We all want the user to take an action. Editorial wants another click or more time spent on site. Revenue wants another display ad. Audience wants a funnel entry point. Video wants that preroll. In any media business, every stakeholder has a goal to achieve.
By aligning strategies from revenue, video, editorial, and audience departments, news products can lessen the assault on their users’ senses. If we understand and attempt to calibrate internal competing goals, we fix the external experience. Negative user interactions — from the onslaught of calls-to-action to the dumping ground of more headlines to ignore — do not encourage further engagement. It’s cognitive overload. We need to design an experience with an air of serendipity, a curated serendipity.
By bringing product design thinking to the story level, we can enable the right experience at the right time. We know quantitatively and qualitatively what users need and want; now we need to deliver that important story appropriately. To not over-prompt for another click, but to time a design element at the proper moment of a story. To elevate it, not to cheapen it.
By creating experiences that respect our audience’s time and passion but also the needs of the story, we can build great digital products and rebuild our relationship with users.
Let the designers do it.
Jessica Parker Gilbert is digital creative director for McClatchy.
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future