may be used in actionable ways by real media companies.
We’ll work through each of the steps — empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test.
The first step will require you to interview and observe as many people as possible in their listening behaviors.. You’ll want to think carefully about the kinds of questions you ask and try to eliminate your own assumptions. This does NOT mean interviewing your friends and family. Go to places like train stations where commuters may be listening to podcasts or similar or other public places. Be creative in your approach.
