A MASTER GRADUATION PROJECT

Transcription

1 REPORTER A MASTER GRADUATION PROJECT HAKKI ALTUN BSc. 2012

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3 REPORTER MASTER GRADUATION PROJECT HAKKI ALTUN BSc. COACH: DR. IR. KOERT VAN MENSVOORT ASSESSOR: DR. IR. JUN HU THEME: NEXT NATURE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 2012

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5 PREFACE First of all, thanks for picking up this document, which contains a report of my master graduation project, completed at the faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology. This project is about the design of a tool, for the ones that run hard, sometimes get into trouble, risk their lives, strive for the best reliable sources, and most importantly love it when doing so, to bring us news from various places in the world; reporters. News is an interesting phenomena, a so called next nature that influences us, our lives, either directly or indirectly. It is a complex, and now a days quite unpredictable system, of which we consider its purpose as being informed about everything around us. Technology is an important game-changing factor in this phenomena, and it is unambiguous that internet changed, and will continue to change the news media landscape as no other medium did. Which role do reporters play, and how does it relate to the way they are performing their job? This projects takes you through the process of exploring essential qualities, analyzing the current state of the art, discussing with reporters, experiencing the way they work, and making mockups, ending up with a final design. The result is the design of an ipad app that is a part of a service to support reporters in the daily routine of some specific tasks like taking notes, planning, registering contacts and sources, and brings these routines closer to us, the audience, to create a better understanding in how stories we see on the television, hear on the radio and read about in the newspaper evolved. Say hi to the Reporter app.

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS -4-

7 1 INTRODUCTION 09 2 CASE. INTEREST. DESIGN VISION. INTEREST. TOPIC EXPLORATION & PROPOSAL. TOPIC. OBJECTIVES. EXPLORATION. ARCHAEOLOGICAL DESIGN. METHOD. COLLECTION. TIMELINE. QUALITIES & RELATIONS. MAPPING. OPPORTUNITIES. DIRECTIONS / MINDSETS. QUALITY CREDIT. GLOCAL. ARCHAEOLOGY CLIENT: LEX RUNDERKAMP. EXPERIENCE FLOW ANALYSIS. OPPORTUNITIES. UNNOTICED INSPIRATION HUNTING. RE-INSPIRE BY EFFICIENCY. PRACTICALLY LIVE. THREE IDEAS. DESIGN QUESTION & DIRECTION

8 3 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT 51. CONCEPT: THE REPORTER APP. POSITIONING. REQUIREMENTS. INTERFACE & INTERACTION. SERVICE & SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION. PROTOTYPING. REFLECTION. CO REFLECTION. GOAL. TEST SUBJECTS. EXPLORATION. IDEATION. CONFRONTATION. DATA RECORDING & ANALYSIS. OUTCOME & PROCESSING. GUIDELINES 4 THE REPORTER APP CONCEPT. TECHNOLOGY. SERVICE. PROTOTYPE. INTERFACE & FEATURES. SUITCASES. THE INTERFACE IN GENERAL. NOTES. AGENDA. CONTACTS. FINANCES. ROADMAP

9 5 FINAL REFLECTION 111. FINAL REFLECTION WITH CLIENT. FINAL REFLECTION. DISCUSSION & FINAL STEPS. FINAL WORD ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. REFERENCES // APPENDICES

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11 INTRODUCTION -9-

12 1.1 INTEREST DESIGN VISION Design is about giving meaning to products and services. Moreover, it is about becoming a part of people s lives and impacting meaning there. What, how and why we do certain things tells us the meaning of those products and services we use. Yet I see many product and services brought into this world that focus on functionalities and superficial experiences. My drive and motivation rather is a well thought, thoroughly understood and carefully constructed meaning, seamlessly embraced and supported with aesthetics, functionality and interaction. My effort is to design interactive and innovative solutions that blend into and convey its actual meaning. My way of conveying and emphasizing meaning of products and services is strongly related to the human itself, which explains why I like to talk about generosity and helpfulness when I design a product s accessibility, and about modesty and unpretentiousness when I want aesthetics to purely embrace the capability of a product, nothing more. I believe that products should be far from show, rather simple, clear, and fine-tuned. To do this, one should predicate on system level thinking, consider all potential in the sphere of influence, prioritize actions with the intended impact (meaning) in mind, and involve end-users and stakeholders to find out what their needs are. I once created a one-liner for my self; some people write in a diary, I design. In that sense, my work is a diary of my vision on design. my Fitness Coach means the ability of becoming your own coach with discipline rather than another system to keep up with your fitness data, PSV Talent Tracking System means making children aware of their personal talents and develop it socially, rather than another system that tracks performances and the Philips Podium Plate means that motivation comes from people you care about rather than a product that shows you information about your activity. -10-

13 INTEREST I have always been fascinated about the impact and influence news has on our lives, and how important the meaning and intention aspects are in this phenomena. It is a complex system that eventually delivers us information about what is happening around. Although the intention of news and journalism is democracy, we see that that has not always been the case. It is likely that this phenomena with such influencing power on people will be exploited by authorities and for whom it is important. But what is even more interesting to me at this very moment is that I see a huge potential rising, since the news and journalism landscape that did not change approximately since 1899 due to the hegemonism of the media companies and owners, is now about to change indeed. Actually it started changing already. The reason of this change; internet. Throughout history, access to news and information has been a privilege accorded to powerful institutions with the authority or wealth to dominate distribution. For the past two centuries, an independent press has served as advocate for society and its right to know an essential role during an era of democratic enlightenment. It feels like a new era has been thrust upon us an era of enlightened anxiety. We now know more than ever before, but our knowledge creates anxiety over harsh truths and puzzling paradoxes. What is the role of the storyteller in this epoch? How will an informed, connected society help shape it? How does the world look when news and information are part of a shared experience? Dale Peskin Co-Director, The Media Center -11-

14 1.2 TOPIC EXPLORATION & PROPOSAL TOPIC The developments in the area of news are great since the first paper press machine. Journalism, newspapers, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts and finally internet. Yet the way news was brought to us did not change much alongside. It was still journalists that gather news, which was communicated to us through several media. We can t say that the qualities of the medium was not used properly or incompletely, but to a certain extend we can say that with all these technological developments, the way news and journalism worked, so the system, did not change drastically. The speed of getting to news rose, we were able to view visuals, images, we were able to get real-time data through video broadcasts etc. Then the internet became a fact and still at the beginning it was not much different than the system before. Newspapers were kind of directly translated to the digital and in the best situation it was more interactive. With the rise of weblogs and social networks the internet has become the most important medium for the news media, and different from all media before the internet is likely to change the system as no other medium could do before. Within this project I want to propose a look into the future on how a part of this system could look like in terms of a product and/or a service that will operate in it. As this sounds very broad, I would like to make it more specific by looking into the new ways of consuming/using (global) news, that makes people aware of its meaning. -12-

15 OBJECTIVES As the change in the news media landscape is a hot topic, I m not the first one trying explore the future of it. Especially the media authorities themselves try to discover the new media system. What for me will be important in this graduation project is the creation of an interesting perspective on how a product/service will look like according to a changing news media system. It is not my goal to invent a new system, since that seems impossible, also for the big media institutions, but rather explore what it will become according to the latest developments. This is important for me to be able to discover what the user needs could be. When having defined the future environment/ culture/trend/system of the news, including the potential needs, I want to deliver a perspective on what kind of product/service could possibly operate in it. I have no idea what such a product/service will look like, but do have thoughts about what the core should contain; meaning and intention. It is inarguable that everything we hear, smell, touch, taste, see (read), affects us and make us who we are. This product/service should focus on the awareness of what the news we consume does to us, which in a way can make news producers aware of their own role. EXPLORATION PRESENT In the first week of the semester I started already to look around on what I could find about news and journalism. I ve found many interesting articles and conference video s about how the news media is changing, how social media is contributing to the news, how certain media can have a conscience, what internet has done to the news media landscape etc. Here are some interesting words and sentences that explain new developments but also the current stage we are in regarding news: Participatory journalism; journalism in which journalists work together with citizens. Citizens that write on a blog or in someway deliver information about situations and happenings serve as ideas for journalists and news agencies. On the other hand citizens are the selectors and commenters on what is produced by journalists. [1] Keeping independent news independent, While your views creates its network, the networks starts to shape your views [2] A blogger of interesting blog posts about a certain issue can create a network around it by people commenting and posting along side. But this growing network can afterwards influence the initial weblogger and influences the independence of his posts. -13-

16 James Surowiecki [2] also uses the word blogosphere which is a good word to describe the growth of the amount of blogs on internet. Newspapers die because nobody (including the advertisers) want to pay for yesterday s news [3] If journalism is in a state of crisis today, this is not the consequence of the new technology. It is because they did not take notice of recent fundamental changes in society - and even if they did, without a clearly stated focus and vision on the possible roads ahead. [8] There should be new business models for the news companies to exist in the future. New talented digital writers and reporters should be attracted. Todays reporter/journalist needs multiple technical skills. [4] [5] The television has a conscience. It shows us how we feel. The TV shows in the history tell us about the social situation we were in back then. [6] Social media is faster in reporting news [7] The more traffic you can draw from your homepage, the better you are in your job as an editor of an online news site. -14-

17 PAST I ve been creating a simple overview (page 18) of how news and media evolved over the past to be able to look into detail later what it did to the perception of news and the society in general. News was always there. Word of mouth has been the strongest way to communicate news to people until the paper press was invented by Gutenberg. Before that the Sumers were the ones who invented the cuneiform script which later, through the Egyptian hieroglyph, evolved to the Greek alphabet. Till then news was spread through messengers in special, but also with individuals gossiping. Julius Caesar was one of the first who used a news bulletin during his meetings with his staff. After Gutenbergs invention and other technological developments the newspaper became popular and soon with the invention of the telegraph developed rapidly. The telephone and radio came into existence soon followed by the television. Mobile technology rose and is still rising and eventually with growing internet is where we are today. Looking back, we see that everything became faster since Gutenbergs invention. Journalism doesn t seem to change that much though. See next page for the visual overview. -15-

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19 -17- Relevant historical developments for news

20 1.3 ARCHAEOLOGICAL DESIGN METHOD This sub-chapter is called method in order to be consistent with familiar titles. However, archaeological design an approach, rather than a well established and recognized method. I was inspired by a fellow student, a friend with which I spent many evenings at the faculty discussing how designers should design. He was talking about archaeological design, an approach where the focus is on a process of exploring the current, the past and the future for qualities in products and services that are preserve, (re-)introduced, left or lost along the journey of development. This idea was not only interesting to me, but for more members at the faculty. Currently this approach is investigated by Ehsan Baha within the Business Process Design group of the faculty of Industrial Design (University of Technology Eindhoven) in the form of a PhD. COLLECTION The collection phase of this exploration approach consists of finding different media related to experiencing news. I soon started to collect images of media through which news was, is and will be experienced. Besides the media, so the actual containers of the news, I also collected images that symbolize the technological developments that affected the needs people had during that time. A train for example enabled people to travel from A to B much faster, which stimulated the spreading of the newspaper as an effective medium. The collection varied from mainstream products such as the television and radio to popular news apps such as Twitter. As a final add-on I also collected images that represent societal changes such as westernization -18-

21 -19- Collection of images, related to news on different levels

22 TIMELINE The next step was to see these media and technologies on a visual overview to see how they interrelate to each other. I cut out all the square images and made foam blocks out of them so I could easily move them on the timeline I made on a piece of white flip-over sheet. I divided the timeline in four levels: society, culture, market and product. The society level was meant as context for the culture level, in which I placed items such as the TV and radio. These were mainstream media that created its culture. The levels market and product were meant for later use in this project, where I possibly will focus on certain cultures more specifically. This will bring me to market level and even on product level to for instance see details in how it developed from TV A to TV B. This of course depended on the how I would continue the project. -20-

23 Visual chronological overview of media and technologies. Relations -21-

24 QUALITIES AND RELATIONS With the timeline overview I began to associate different media with each other and see whether they have things in common, differ extremely, or can be associated with each other in some way or another. This resulted in interesting findings such as difference in editorial functions of the content creator, the fact that certain media are only experienced in specific contexts while others can be experienced wherever, and many more. Associations between different media in search for interesting relations -22-

25 Mapping previously found qualities and products against each other MAPPING As a following step I tried to map several combinations of interesting qualities and relations I found in the step before. Besides the two products/cultures where the relation derived from, I used some other important media in the mapping as well to see where they position themselves according to such a mapping. -23-

26 OPPORTUNITIES The maps I made helped me to discover new possibilities and directions. By visualizing them, the maps immediately got another dimension. It became discussable and allowed to further play with the ideas. -24-

27 -25- Quick sketches to visualize ideas and possible directions

28 1.4 DIRECTIONS/MINDSETS To be able to create directions/mindsets, the ideas and directions created previously were abstracted. From these abstractions three main descriptions were created that could serve as a mindset to shape the project, and to serve as a base for upcomming phases in the design process. QUALITY CREDIT The first direction that could possibly be the mindset for this project to take further into developing ideas and concepts was called quality credit. This mindset is about the fact that we are able to view almost any source to check the same news from different perspectives. This is a great opportunity to use this possibility. Linking this back to the developments in the history by archaeology, we see that we have done this for decades. We, humans, asked multiple people of a certain news topic when it spread out. We wanted to be sure about the facts. The one who had more quality in the story he told, you believed. You gave him credits in a sense, and that person probably would be a source you would like to hear from when something new happened. In some sense we treated our television in the same way. We zap through different channels to hear what each one has to say about a certain topic. The one we believe most, would be the channel we would start watching the next time -26-

29 SAME NEWS, DIFFERENT SOURCES CHOOSING THE BEST ONE CREDITING Mindset: Quality Credit -27-

30 GLOCAL Most of us read news in some way, and with the world being global and becoming more global day by day we loose the sense of what we read. What does it actually mean to us? How does it affect our lives? Therefore glocal is about relations and links. Relation of a certain news item with something in your direct surrounding. What could a news item about an oil crisis mean for my shoes? Does it affect me? If so, how? Glocal is about an intelligent system that connects your pictures or other data to the news item you read and tells you what the relation is. It is a learning system in a sense it needs to develop itself by time, with user input. Glocal is about giving meaning to news, which is personalized. -28-

31 GLOBAL NEWS SPOTTING LOCAL OBJECTS ASSOCIATE Mindset: Glocal -29-

32 ARCHAEOLOGY Now a days, we get updated very fast. Every second a new news item hits the internet. The pace is very high. In fact, we have very limited time to digest what we actually read, see and hear. Especially with new media, news became more fleeting. We can t hold it. While the good old newspaper had more posterity. It was there for a day. Archaeology is about the possibility to dig out how a news item evolved. What happened before, what news items were there? If we could somehow follow where the news item we read at the moment evolved from, we could have a better understanding of what we just read. -30-

33 OLDER NEWS ITEMS AROUND A TOPIC TIME CURRENT NEWS ITEM, SAME TOPIC Mindset: Archaeology -31-

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35 CASE -33-

36 2.1 CLIENT: LEX RUNDERKAMP The first part of the project was a phase to explore. And I did. It gave me three interesting directions I could go into. At the beginning of the project, one of my goals were to design something for the near future of news experience, which made me leave the direction I called glocal for what it is now, and chose to focus on mainly archaeology because it is about something that touches me personally. We humans forget. And with the pace of the news media so high, we forget even faster. Though, it can be extremely important that we know how things evolved to get a better understanding of what is happening in the world today. This can be about very global issues, but also for very specific news. I ve read some literature and focussed on news for a while in this project. But still I felt the need to work with a client that could help me with focussing on a more specific part of the news experience and provide me information that I impossibly can get through desk-research. At this point, I wanted to continue this project more hands-on. I ve narrowed down a look into the future of news into how can archaeology be designed to function as the news experience of the future. In my opinion this was a promising mindset to design for. I decided to find a client who could provide me useful information of how news is created; a reporter/journalist. I was happy to receive a positive reaction from one of the best reporters in The Netherlands; Lex Runderkamp. -34-

37 -35- Lex Runderkamp. Reporter

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39 Late hours in a hotel room. Montage Lex is a reporter working for the NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting/ Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation) which is part of the public broadcasting in the Netherlands. Programs produced by the NOS include its daily television and radio news bulletins, the NOS Journaal, and also news programs aimed at children, sports and about the parliament. Lex has a rich background in television. Starting with making a television program for VPRO named Gouden Bergen, he continued at the same company making Diogenes, in which he made reports from various remote places in the world. He presented the famous VPRO program The Beagle, and currently works at the NOS as a traveling reporter for the middle-east region. Lex was quite an interesting client to have, since most of the time he performs his job on his own. He is usually sent out to places to stay for a longer period of time, instead of days or a week. He is an interpreter, out for clarity and the stories behind, rather than being just a news gatherer. His journey often starts with deciding what to take along, since he carries relatively heavy equipment such as recording material and a bulletproof vest, which leaves less room for personal belongings and clothes. Most of the time he encounters difficulties at airports he arrives due to suspicion and the potentially dangerous equipment he carries. Once arrived in a country Lex starts building a network of people which he needs to perform his job; a trustable driver, fixer, translator, a guide etc. The first thing to do next is exploring the area, talking to people. He likes to do that quite informally, by drinking some coffee or thee and having a chat with people, leaving the camera in the car. When he finds an interesting topic to make a story of he starts recording and investigating. He doesn t have the most comfortable working con- -37-

40 ditions. Loading footage on the computer, translating, organizing videos, uploading interesting ones immediately, while sitting at the back of a car, driving on a bumpy road are familiar routines. Recording things is another hassle. Getting permissions most of the time is harder than the actual recording itself. Because as a reporter you never know what equipment you will need at certain times, and in what situation you will find yourself, carrying a heavy bag with most of the equipment is necessary. Especially in areas such as the middleeast currently, you never know what will happen. Dragging a heavy bag is one of the most exhausting activities, next to the bureaucracy Lex is facing all the time. Collecting all footage and information, and assembling those into once coherent story means many hours of work during the night in the hotel room. Adding and correcting subtitles, adding sounds, editing clips are all part of the montage. When finally finished, the render time means a nice break. Finally it demands a last struggle to get things sent out to NOS. In most countries Lex visits the internet connection is slow, and sending files through a satellite connection is taking many precious hours. Preparing for a live connection for the news bulletin, is not even mentioned here. -38-

41 2.2 EXPERIENCE FLOW ANALYSIS As explained above, Lex has an interesting way of working, being a one-man crew. After our first meeting he was sent out to Iraq to hunt for interesting stories. Fortunately he is an active Twitter user, which gave me the possibility to follow him in his work, which was quite interesting. I decided to visualize his experience/work flow that could serve as an overview that quickly gets you through the activities he does and some difficulties he encounters. I did this according to the notes I wrote down during our meeting and his tweets. This experience flow is the result of a first meeting I had with Lex, talking about his way of working, troubles he encounters along the way, difficulties, procedures and process. It is a quick overview. To be clear, this overview may give the feeling that Lex s process is linear, but in fact it is not. The three keywords clearly show the three main activities till he renders and sends a video report to NOS, which is a tough job itself. In addition, I made a keynote presentation for myself including this visualization and supported with tweets, photos and videos from Lex, that in someway approves the experience flow. DOCS/ IMAGES/ EXPERI ENCE FLOW -39-

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43 -41- Experience Flow

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45 -43- Screenshots of keynote of experience flow & tweets mix

46 2.3 OPPORTUNITIES UNNOTICED INSPIRATION HUNTING Lex prefers to leave the camera at in the car during the first days, chat with people, explore the environment, eat and drink with all kinds of people, hunting for inspiration to report about. For me, this is a good opportunity to design to help Lex capture these conversations and little inspirational bits and pieces as unnoticed and non disruptive as possible. RE INSPIRE BY EFFICIENCY Watching raw footage, listen to audio recordings, translate. All on the go. This is not the most convenient task to do on a laptop. But Lex does. He checks his material quickly to be sure he has the best to make a video-report of it. He also already sorts out footage and orders them, so the montage-phase will be much easier. This could be made more convenient. At this stage details of a video are not always important. A quick way to deal with these big video files, sorting and re-ordering videos could be made much easier. It could offer the possibility extend the inspiration and capturing phase for a video report. PRACTICALLY LIVE Lex is going live now and then, on a roof of a hotel or unexpected places. He is creative enough to fix a setup with chairs, ladders, and stapling tables, and perform a one-man show. This is a regular thing, so maybe I can find a solution to make a practical tool. -44-

47 THREE IDEAS 1. ON INSPIRATION Lex can put each action in a multi-dimensional timeline, which itself can help him get more grip on how he is inspired and plan actions to dig deeper. This can be done with an interactive tool that can serve as a diary of his news journey. The idea of such a timeline is that it becomes a visual diary of each story/journey. just like the Facebook or Twitter timeline, but with a dimensional twist with more focus on the journey, with a clarifying visual arrangement. By defining the line yourself, you create a multi-dimensional overview of what you have done, what your decision points were, who you met when and where. Looking back at certain points to this timeline can give you an inspirational boost, a trigger. It could even become an extra background information for interested viewers of the NOS news, or the followers of Lex. This idea could evolve into an interactive app for the a smartphone or a tablet. Visualization of idea one: on inspiration -45-

48 EXTRA EYE FOR SAVING LOW-RES VIDEO HD CAMERA APP TO PRE-EDIT AUTOMATIC QUICK EDIT Visualization of idea two: Recording/Montage 2. RECORDING/MONTAGE With this idea I want to support the more practical side of Lex s work. It is a matter of efficiency. It will help Lex to view and edit videos on an early stage on a more comfortable way. By recording the video in low resolution, the video can become roughly editable on a smartphone/tablet. in the first stage of this idea it can be solved with an add-on device, while on a later stage the option of recording two versions of video could be an integrated option for cameras in the future. The app that would go with the add-on can save the edit info, which can be read by the professional software and pre-edit the original material so Lex can immediately start beginning with the fine-edit when he arrives at the hotel. -46-

49 3. ENTIRE PROCESS This is Lex s idea, spontaneously submitted when he was in Iraq. This was great and valuable for me as it is an indication from his side. The idea speaks for itself. I can imagine it sometimes is a tough and time-consuming task to deal with many different apps for the work you want to perform, which most of the time uses different visual languages and demand different kind of interaction. Though it is an everyday routine of Lex to check his agenda, take notes, pictures, tweet, call, register addresses, register contact information of people he gets aquatinted with along the way, keep up with his finances, make to-do lists... An integrated app which can help him do these tasks more efficiently, where these different tasks are more aligned, could be of great value. The challenge here is to check what can be combined and how they should be combined interaction wise. How can this be made useful for many reporters? A combination with idea 1 could be interesting as well. NOTES TO-DO REPORTER S NOTEBOOK (LEX S PROPOSAL) FINANCES SOURCES PEOPLE MY TV-CHANNELS AGENDA Visualization of idea three: Entire process -47-

50 DESIGN QUESTION & DIRECTION As Lex is my client, his idea was very valuable for me because with him telling his idea, he actually indicated a need. On the other side, his idea of having an enhanced app focussing on some key tasks he performs, makes it possible to design for platforms on which the news experience of the future is likely to establish its spot for the coming years at least. With this in mind, I ve composed a design question that would be a lead and a reminder of what the focus of an app for a reporter would be, while maintaining the initial goal of this project to see how I could design for a new news experience. In the first proposed opportunity I see a potential in creating this new news experience for the news reader/watcher, while there is the possibility of supporting a reporter in making a story as well. Therefore I decided to compose the design question according to a combination of opportunity one and three ; one from my side focussing on the news experience, and -48-

51 one from Lex s side focussing on performing key tasks of his job. The design question was formulated as follows: Design a tool (app) that supports a (traveling) reporter in key tasks, while it supports the reporter s inspiration-phase on finding interesting stories and/ or improves and enriches the realization of a story, that on the other side can serve as a new experience for the news reader/watcher/listener The design question is quite long. But it being a complete sentence covering what this project will be about from this stage on, it would serve as a great lead and reminder -49-

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53 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT -51-

54 3.1 CONCEPT: THE REPORTER APP Finally the concept was chosen; The Reporter App, which incorporates both ideas. One, which had a strong focus on inspiration, and the third idea focussing on key tasks a reporter performs on a mobile device. There were three main options to chose as a platform for the app; ios, Android or Windows Phone. Since the client is Lex Runderkamp, who himself uses Apple ios on an iphone and an ipad and uses a MacBook Pro, the choice for a platform was easily made; ios In this chapter the development of this concept will be explained, step by step by focussing on different aspects of the concept, followed by coreflection sessions after which the final design will be presented in the following chapter. The aspects that were taken into account in order to design a successful app were chosen to cover the most important of what an app can be assessed on. The aspects were as follows: Positioning; it is important to know to what extent there are apps that already include functionality that will be incorporated in the concept of the Reporter App. How are certain issues solved in apps that already exist? What do they miss? What are their pro s and con s? All interesting questions to ask here. Features; some choices had to be made here, since it is important what functions are relevant to actually integrate in the app, which can be combined etc. -52-

55 Interaction; the way we interact with objects but also with software is an important aspect in the usability and experience the user will have when using the product or service. Sometimes it even is an important decision maker in wether we want to use it or not. A well designed interaction can persuade people to act in certain ways. Therefore attention is also given to this aspect of the concept. Layout / interface; a good graphical interface is an aspect that can make it or break it. This is an aspect that mostly distinguishes good apps from bad apps. No matter the functions, without a well designed interface an app is likely to fail. Service & Societal Transformation; bearing in mind that this concept will become a service for a new news experience, it is interesting to pay some attention to the societal transformation it can bring, and how this can be brought to peoples lives. Within this aspect some thoughts and visions will be shared. Prototyping; prototyping is a good way to experience what is designed and developed along the way. It can give insights about the aspects mentioned above, which a designer but also a potential user could not see without experiencing it in some way or another. -53-

56 POSITIONING To be aware of what is there on the market a quick investigation on apps was conducted. Since it was unclear which platform for the ios would be chosen, only a focus was given to iphone apps. A selection of the best apps regarding the functionalities for taking notes, keeping an agenda, keeping up with finances and contacts was quickly assessed on some positive and negative aspects. The purpose of doing this was to be inspired regarding functionalities and interface aspects. AWESOME NOTE + DOCS/ KEY NOTES/ MARKET Highly customizable. Synching with Google Docs and Evernote To-do lists with reminder function Visually appealing Many functions > loss of simplicity Many buttons > complex Different interface language = learning curve Poor sharing options (no social media) NOTES -54-

57 EVERNOTE AUDIONOTE iprorecorder Familiar interface and interaction Clear menu items, no button clutter Synching to many platforms (Evernote for Mac, Android etc.) Advanced sharing (social media) Simple straightforward functionality Second-precise timestamp functionality during voice recording Clear visual language (although not retinaoptimized) and good interface Nice audio quality (adjustable) Detail information (geotagging, size, quality) Local Web Sharing + itunes + Controls to move and manipulate media in a note lacks. (No drag and drop functionality) Photo not visible in editing mode when not synched yet Not the best graphics (interface) No visual overview of audio-recording No editing capabilities of audio No audio-controls No social media sharing options No major negative points (keeping in mind its purpose) Market exploration -55-

58 Groups ABContacts TagMe Clear visual language, familiar interface & interaction (iphone) Integrated with address-book + icloud Recognizability of groups with icons Drag-drop contacts between groups SMS, multiple contacts by selecting Clear visual language, familiar interface & interaction (iphone) Integrated with address-book + icloud Visual favorites Dialer with T9 functionality Configure how to call (skype, etc) Adding up to the recognizability in list view Integrated with address-book + icloud Visual favorites Dialer with T9 functionality Configure how to call (skype, etc) No additional functionality No geo-tagging of contacts No quick-add for contacts No additional functionality No geo-tagging of contacts Less functional than original address-book of iphone No further functionality (this is very weak) CONTACTS -56-

59 Remove Duplicate Contacts Pocket Informant mical Removing or merge duplicate contacts + events Group sms + mail iphone interface/interaction Event management (move/delete/add events in many ways) Monthly calendar view including activities directly readable Combined with to-do s, also visible in the same screen Different view options The ability to synch Google calendar and Facebook calendar Monthly calendar visible at top while in day view Contact an attendee via phone call or sms Photo of contact included Complex interaction (functionally) No contact management (adding etc.) A clutter. Too small to read, and to tap on Not the best colors (personally) No major negative points here. Quite well done. AGENDA Market exploration -57-

60 Calvetica Awesome Calendar + + Clean interface and typography Contains various viewing modes such as month, day, week Month viewable while in day mode Swiping left and right for quick navigation Monthly calendar view including activities directly readable Combined with to-do s Different view options Creating to-do s with multiple stages. Adding notes Not the most innovative calendar. Losing overview because of swipe based navigation and because a maybe to clear interface. Some color coding could work Too small icons in month view All items (notes, ToDo s, events) separate in list view AGENDA -58-

61 Balance Toshi + + Adding recurring transactions Balance visible throughout the app Well designed interface Adding tags and details to expenses Syncing with web app Setting a monthly limit Foreign currencies with daily exchange rate Layout not indicating the current screen. All screens/features look the same. Buttons are not distinguishable on first sight. Detailed view of incomes and expenses are not on same screen FINANCE Market exploration -59-

62 REQUIREMENTS Lex mentioned several requirements a Reporter App he had in mind should have. He mentioned six of them. Those were as follows: notes, to-do s, finances, sources, relevant people, my channels. His own explanation about these requirements were (quotes from an ): Note - in which I can make separate notes To-Do - A list with alarming possibilities Finances - something in which I can keep up with how much I spend for what (taxi, tips, hotel, fixers, hardware, internet) Sources - addresses and phone numbers of people I encounter along the way ( to be coupled to Address Book of the iphone) Relevant people this trip - list with names and numbers of people I have to reach quickly (producers, coordinators, editor-in-chief, radio-editors, teletekst colleagues in Hilversum) My channels - In each hotel the channels such as CBB, Al Jazeera, etc again on different channels of the TV. I always make a list, so I don t have to scan through 999 channels. I would be great if I could easily make a handsome list on the iphone. With a closer look to these requirements, it was decided that some of them could be joined in one feature in order to avoid a feature clutter. On the other side, this app is to be considered as an app for all, if not, many reporters. Therefore a close look into what could be relevant for them, was a reason to think about what should be the features in the eventual Reporter App. The following requirements were proposed to the client to combine; notes and my channels, sources and relevant people this trip. In addition an agenda was added to the requirements list as Lex once indicated he is trying to remember appointments, without an agenda. Though, this added requirement was combined with todo s. The final requirements list consisted of notes, contacts, agenda, finances. As this list was covering only Lex s proposal, an added requirement was given for the inspirational part of the concept which was called roadmap. The roadmap is the place where a reporter can share items regarding the above mentioned other features, to make himself a visual of the actions and decisions that played a role in making a new story. Not only for himself, but also for the news consumer. -60-

63 Screenshot of Keynote with Lex s comments To check whether the combination of certain requirements make sense, and to have information on which app Lex is already using regarding that function, a presentation was made in Keynote. This presentation included text fields where Lex could insert quick comments on the descriptions given to the requirements, as well as the relation and flow between those requirements. It was done this way, because a face-to-face discussion was not possible seen the fact that Lex was in Iraq when this phase of the concept development was performed. Based on Lex s quick comments on how he sees certain features (appendix), a final list of requirements was decided upon, including some details. DOCS/ KEY NOTES/ FUNC TIONS -61-

64 NOTES This feature is quite simple and to the point. Within this feature the reporter can make notes in which different media such as pictures, video s, audio and links can be included. The text editing capabilities will stay rather simple in order to emphasize this is a feature to take notes, not complete texts. Complete texts can be edited in other apps, while here it is about quick notes in the flow of the job. Also from the news consumer side, complete texts usually can be found on blogs of the news agency, while quick notes are interesting regarding this concept as those are the bits an pieces in making a new story. CONTACTS In contacts the focus is on having a separate list of contact information for each trip/job. As reporters encounter many people, it is important to give them cues to remember who it was, as they tend to forget. The contacts feature therefore includes the functionality to add a picture, location for when and where they met, basic contact information such as number address and , a description, social media accounts. -62-

65 AGENDA The agenda is kept quite simple, as it serves as an in-app version of the calendar the ios already has, with a more simple day specific layout. The agenda contains the possibility to add appointments and events, including all possibilities of the ios Calendar such as time, place, invitees etc. An addition here is that the agenda is combined, also regarding the layout, with to-do s. This was done because to-do s are in fact agenda items that people don t plan at an exact time, but usually have an indication of when they want to complete it. ROADMAP FINANCES In finances the purpose is not to have complex feature to calculate and keep up with detailed expenses. Rather the idea is to provide a simple tool to register the expenses. Especially a traveling reporter needs to declare a list including the receipts if possible to their company. By having a simple feature in which a reporter quickly can type how much he/she spent for what, it will be easy to remember. With an option to export the expenses into an Excel file, it is easy to edit the expenses on the computer in order to give it to the company the reporter is working for. The roadmap is an exiting. The purpose of it is to create a visual timeline that tells how a story evolves and reaches people. Usually news consumers see news items on the television, or on the internet, when the reporter has reached a level that is worth sharing. Though, with social media now a days is possible to share bits and pieces. The roadmap focusses on those bits and pieces and provides a visual way of sharing them, to show the news consumer how the story evolves, while creating a visual archive for himself. -63-

66 3.2 INTERFACE & INTERACTION The Reporter app is considered to be an ultimate tool, a companion for reporters. In that sense, the focus of the app is functionality. Rather than a breathtaking graphical experience, it should be easy to understand, clear and to the point as it can be, while of course maintaining nice graphical layout. SKETCHING As usual in most design projects, it all starts with drawings of how the interface could look like. These were soon digitalized, after which some elements were designed in more detail. Of course not every detail was incorporated in the first iterations. Rather details that were needed to express the purpose and functionality. -64-

67 -65- Some sketches

68 OVERALL INTERFACE & NAVIAGTION In this first iteration for the interface the focus was as follows: The overall layout was divided in three main areas. One for the top level features (notes, contacts, agenda, finances and roadmap), one for the navigation within one of the features and one for the particular element with which the user will interact with eventually. As the latter deserves the most focus, it logically got the most space and is positioned in the middle. Both navigation areas are kept on the sides to keep the ease of using both thumbs when holding the ipad in both hands. In the left in-feature navigation, a thumbnail of media within the note is shown in order to give the user the possibility to quickly recognize notes. The user navigates through the notes by swiping up and down on the whole navigation area (cover flow, flipping pages). This way of navigating also counts for contacts, agenda and finances. A search field was added, to be able to search in notes. This field was added in the in-feature navigation because it was meant to search within the feature itself. The icons for the buttons were quite straight forward in the sense that the symbols are familiar for an ios user. For basic functionalities, like sharing options, listing and adding no new symbols were designed, but rather existing symbols were maintained through the app in general. Though, to the roadmap icon with the map symbol, a little detail was added to add up to its recognizability. The three icons/buttons on the bottom stand for (from left-to right) sharing, adding the current sheet to the roadmap queue, or directly adding it to the roadmap. Further information about this will be given in the roadmap explanation that will follow. The icons for the main features were custom designed to be in line with the white sheet in the middle and the thumbnail sheets on the left navigation area. Each feature got its own color according to a pre-defined color palette. The colors were not just used for the icons, but for the feature in general to highlight important elements. NOTES The notes sheet is the area where editing it happens. Therefore, adding new pictures and images or other multimedia such as images, videos and documents happens with buttons located at the bottom of the sheet. FINANCE Finances is kept quite clear and simple. Each sheet is a day on which the user can add expenses. A total of all expenses is shown at the bottom of the sheet. -66-

69 CONTACTS Adding a picture of a contact is quite straight forward. An icon at the corner of the picture area allows the directly add a picture either from the library or by making it on the spot, just by switching to the ios camera. The area that contains the location also works with the native ios app Maps. By tapping on the area you access a part of the Maps app in which you can locate either by defining the current location or by defining another location through giving an address. Another important element is adding social media accounts, which is used by more and more people to contact and gain information about each other. Although it is not thoroughly thought about how, this element also should allow to add that particular social media account through the social media service itself. So adding a Facebook account of a contact should also give the option to send a friend request. ROADMAP At the bottom of the right navigation pane, there is the roadmap button. This button is made different to indicate that it is a swipe area. The roadmap feature is on a rather different level that the previous features. It is an area where the information comes together and is shared in a visual storyline. That difference is emphasized with the animation when switching between to roadmap and the records screen. By swiping the navigation pane to the left, like the arrows in the swipe button indicate, this pane moves to the left and reveals the roadmap. In this screen the buttons share and add again appear at the bottom. Next to those buttons an additional button to turn editing of the lines on and off. The highlights are given in a specific color. The features that now are located on the left contain different information than in the previous screens; it shows the number of items that are in the queue. Dragging from the feature icon to the roadmap line begins with the oldest item. E.g. When two notes are added in queue, the first one to be dragged is the oldest created note. The dragged item snaps to the line. The lines that can be drawn are straight lines, that must be connected to an existing one. The items that are placed on the roadmap are automatically tweeted, with the title of the item provided with a link to the web app, which will be discussed in the next topic. Tapping on an item opens the Twitter dialogue. An indication next to each item shows how many comments was received through the Twitter service. AGENDA The agenda focuses on day-to-day activities, which includes planned activities for a specific time, but also to-do s. On the sheets these two are combined to still give the opportunity to globally plan a to-do between time-specific activities. To-do s are provided with a checkbox. On the navigation area on the left, the red indicators show where to-do s are still not checked. -67-