Guy Haviv. our design director and partner talked at the online journalism conference - Digit 2015, about the possible ways for designing media experiences in an attention-deficit world.

1. 2015 Digit
Media experiences in a
distraction-saturated reality
Digit
Guy Haviv
Design Director, Partner
Tel Aviv

2. 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.
Digit

3. Overview
San Francisco
Madrid
Barcelona
Aarhus
Copenhagen
Munich
Tel Aviv
Sao Paolo
Shanghai
Tokyo
Oslo
Stockholm

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

5. Digit
Information overload is not ‘new’
2015
Saturated Lives

6. Digit
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

7. Digit
But since then, social media mobile
apps + increasing prominence of
notifications made it increasingly
harder to concentrate.
2015
Saturated Lives

8. 2015 Digit
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

9. Digit
We struggle to concentrate,
even when watching TV, or a film at the cinema.
2015
Saturated Lives

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

11. 2015 Digit
More and more people have a hard time dealing with
Distraction
Saturated Lives

12. 2015 Digit
Q
How do we create digital user
experiences that are increasingly
relevant in this reality?
Question:

13. 2015 Digit
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:

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

15. 2015 Digit
Inspiration:
1. News on the web (Haaretz)
Digit

16. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
haaretz.co.il was re-designed several times in the past decade.
2015

17. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
Online, Haaretz mostly imitates the competition,
the result is yet another news portal.
2015
Haaretz NRG Ynet

18. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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
2015

19. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
This means that the dominating organization
method is the site’s categories, tags and
web page templates.
2015

20. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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

21. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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.
2015
Content from today and earlier this week is mixed

22. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
The print edition, however, is a finite object.
It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
2015

23. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
The print edition is edited, curated,
organized, made hierarchical by experts
- this results in a finite object.
2015

24. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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.
2015
Because she can get the sense of being ‘briefed’ and going
‘through everything’ - largely because the object is finite.

25. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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

26. 2015 Digit
Redesign Haaretz’ digital presence
around it’s strengths:
strong, thoughtful, critical, inspiring content, often with a
long ‘durability’
Idea:

27. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
Design it’s web presence around 2 main pillars:
1. Editions
2. Online news
2015

28. Online NewsToday’s Edition
Use this as a basis of the website layout:
Inspiration: News on the Web

29. On the mobile view of the site
Inspiration: News on the Web
Online News
Today’s Edition
Today’s Edition

30. An on a tablet
Inspiration: News on the Web
Online NewsToday’s Edition

31. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
The ‘edition’ part includes the same content as
the printed edition, in layouts and structure that
are designed to work well digitally.
2015

32. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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

33. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
The ‘online news’ content will be stronger as
a result of the dichotomy between it and the
‘edition’ content.
2015

34. 2015 Digit
Q
How can we leverage existing
content that has the potential for a
long lifespan?
Question:

35. 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

36. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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

37. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
Those could be sold as ‘small digital books’ within a future Haaretz
app, as in app purchases, and accumulated in a digital library
2015

38. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
~4 months after I originally talked about this,
the New York Times released a refresh of
their website.
2015

39. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
Including many refinements, one of which is a
new section called ‘Today’s Paper’
2015

40. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
And a new feature inside ‘NYT Premier’ is
called TBooks
2015

41. Digit
Inspiration: News on the Web
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

42. 2015 Digit
Inspiration:
2. Voice
Digit

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

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

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

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

47. Digit
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

48. Digit
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.

49. Inspiration: Voice

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

51. Digit
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.
2015
which brings us to the next point.

52. 2015 Digit
Inspiration:
3. Learning
Digit

53. 2015 Digit
Q
How can we be ‘linearize media’
for learning?
Question:

54. Digit
“Inject knowledge”
2015
Inspiration: Learning

55. Digit
Can we build ‘learning machines’?
2015
Inspiration: Learning

56. Digit
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
Inspiration: Learning

57. Digit
So of course there’s iTunes U
2015
Inspiration: Learning

58. Digit
Some new services are very good at this:
2015
Inspiration: Learning

59. Digit
Code Academy
2015
Inspiration: Learning
- Success is within reach
- Series of small achievements
- Learning is interactive
- Easy to pick up

60. Digit
Code Academy
2015
Inspiration: Learning
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.

61. Digit
But the real treat is a new tool
called Gibbon.
2015
Inspiration: Learning

62. Digit
Gibbon: playlists for learning (video on next slide)
2015

63. Digit2015

64. Digit2015

65. Digit
Think of what’s possible for new learning
experiences inspired by this?
2015

66. 2015 Digit
Inspiration:
4. Products that generate linear experiences
Digit

67. Digit
Flipboard, of course.
2015
Inspiration: products that generate linear experiences

68. Digit
You would think that the kind of layouts Flipboard generates are
only relevant on tablets, right?
2015
Inspiration: products that generate linear experiences

69. Digit
Wrong.
Flipboard on the iPhone is
focused & wonderful.
2015
Inspiration: products that generate linear experiences

70. Digit2015

71. Digit
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

72. Digit
SundaySky
2015
Inspiration: Learning
Generates ‘smart video’ out of
various data sources
AT&T Bill smart video

73. Digit
SundaySky
2015
Inspiration: Learning
Generates ‘smart video’ out of
various data sources
Smart Video for Travel

74. Digit
Facebook Paper
2015

75. Digit2015
Inspiration: products that generate linear experiences

76. Digit
Redux
(closed)
2015
Inspiration: products that generate linear experiences

77. 2015 Digit
Summary
Digit

78. Digit 2015
Summary
What happens when we apply this
thinking to other types of media?
2014

79. Digit 2015
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

80. 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.

81. 2015 Digit
Thank you.
Digit
Guy Haviv
Design Director, Partner
Tel Aviv
designit.com
guy.haviv@designit.com