The Team

The Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab, a foundation-funded team in the Guardian US newsroom with a 2-year mission to explore storytelling and delivering news on small screens.

1 product manager
2 developers
1 product designer
2 editors
1 journalist

Also: an analytics team, The Guardian US marketing team, various newsroom collaborators

Mixing media is part of the tradition of storytelling.

The Nuremberg Chronicle – an illustrated biblical paraphrase and world history that follows the story of human history related in the Bible. Published in 1493 by Anton Koberger.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman, 2007

Her Long Black Hair by Janet Cardiff, 2004

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883

Serial the podcast, 2014. It had a useful timeline for the story it told. It was posted to their website.

If you enjoyed this podcast episode, you can get bonus photos, maps, and links by visiting our website at whoactuallyvisitsthispage.com.”

Images on the web and audio podcasts can go together ?

Are the media contexts compatible?

Target user — Someone who listens to podcast on mobile 1-plus times a week.

Hypothesis — What if a podcast could just deliver a mobile listener useful images, links, and more at the moments during the experience when it is most valuable?

Core questions

Would users find this more engaging?
Does this kind of listen+look experience fit into people’s lives?

Getting there...

“So, you’re the one who makes it all look good.”

Core components

Audio player on a web page.
Audio controls in a notification.
When there is media to show during play, user is alerted via a notification.
When there is media to show during play, show it on the web page and/or on in the notification.

Feeling chatty?

Our host, Mona Chalabi, is someone people connect to.
What if we could make it feel as if the media was being sent directly from her?
People are use to receiving multi-media messages across contexts.

uh?

YES

AWESOME

Prototyping

Does it work and feel right?
What is the interaction design?
What new design and dev question does this raise?
What format should editorial keep in mind?

A lot fell into place

Media shared in chat thread paradigm
Notifications follow sms msg paradigm
Other features would take a back seat

What we launched

A few UI decisions...

Jump right in — The primary CTA should be to hit “Play”

Learn by doing — Using it should show you how it works.

Familiar audio controls — Give the user a clear idea what they can and cannot do

Know when there’s media — Give the user a unique but neutral alert sound for new messages.

Learnings

Would users find this more engaging?
Does this kind of listen+look experience fit into people’s lives?

Data (1st 24 days)

24,000 unique visits
27% of visitors (6,606) hit play
51% of listeners dropped off in the first 5m
32% of listeners played > 75% episode

As KPIs, how do they compare to similar products?

Survey feedback (1st 24 days)

366 survey responses
97% would want this format again
Long answer comments were super positive
Most rated the way we mixed podcasts with media highly interesting...
... and rated the media itself slightly less so

“Interesting” is... interesting?

Would users find this more engaging?
Does this kind of listen+look experience fit into people’s lives?

Feedback

71% listed home as a context they listen in.
35% walking, 35% public transit, 23% driving, 21% at work.
54% interacted with content after listening.
88% traffic came from referrals links.
Asked if they are more likely to subscribe via web: 26% said yes, 37% said no, 37% said maybe.

Ways to Improve

More specific KPIs. Based on past versions and competitive analysis.
Better and better collaboration between editorial and product.
The artwork was beautiful, but it doesn’t make for a great logo.
The alert sound received a lot of negative feedback.

Another take-away

How can we continue to make these media contexts a consideration creating the content itself?