Mobile is the future of news — now what?
The Guardian mobile innovation lab kick-off event in early November brought together more than 40 leaders from across mobile and digital media for a day of exploration of the largest quandaries and questions facing news organizations as they expand into mobile environments. The goal, in part, was to help set the various hypotheses that the lab will challenge over the next two years. It also gave us a chance to meet industry leaders face-to-face and offer them an opportunity to become invested in the success of the lab.
Structure of the Day
The participants broke up into five small teams for the majority of a two-part workshop, which focused on generating product ideas in the morning, and reverse engineering the problems those products solved for users in the afternoon. We asked participants not to sit with others who came from the same organization, to encourage a diversity of viewpoints within each group.
To jump start the morning conversation, each team was given one of these intentionally provocative statement to discuss:
- The article is a 19th century print format that has been poorly squeezed onto small screens.
- Broadcasting to and not talking with our audience is rude and unsustainable.
- The more we know about you, the creepier we get.
- The future of mobile news products will be so highly personalized that editorial curation will be unnecessary.
- The current state of push notifications is formulaic and simplistic.
Guardian facilitators helped guide the discussions towards two or three product ideas that would either address a challenge raised by the provocation, or pursue an opportunity that sprang from the discussion. Each team sketched out an annotated wireframe describing the look, feel and purpose of the product idea.
During the afternoon workshop session, each team rotated to a new table and reviewed the product wireframes created by the previous group, and discussed what two or three central challenges each product might solve for editors, reporters or users. Each team’s challenge statements were then posted up on a wall, and attendees were asked to vote on the challenge they thought was the most pressing to explore.
In between workshop sessions, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, one of our partners in the event, presented a panel launching new research about how chat apps can be leveraged to improve global mobile engagement with impactful stories like the Nepal earthquake and the Iran Deal. The research was presented by Tow Fellows Trushar Barot of the BBC World Service and Eytan Oren of Kik, who were joined afterwards by experts from Kik, the Guardian and CNN for a live Q&A.
Output of the Day
A prioritized list of broad challenges for the Lab to explore, reflecting product areas that are most compelling to industry leaders.
Challenge Statements
#1: My favorite news organization should know who or where I am and what I’m trying to do, in order to offer me relevant information that adapts appropriately throughout the day.
#2: While a full article is being polished for production, offer me reliable information that will prevent me from having to turn to a less trustworthy news source while details develop.
#3: When crafting a story for small screens, always start with me, and how I need or want to interact with a story.
#4: Adapt to the idea that text alone can’t always effectively express a story.
#5: Allow me to be part of the storytelling process rather than being talked to, and reward me for it.
#6: Interrupt me only for the things I actually care about.
#7: Reciprocate in a trustworthy and intelligent way when I share data about myself while using a product.
Next Steps
We will combine the challenge statements with the ideas gathered earlier, then focus on a few that will then become the basis of the first experiments.
We will also keep in touch with the day’s participants as an initial step towards developing a full plan for communicating with the industry at large. We’d like to acknowledge their contributions in particular by keeping them informed of our progress and inviting them to contribute ideas and feedback in the future.
Send us an email anytime at innovationlab@theguardian.com.
-Sarah and Sasha
