Media Experiences in a Distraction-Saturated Reality

2015 Digit
Media experiences in a
distraction-saturated reality
Digit
Guy Haviv
Design Director, Partner
Tel Aviv

About Designit
2015
We grow businesses by designing new
experiences for humans, enabled by
technology.
We are a global strategic design firm
making innovation happen for the world’s
most ambitious companies.
We design brands, products, services,
digital & mobile experiences and fuse
them with technology.
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Overview
San Francisco
Madrid
Barcelona
Aarhus
Copenhagen
Munich
Tel Aviv
Sao Paolo
Shanghai
Tokyo
Oslo
Stockholm

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Saturated Lives
Modern life is becoming increasingly
saturated, overloaded with information.
2015

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Information overload is not ‘new’
2015
Saturated Lives

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For short period of time, it seemed that
the iPhone and iPad can help with this
with their full screen apps.
iOS facilitated a single immersive experience at a time.
2015
Saturated Lives

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But since then, social media mobile 
apps + increasing prominence of
notifications made it increasingly
harder to concentrate.
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Saturated Lives

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FOMO
“FOMO is a form of social anxiety, whereby one is compulsively concerned
that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel
experience, profitable investment or other satisfying event.”
Wikipedia
Saturated Lives
Fear Of Missing Out

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We struggle to concentrate, 
even when watching TV, or a film at the cinema.
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Saturated Lives

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Saturated Lives
For many people, time and attention
are now scarce resources.
2015

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More and more people have a hard time dealing with
Distraction
Saturated Lives

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Q
How do we create digital user
experiences that are increasingly
relevant in this reality?
Question:

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A
By designing for helping users ‘making sense of the world’
By making discovery & consumption of content more familiar and simpler
By designing for digestion
By editing, curating & organizing fragmented media to be 
more linear
Possible answers:

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I’d like to walk you through a few
inspiration points.
2015
Saturated Lives

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Inspiration:
1. News on the web (Haaretz)
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Inspiration: News on the Web
haaretz.co.il was re-designed several times in the past decade.  
2015

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Online, Haaretz mostly imitates the competition,
the result is yet another news portal.
2015
Haaretz NRG Ynet

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The tendency on these sites is to publish
stories by categories, into ready-made
templates.
This includes web-only news and some
stories from the printed edition
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This means that the dominating organization
method is the site’s categories, tags and
web page templates.
2015

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Index pages are mostly the same
template, with stories of the same
category in the same place, with
only text / images changing.
Hierarchy is almost always determined by the template.
2015

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The content is often infinite: there’s always more
content. I’m always looking at a subset of all content
available through some list page.
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Content from today and earlier this week is mixed

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The print edition, however, is a finite object. 
It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
2015

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The print edition is edited, curated,
organized, made hierarchical by experts
- this results in a finite object.
2015

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When a person reads or skims this printed edition, and goes through it all the
way to the end, there’s a feeling of accomplishment, even if she only skimmed
her way through.
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Because she can get the sense of being ‘briefed’ and going
‘through everything’ - largely because the object is finite.

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So much of this output, which is highly valuable
and done by the most senior talents in the org.
and is barely utilized on the Web.
2015

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Redesign Haaretz’ digital presence
around it’s strengths:
strong, thoughtful, critical, inspiring content, often with a
long ‘durability’
Idea:

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Design it’s web presence around 2 main pillars: 
1. Editions
2. Online news
2015

Online NewsToday’s Edition
Use this as a basis of the website layout:

On the mobile view of the site
Online News
Today’s Edition
Today’s Edition

An on a tablet
Online NewsToday’s Edition

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The ‘edition’ part includes the same content as
the printed edition, in layouts and structure that
are designed to work well digitally.
2015

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These editions are finite objects, even in digital. 
They have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
It’s an ‘object’ a user can understand, skim, read,
start & finish. Pay for.
2015

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The ‘online news’ content will be stronger as
a result of the dichotomy between it and the
‘edition’ content.
2015

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Q
How can we leverage existing
content that has the potential for a
long lifespan?
Question:

Use this slide when displaying a bright image that can benefit from a dark background.
Section name
I assume you’re familiar with
Kindle Singles

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I would enjoy reading a compilation of ‘election
news’ content from one of the paper’s political
commentators.
Or a compilation of design articles from the last
6 months.
2015

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Those could be sold as ‘small digital books’ within a future Haaretz
app, as in app purchases, and accumulated in a digital library
2015

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~4 months after I originally talked about this,
the New York Times released a refresh of
their website.
2015

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Including many refinements, one of which is a
new section called ‘Today’s Paper’
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And a new feature inside ‘NYT Premier’ is
called TBooks
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The redesign was extensive and includes many other
features and enhancements.
So we can’t attribute the impact on a specific feature or
two, but in any case:
Digital subscriptions grew by 18%
2015

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Inspiration:
2. Voice
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Inspiration: Voice
For quite a few people, consuming audio content
is becoming increasingly important as our lives
become busier.
2015

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Inspiration: Voice
This content comes in the form of
podcasts, audiobooks, online radio
and a mixture of the above.
2015

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Inspiration: Voice
The BBC is doing very good use of this
trend, serving content in it’s dedicated
iPlayer Radio apps as well as propagating it
as podcasts to the iTunes store.
2015

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Inspiration: Voice
2015
The BBC is doing very good use of this
trend, serving content in it’s dedicated
iPlayer Radio apps as well as propagating it
as podcasts to the iTunes store.

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Inspiration: Voice
For some people, this channel complements many daily activities:
Commuting, walking the dog, exercising, washing dishes, etc.
2015

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Inspiration: Voice
I use podcasts and the BBC radio app as a
learning tool: you can look up content on ‘color
theory’ and get a list of things to listen to.
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which brings us to the next point.

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Inspiration:
3. Learning
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Q
How can we be ‘linearize media’
for learning?
Question:

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“Inject knowledge”
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Inspiration: Learning

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Can we build ‘learning machines’?
2015

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Is there a way to do this with voice?
Build a learning-machine that is simple, speaks ‘directly’ to my
brain and makes me learn new things?
2015

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So of course there’s iTunes U
2015

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Some new services are very good at this:
2015

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Code Academy
2015
- Success is within reach
- Series of small achievements
- Learning is interactive
- Easy to pick up

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Code Academy
2015
Hour of Code app
I can imagine myself completing this interactive
thing, and gaining new skills.
It won’t be about reading, it will be active.

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But the real treat is a new tool
called Gibbon.
2015

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Gibbon: playlists for learning (video on next slide)
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Think of what’s possible for new learning
experiences inspired by this?
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Inspiration:
4. Products that generate linear experiences
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Flipboard, of course.
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Inspiration: products that generate linear experiences

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You would think that the kind of layouts Flipboard generates are
only relevant on tablets, right?
2015

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Wrong. 
Flipboard on the iPhone is
focused & wonderful.
2015

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Section name
Would people pay for a new, re-imagined
edition of their favorite magazine that is
intimate and close them me on their phone?
(I would.)
2015

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SundaySky
2015
Generates ‘smart video’ out of
various data sources
AT&T Bill smart video

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SundaySky
2015
Generates ‘smart video’ out of
various data sources
Smart Video for Travel

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Redux
(closed)
2015

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Summary
What happens when we apply this
thinking to other types of media?
2014

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Summary
Perhaps by taking fragmented, distributed
pieces of information and linearizing them into
a finite experience, we can make them
resonate in today’s world?
2014

Leumi Card2015
Idea vs. Innovation
Often times, in many organizations, it’s hard to tackle the need
to innovate in the digital space.
Common causes are operational complexity, tech feasibility,
or the long time frames it takes to validate ideas.
Surprisingly, it’s often the case that it’s best to engage these
challenges head on.

2015 Digit
Thank you.
Digit
Guy Haviv
Design Director, Partner
Tel Aviv
designit.com
guy.haviv@designit.com

Media Experiences in a Distraction-Saturated Reality

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