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