News website Challenge

I am working at IT company and usually use visualisation and storytelling to gain common  understanding how people use our product and navigate in real life. The main challenge I want to  tell you is about our local news portal I am working on.

Before I started this course the stakeholders of my company came to me and asked to do  something with our local news web site. The website is rather successful one (60 000 unique users  daily) but they still were not  happy with it. When I asked them what’s wrong with it, they just told  me: “We don’t know, but it could be better”. For me it sounded like a “Design Thinking” Challenge,  so I took the course and used all the tools, step by step to get to the answer of how to make news  website better.

Main challenge, as I formulated: “Understand were and how we are losing our users and how to  make users more engaged with the web site”

I decided to use “Storyboards” to get a common understanding how people use our product and  where they could be not satisﬁed with it.

StoryBoard is a tool that came from ﬁlm makers where they framed each move of the character,  shot by shot. It is made up of a number of squares with illustrations or pictures representing each  shot, with notes about what's going on in the scene and what's being said in the script during that  shot. Filmmakers used it to share a common understanding between different groups of people who  make a cartoons.

UserBoards are ideal tool to to see where the ﬂow of user interaction with the site brokes. So I  decided to choose storyboard tool in order to understand how people navigate through the web site  and were could be bottlenecks or distractions.

First of all I asked my colleague (analytic and designer) to join me in this research. Prior to  storyboard session we made and analysis of current website user usage. We asked people how  they read news and track ﬂow and bounce rate of the pages on the current web site by google  analytics.

Ones we decided to apply this tool I prepared whiteboard and markers for storyboard session. I  painted frames on a board in which our story will go. Our team gathered in separate room and started to imagine a story of how ﬁrst time user will  discover our product. We started form the most common way to get to our website for new user is through news  aggregator.  • So I painted a man how is sitting, having lunch and browsing through the internet to ﬁnd

something interesting to read. This is how we capture the context of our product usage.

• Next I painted how he opens an news aggregator on his phone and clicks our website news title,

that interested him.

• Than he reads the news article, browse the images, reads comments if he interested and closes

page because the content is over and goes to aggregator, where he sees another link from our  competitor and goes there.

At that moment we all understand that there is no chance for user in this case to see more than  one page at a time, because when I ﬁnish reading the article I have no navigation links or smooth  ﬂow to next article to read. The only way I could get to the next article is to close current page and  go to aggregator again. And our analytics supported that insight, bounce rate of the article pages  were big.  So we brainstorm few ideas how to modify our article page in order to give users chance to stay on  our website and read more articles there.

This tool really helped us because ﬁrst we thought that we should do something with news main  page with list of articles ﬁrst. But after applying this tools we got insight that the article page is the  one we have problems with.

After we used it I understand that next time I could apply this tool even better if I will ask experts  form the ﬁeld of study to participate. Because I was afraid that this tool will be ineffective I asked  only my colleagues who were also interested in applying this tool to join me. Next time I will  deﬁnitely ask some of stakeholders and journalists to join me in this activity.

Also next time I will prepare not white boards, but whatman paper with painted squares. Because  we will need to do more than one iteration of painting and I want to see the evolution of our  storyboard, so we could every time come back to previous stage and start from there if there is a  good ideas.

I really glad that I took that course and it helped me with the problems that I previously thought  where impossible to solve.


News website Challenge I am working at IT company and usually use visualisation and storytelling to gain common understanding how people use our product and navigate in real life . The main challenge I want to tell you is about our local news portal I am working on . Before I started this course the stakeholders of my company came to me and asked to do something with our local news web site . The website is rather successful one ( 60 000 unique users daily ) but they still were not happy with it . When I asked them what ’s wrong with it , they just told me : “ We do n’t know , but it could be better ” . For me it sounded like a “ Design Thinking ” Challenge , so I took the course and used all the tools , step by step to get to the answer of how to make news website better . Main challenge , as I formulated : “ Understand were and how we are losing our users and how to make users more engaged with the web site ” I decided to use “ Storyboards ” to get a common understanding how people use our product and where they could be not satisﬁed with it . StoryBoard is a tool that came from ﬁlm makers where they framed each move of the character , shot by shot . It is made up of a number of squares with illustrations or pictures representing each shot , with notes about what 's going on in the scene and what 's being said in the script during that shot . Filmmakers used it to share a common understanding between different groups of people who make a cartoons . UserBoards are ideal tool to to see where the ﬂow of user interaction with the site brokes . So I decided to choose storyboard tool in order to understand how people navigate through the web site and were could be bottlenecks or distractions . First of all I asked my colleague ( analytic and designer ) to join me in this research . Prior to storyboard session we made and analysis of current website user usage . We asked people how they read news and track ﬂow and bounce rate of the pages on the current web site by google analytics . Ones we decided to apply this tool I prepared whiteboard and markers for storyboard session . I painted frames on a board in which our story will go . Our team gathered in separate room and started to imagine a story of how ﬁrst time user will discover our product . We started form the most common way to get to our website for new user is through news aggregator . • So I painted a man how is sitting , having lunch and browsing through the internet to ﬁnd something interesting to read . This is how we capture the context of our product usage . • Next I painted how he opens an news aggregator on his phone and clicks our website news title , that interested him . • Than he reads the news article , browse the images , reads comments if he interested and closes page because the content is over and goes to aggregator , where he sees another link from our competitor and goes there . At that moment we all understand that there is no chance for user in this case to see more than one page at a time , because when I ﬁnish reading the article I have no navigation links or smooth ﬂow to next article to read . The only way I could get to the next article is to close current page and go to aggregator again . And our analytics supported that insight , bounce rate of the article pages were big . So we brainstorm few ideas how to modify our article page in order to give users chance to stay on our website and read more articles there . This tool really helped us because ﬁrst we thought that we should do something with news main page with list of articles ﬁrst . But after applying this tools we got insight that the article page is the one we have problems with . After we used it I understand that next time I could apply this tool even better if I will ask experts form the ﬁeld of study to participate . Because I was afraid that this tool will be ineffective I asked only my colleagues who were also interested in applying this tool to join me . Next time I will deﬁnitely ask some of stakeholders and journalists to join me in this activity . Also next time I will prepare not white boards , but whatman paper with painted squares . Because we will need to do more than one iteration of painting and I want to see the evolution of our storyboard , so we could every time come back to previous stage and start from there if there is a good ideas . I really glad that I took that course and it helped me with the problems that I previously thought where impossible to solve .