Thesis outline draft V1.5

Background

The field of journalism has a trust issue, caused by for example fake news, and the merge of advertisements and news which news media need to do in order to survive in the ad-based economy online.

At the same time, the main medium for news nowadays is digital. People access journalism via interfaces which are designed to be invisible, but actually influence our way of reading. The leading principles from interface design come from Human-Computer Interaction and they approach interface from a task based perspective. The activity of interpreting information is ignored in those principles.

Statement

Trust in online news media can be improved by designing interfaces that reflect the ambiguity of news. In order to do that, it helps to have a theory on interface that addresses that. In that way designers and publishers are able to analyze their work, and share best practices on the humanistic interface for news media.

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, be at on a commute, or during 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

** 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. Relevant authors: Ishi, Kwak, Hummels, Wensveen, Bakker.

*** Bridge to 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 adresses the interface from the idea that it provokes certain activities, methods and codes.

Examples of current sites

** The Correspondent: E.g. Different ways to structure collection of articles, chronologically, but also by theme, author etc. 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. The 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.

The use of news outside traditional digital news media

** 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 aggregrate and summarize what is covered in news media.

Conclusion

Summarize above in a short and conscise way.

Final statement

It is possible to design following these principles, as seen at x, y and z. And readers have more trust in those sources as well. Cool.