User:Joca/outline v2 7

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

Introduction

Summary of the background and statement above, explanation of the structure of this thesis with three essays that critically investigate the interface in the context of news and three intermissions that speculate about the conversational interface of the future.

Essay one / Snowfalling card stacks (working title)

The interface of news has influence on how people perceive the content. The role of the interface changed when news moved to digital media. Designing news media with a humanistic interface will people to engage in a more meaningful way with news.

• News is a specific kind of content, which is reflected in how it is designed
  

** 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 *** Newspapers with signature designs. Tabloids, quality newspapers
** Design of news on radio and television *** news anchors *** sounds around radio news

• With the switch to digital media, the design got a different role as part of an interface where efficient performance is the goal, not the interpretation of information.
  

** Part of the character of traditional news design was not brought to digital media *** Technical limitations (responsive design is boring)
** 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. ***** Examples: ****** 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.

• By looking at the interface as a space for interpretation, rather than a tool to consume content, digital news design could facilitate a more meaningful news experience.
  

** 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. **** The theory of Johanna Drucker on the Humanistic Interface, as a way to take these practices into the digital.
** What is a more meaningful news experience? *** News that invites to start a debate *** A trigger to think about your own relation to the news event
** Conversational interfaces are particularly interesting to see the implications of such an interface *** Return to speech, a medium with an old tradition of storytelling *** Experimental field, need for thinking about how these interfaces should work.

Design fiction intermission (1)

Three smartspeakers listen to the news on the radio and have a conversation about this strange voice coming out of nowhere, which does not react to them. They think the news anchor on the radio is a broken smartspeaker.

Essay two / Unleash the assistants

Audio is getting renewed popularity as a news medium in the form of podcasts, while conversation is getting more traction in the form of chatbots and smartspeakers. Currently these conversational interfaces are envisioned as neutral digital butlers, but for a meaningful news experience it is more interesting to unleash the assistants and use the biases of each, to show a new perspective on particular news topics.

Intro
Quartz chatbot. transcription of conversation with me. Some emoji, haha.

Not a conversational interface, but a chat interface.

Reuters Institute report: Failed smart speakers. Although lots of efforts.

These
A digital assistant is not the best way to offer news in a smart speaker, and the relation human-machine should be more equal to have a meaningful conversational interface for this goal.

Assistants are logical when you see interfaces as a tool.

• Butler (Apple)
• Master/Slave
  

Media as social entity.

• Reeves and Nass
• Clippy failing

Design fiction intermission (2)

T.B.D.

Essay three / The ghost in the speaker

A different way to look at these devices: magic objects

• Japan: spirits in non-human entities
• Heavily specified characters, but focused on one context

Then what could it be?

Not one personality for all applications. Expressed in voice, presence, way of interacting.

Element of surprise, maybe interface that initiates interaction.

Design fiction intermission (3)

T.B.D.

Conclusion

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