Reader photo sections should be designed for readers!
This entry was posted in Divers on January 13th, 2012 by Garrett Goodman - No comments »
Yet these sections aren't always designed for today's online reader: they aren't social enough, they aren't fun enough, and there's virtually zero lock-in effect.
When designed correctly, however, the resulting reader involvement can offer huge benefits to news organisations: more engagement, more loyalty, as well as more page views.
Last month I gave a presentation at a journalism conference in Hong Kong about how news sites can actually succeed in creating reader photo initiatives that offer compelling, rewarding experiences for their audiences.
It's a problem of commitment
There is a general reluctance in traditional media outlets to admit that the crowd knows more collectively on any given subject than even an expert journalist. However, if you have any doubts about the power of crowdsourcing, let Paul Lewis of the Guardian put them to rest by watching this Ted Talk.
Given that allowing the crowd to help report or break a story can do so much to improve its accuracy and impact, why is the experience of contributing to a news site so much more tedious and less enticing than posting the same photos to Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook?
I'll give you three ways the traditional reader photo programme falls short, in terms of user experience.
1) Interaction in a silo
The majority of reader photo programmes don't cater to the habits of today's internaut (this French term needs to be used more widely!). That is, the act of contributing is not social and shareable, but rather occurs in a silo of back and forth email exchanges.
We internauts are social beings, we love to get constant feedback from our friends about what we've posted and crave that (whether we admit it or not) as recognition of how cool we are because we share cool things. We also interact to feel a sense of belonging, and like to associate ourselves with a particular community that shares our interests (both central themes of Clay Shirky's work).
Now, what about this user proposition is social?
As a typical reader, if I send in a story, I might be lucky to get an auto-response thanking me for my email. Given that editors are stretched thin as it is, rarely will I get an actual personal response or my picture published unless my contribution is outstanding.
If I feel like I'm sending an email to a black hole, what's going to compel me to even send the email, let alone come back a second time?
If, at the very least, I'm provided an experience where my pic goes up in a reader gallery section, where my friends and other readers can leave comments and share it, well then, now I'm getting some interaction. Now I'm starting to have a social experience that could be more rewarding.
The recently revamped reader photo section on Sky News' site is a good example of a more social iteration of the standard "email us your news" user proposition.
2) Lack of identity
For those intrepid news sites that have opened up their online operations to user generated content (UGC) by showing reader galleries, an unfortunate majority lack the essential ingredient to building communities: the member profile as a unit of identity.
Earning recognition and gaining a reputation are social dynamics that can transform a section of slideshows into an enriching content sharing community. Plus, they make it fun. The internal dynamics that emerge from well-designed interactive communities can lead to user motivation through competition with other members, and loyalty through their sense of belonging to the community.
But when a reader photo program is designed for citing contributors in slideshow captions (such as the BBC's) instead of providing clickable user profiles that showcase their progress and performance, the advantages to social status and building reputation are necessarily diminished.
The profile page of a user should look like this (full disclosure: Archant is a client of the startup for which I work). It should show what a member has accomplished, the things they've contributed, and provide them a space to distinguish themselves from the crowd. It should allow them to display their identity.
3) No camera, no dice
Participation in reader photo programmes is at its highest during contests, when the incentive to participate is clear, and there is special recognition, or a prize such as a new camera. This leads to spikes and lulls in audience engagement, and doesn't adequately reward regular contributions between the contests. It doesn't lock readers in.
This engagement issue can be overcome if the silo and identity issues are dealt with correctly, by providing readers with a social experience in which they can build their reputation in a community. Having a sense of steady progress and skill mastery can be incredibly motivating, and encourage a strong commitment to a reader photo programme.
This sense of progress and accomplishment doesn't require contests to work either (although they can certainly help). What a user needs is a way to see how far they've come (i.e. points), and a means to compare themselves with the other members of the community (i.e. levels). When a progress bar is used to show how many points are needed to go up a level, it encourages activity between contests. And when a ranking ladder is used to show who's leading the community, it encourages competition and regular participation.
3) Game or Die
News organisations trying to foster engagement on their site through a reader photo section need to put the user first, and design for today's internaut.
By borrowing some proven dynamics from the most successful interactive medium, video games, and adding them as a social gaming layer to the experience of participating in a reader photo programme, news organisations can design compelling interactive communities that are rewarding for users to be a part of.
CNN has done just that with its ireport community. And its traffic alone is an indication of how well this approach works, it receives over 2.5 Million unique visitors every month.
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The concepts shared above are based largely on Citizenside's approach to networked news, which was distilled into this White Paper by our former editor in chief, Philip Trippenbach.
























































