Overview
The New York Times (NYT) is a long standing news company that aims to provide their readers truthful and in-depth journalism. Despite their storied history and repuation, NYT accounted for nearly a quarter of news subscription cancellations in a study reported by the Nieman Labs.
NYT Playlists serves to be a bridge for the occasional reader by providing a means for them to consume long form articles through audio; thus allowing readers to integrate news content into their busy schedules in order to retain subscribers who don't make the time to read. Click me to see the intervention.
Problem Space and Research
While being known for their print based content, NYT in recent years have placed a heavy emphasis on their digital subscription growth. Through brand and business secondary research, it was surfaced that they set a goal of hitting 15 million digital subscribers by 2027.
Although NYT have increased their subscriber count exponentially, their growth has stagnated as they have become the most cancelled digital newspaper service. This increase was driven by their promotional offerings that had brought readers in, but past this discounted period, readers cancelled their subscriptions due to a perceived lack of time which did not match what they were willing to pay.
Further research uncovered in Nieman Labs survey "Cancel Culture: Why do People Cancel News Subscriptions?" (that gathered insights from 504 respondents) also highlighted a key factor for why subscribers were leaving NYT was due to a lack of time to read the news.
Q: Why do People Cancel News Subscriptions?
“
I just don’t have the time to sit and read a newspaper anymore without a long commute on public transporation”
– Survey Respondent of Nieman Labs Article
Framing the Approach
Through these insights from the survey, a follow-up interviews with 7 individuals was conducted through the team's Sprint to understand the behaviours surrounding news consumption. It became evident from these two streams that a large issue came in the fact that occassional readers of the New York Times could not maximize their subscription as they lacked the time to read read in-depth articles during the day.
This informed our framing of "How might we help an occassional reader form a routine to integrate daily news consumption into their day to day lives?"
Introducing NYT Playlists
Embedded within NYT's existing app interface, playlists acts as a seamless intervention that integrates into the occassional readers lifestyle by introducing news consumption in the form of audio. By providing readers another method to consume this content, it gives freedom to listeners to create their own playlist of articles enabling them to access topics at a pace that fits their schedule.
Through our intervention, I mainly was responsible for forming the interactions + animations within the final prototype as well as writing and editing the user scenario video.
Features of Playlists
Your Pace, Your Medium
Article playlists allow readers’ to integrate news content throughout their day– without having to allocate specific times to read. Listen or read with progress tracking to follow along with articles, allowing readers to pause, and pick up where they left off when needed.
Key Insight:
"If I have the time and I am multi-tasking, I’ll listen to it instead of reading the whole [article].”
Sprint Interviewee (Wall Street Journal Subscriber)
Notify the Moments
Readers with busy schedules can identify moments in their day to send themselves push notifications so they can keep up with the news.
Key Insight:
5 out of 7 interviewees stated that their morning routine involved planning the day with a calendar
Sprint Interviewees
Just "For You"
Playlists will be created by a reader based off headlines that catch their interest. Self curation ensures that their limited time is spent on content that is important to them.
Key Insight:
70% of Americans only read and skim headlines when they first engage with news content
Research Centre (Columbia University + the French National Institute)
The Key Values
Through this intervention with it's accompanying features, Playlists provides the following values for both readers and NYT itself.
My Final Thoughts
As a second go around in the realm of Experience Design (with Wool and the Gang being the first), there was a lot to take away and consider. Heading into this 7 week process, our team had only really begun landing with NYT after the 3rd week as time before had been spent investigating other clients that fell through as the business problem's were not clear.
Through a series of painful setbacks and —dare I say— pivots, myself and the rest of the team began to truly grasp the significance of business considerations with NYT and how such insights can drive a project; making something desirable is just one half of the equation as an intervention (often) starts with the tangible values around. Having gone through everything, I know even better the importance of starting from grounded + solid research and (sadly) when to move on from an idea.
Last, but not least, here's one more final thanks to the entire team that went through this journey with me!