User:Joca/outline v2 2

Thesis outline V2.1

Background

Nowadays the main space for publishing news is digital. This opens up many opportunities for journalism, from using rich media to tell stories, to enabling the community of newsreaders to contribute to research.

At the same time, the lowered threshold to publish made it also more difficult to stand out in a growing media landscape. This raises questions about the independence of news media while finding ways to survive using advertisements and subscriptions. Trust in journalism is not self-evident anymore.

There is an active discourse on new ways of producing content and to present the outcomes to the audience, to find ways to create meaningful journalism. In this discussion, there is less attention for the role of the interface in which the material is presented

Even in a time where the content of news media is distributed on different platforms, from Amazon Alexa to the Facebook news feed, there is an interface around that content. That makes it important to know how the interface plays a role in the process of understanding and engaging with the news.

The leading principles from interface design come from the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Traditionally, their approach to interface and user experience (UX) design is from a task-based perspective. The activity of interpreting information has a secondary role within those principles.

This led to universally used practices in navigating through interfaces, and ways they are set up to lead users to conversion: be it buying goods, or spending time. However, are the foundations for a successful e-commerce interface necessarily the best for the interface of a news medium?

Statement

A different perspective of interface theory is the humanistic interface (Drucker, 2014). This theory fills the interpretation gap in the current practice of UX design because it approaches the interaction design from the idea of critical insight: focusing on comparison, contrast and offering space to make meaning instead of simply presenting content efficiently.

Designing news media with a humanistic interface will people to engage in a more meaningful way with news and can improve the trust in a news medium.

Body

Interface has influence on how people perceive the content

• Examples of how mobile and desktop interfaces are designed for different contexts
  • Interfaces on mobile are designed with the context of people on the go, this might be during their commute, or while having a short break at work etc. Examples of that are for example the websites of the BBC and CNN.
  • And in the other direction, Desktop and Tablet interfaces are often designed for a more 'quality time' context. For slow reading during the weekend, or after work.

• How do we see interface?
  • Traditionally as a medium between people and systems, where people are in control
  • An alternative approach is to see it as a space for activity, where the interface influences what people actually do with it.
    • Refer to Winograd and Flores here on computers and cognition.

Common practices in interface design only address particular activities, but not the interpretation of content.

• The founding principles in interface design started in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. User Experience (UX) Design is still heavily influenced by that today
  • Problem-based approach focused on fulfilling tasks as efficiently as possible
  • Rationalistic view on users and the information they need.
  • UX design follows upon that, by its focus on converting people to active users, consumers and trying to quantify the experience in order to analyze it and adapt the design to it.

• There is a different tradition in the design of print media like the codex book and newspapers.
  • Short recap on how the book and the newspaper have elements that started as practical tools used for scholarly work. (e.g. annotation done by scholars within the lines, to share knowledge quickly with their peers)
  • Part of the character didn't make the switch to the digital
    • Technical limitations (responsive design is boring)
  • The theory of Johanna Drucker on the Humanistic Interface, as a way to take these practices into the digital.

• Both viewpoints do not replace each other, but rather extend our view on the possibilities of what an interface can be, and how it mediates the user.
  • An interesting example is the field of tangible interaction design, where traditional engineering and product design blends with the constructivist and humanistic discourse as used by Drucker.
    • Time to open my vault with papers on tangible and embodied interaction, the periphery of attention in interaction design. Relevant authors: Ishi, Kwak, Hummels, Wensveen, Bakker.
    • Bridge to the interface: Affordances in interface design, Lia Lina
    • Drucker's old-fashioned view on 'technical people' makes here position on interface more solitary than it actually is.

It is possible to design with content interpretation in mind, but these are separate practices. Connecting these examples to a theory of interface helps in analyzing these, and spreading knowledge among designers and publishers about using these interaction patterns in their own interfaces.

• Performative Materiality is a good framework for this theory of interface.
  • It addresses the interface from the idea that it provokes certain activities, methods, and codes.

• There are interfaces that include elements that are related to performative materiality and the humanistic interface.
  • The Correspondent: E.g. Different ways to structure a collection of articles, chronologically, but also by theme, author etc. The deliberate choice to have hyperlinks as sidenotes, with extra context.
  • Vox Media: Different publications for specific niches, but sharing one custom system in the backend. Aiming at building 'dossiers' around topics, explaining news as part of bigger societal developments.
  • Blendle: 'iTunes for publications', you can buy specific articles from a wide range of publications. They also offer a subscription for ten selected articles daily. In this selection, an algorithm works together with editors to highlight articles within your interests, and sometimes way outside of your bubble.

• Outside traditional news media, there are practices that can serve as an inspiration for more meaningful engagement with news.
  • Shows like The Colbert Report, Zondag met Lubach and Last Week Tonight use the visual language of a news show and mix investigative journalism with satire.
  • Memes in the form of images and video are used to spread messages. Often they aggregate and summarize what is covered in news media.
  • In defense of poor media: http://silviolorusso.com/digital-publishing-in-defense-of-poor-media/

Conclusion

Short and eloquent summary of the above. The reader feels a longlasting burst of happiness.

Final statement

Elements of the humanistic interface are visible in different news media, where they have a positive influence on how people engage with and trust in the news. It is important to link these attempts to a theory of interface because it enables discussion on this topic and more importantly, it helps to adopt these practices to design interfaces that help news media in creating trust and engagement.