Beyond layout: Design thinking

This is not merely an aesthetic consideration — but also one of product value and usefulness. If one considers the sole value of design to be making pieces fit on pages, an ‘assembly line’ solution may seem attractive. However, architecting publications to meet reader needs is something more complicated, nuanced and essential.

We see design as identifying and understanding user needs and business requirements, conceptualizing solutions and crafting products that directly address those needs.

Design thinking is a term often used with — at best — a loose definition. Tim Brown, of IDEO, uses it to mean process-oriented solutions, product design techniques and a means of channeling new and different ideas that are responsive to user needs. Certainly Design Thinking is much more than graphic design and layout.

It’s easy to argue that Gannett’s consolidation effort will hurt the graphic design of the daily newspapers: they may feel more generic, less tied to specific communities and designers will almost certainly be less involved in the content gathering process. But, by Brown’s definition, this may actually be an example of clever Design Thinking on the part of Gannett.

This consolidation could allow Gannett to redirect its resources to other things. Put more reporters on the streets, shift more design focus to the online properties or explore new kinds of visual, digital storytelling.

The proof will be how Gannett uses their savings. Passing along the money as dividends or bonuses would just be cost cutting. Use the savings as an opportunity to reposition value resources… that’s Design Thinking.

The mini-tower is an ingenious little device that boost AT&T’s weak network coverage by translating the cell phone signal and transmitting information over a user’s home network network instead of relying on AT&T’s balky towers. This concept isn’t unique to AT&T (Sprint and Verizon also offer similar services) but astoundingly consumers not only pay for the bandwidth, the cell minutes (which still count against monthly totals) and also $150 for the device.

This new system puts broadband Internet providers, like the cable companies and actually AT&T, in an interesting position. Why should they have to cover the cost of sending AT&T voice signals over their networks? This is not a problem if AT&T is both the consumers cellular and broadband supplier. But since a Federal court struck down the FCC’s right to enforce net neutrality — the principle that broadband suppliers would have to carry all data at the same rate — Comcast or other broadband providers appear to have the right limit bandwidth used by AT&T mini-towers.

Maybe AT&T’s greed in both charging consumers and using their broadband access instead of providing a working cellular network will end up being a good thing… if it forces AT&T to support net neutrality.

1. The closed world of the App Store may be a mistake, but the Internet has enabled cloud-based applications like Gmail, Flickr or Photoshop Online. While you cannot download these applications, you do not need to. That too is a powerful legacy of the Internet.
2. Many iPad and iPhone content producers are confusing Apps with Websites. HTML 5 allows the offline viewing of content. If the only difference between a media company’s Apple-approved App and their Website is off-line viewing they are missing the point. App store items should take advantage of something device specific — like the accelerometer or the microphone. Otherwise just make a Web app.
3. Flash has nothing to do with the legacy of the Internet. Flash technology is every bit the inaccessible Gated Community that the Apple App store is. Worse still, Flash makes Web-content inaccessible and violates most Web standards. If anything Apple, inadvertently, may be saving the Internet.
4. Apple is not marketing the iPad as a replacement for a laptop or netbook. An issue not widely discussed is the fact that the iPad needs to be synced to a computer running iTunes before it can be used. The iPad is meant to be a new kind of device — but most importantly an additional device.
5. As long as Safari still has a prominent place on the iPhone the Internet is alive and well. Will the iPad change the Web? Maybe. But if Websites have been created semantically, a new CSS layer will just present the information differently — everything the Internet is meant to do.

1. Long-form, magazine stories are not easy to read on mobile devices. What is the future of long-form if — as I suggested — journalism’s future is not the Web but new devices? *

   I answered by saying that journalists need to be more sophisticated about serving the right kind of content to the right audience depending on the device the audience is using. On a smartphone audio is always an option. Doing more to reformat the text or break it up would make it more device friendly. And new platforms like e-book readers and tablets may be better options for long-form stories. The key is not to pretend that televisions are radios, that smart phones are magazines or that tablets are laptops. Let each device have the type and format of content most suited to it.

2. Another student asked if I was concerned that proprietary OSes (for the iPhone, Kindle & Palm Pre) and formats (he meant Flash) would limit the potential of content distribution? *

   The proprietary OS issue worries me less — it reminded me of the late 80s when software development was very platform specific. The marketplace forced developers to make the software cross platform and created common user experience regardless of where the software lived. Besides most users are really using an App or a Web browser to get data from the Internet so the content itself is still not locked down.

   But what about Flash and Apples iPhone/iPad? Sadly I wasn’t prepared to quote Jeffrey Zeldman: “Flash won’t die tomorrow, but plug-in technology is on its way out” or John Gruber: “Web site producers tend to be practical. Those that use Flash do so not because they’re Flash proponents, but because Flash is easy and ubiquitous… Flash is no longer ubiquitous. There’s a big difference between “everywhere” and “almost everywhere.”

   The issues with Flash will solve themselves — either mobile devices will find a to run Flash or designers will present their content without it. Technology issues on new platforms are real, but pay walls and and exclusive content deals are a more insidious threat because consumers, just like developers, can decide they can live without journalism if its not accessible.

But what I didn’t anticipate was the social consequence. I was used to scanning my friends’ rows of CD cases to see what was new or different. It was a way to learn about new music and about them. The iTunes-organized digital music that replaced my CD collection was more convenient and practical but so much less social.

The Kindle and Apple’s rumored tablet promise more of the same. I’ll be able to take my books, magazines and newspapers anywhere but they’ll be totally private. If I feel like claiming I’m reading Faulkner but secretly it’s Dan Brown no one would know looking at my bedside table.

I have no doubt that I will love how the next generation of eBook readers makes my personal library portable but I know I’ll miss the ladder I will, now, never need.

UPDATE: The New York Times has made it official that they will charge for Online Access.

In essence, news, which readers spent decades paying for and then a decade not paying for, would suddenly have a price tag again.

It would seem to be a difficult challenge to convince readers to pay for something that was free only recently and is free elsewhere — except that this is hardly a new idea. Bottled water companies have been incredibly successful doing just that.

Tap water had been practically free for decades when bottlers started pouring it into plastic containers and selling it for prices much higher than milk or gasoline.

So how could this model help media companies?

• Focus on readers’ fears: Bottled water is trumpeted as cleaner and safer than tap. News companies like the Times need to convince users that all information is not equal. The Times is better sourced and more trustworthy than its rivals.
• Pump up the benefits: Bottled water was prompted as a healthy alternative to soft drinks and coffee. Media companies can focus on the value of informed citizenry and the economic advantages of keeping up with the news.
• Preach portabilty: You can grab water on the go and take it anywhere. Media companies need their information to be available on any device, anytime and anywhere. Charge for information on new devices and platforms. eBook readers, smartphones and tablets can all be new revenue streams because readers don’t have an expectation of free content — yet.
• Emphasize the brand: Water from Fiji probably doesn’t actually taste that much better than tap water. Media companies like the Times and the Wall Street Journal are luxury brands but don’t really portray themselves as such. These companies need focus on showing their products as status symbols.

It will take more than just marketing, but it could be possible to get people to pay for news and forget that they ever minded paying.