Re:noted #4: Ask what people would lose to understand 'why' and 'how'
Our first RJI innovation column is on interviewing your audience without collecting polite yeses.
Some news: for the next six months, we'll be writing regular columns on service design in journalism for Reynolds Journalism Institute!
We'll send you the link to each new piece. You can read the first one here: How audience interviews surface opportunities for service-oriented journalism.
Below is a short excerpt; read the full column for a great interview with an inspiring creator/journalist, Nick Parish of Current Flow State, who changed strategy for his fly fishing publication thanks to conversations with his readers.
Analytics tell you how many. They don't tell you why.
If you're wondering why newsletter subscribers aren't becoming paying members, or whether anyone used the voter guide you produced, your dashboard or a survey can size the question, but it can't really answer it. For the why and the how, you have to talk to people.
That's where service design starts: in people's everyday realities, so you can build something they can depend on. Many newsrooms talk to people when they're starting out to inform their strategy. But interviews work just as well once you're up and running, to find out what isn't working or where to expand.
You don't need a research firm to do it. Five to ten conversations, run by one person over a few days or weeks, is enough. You'll have enough when you can almost predict what the next person will say.
Questions that get at people's realities, not aspirations
A good interview is a guided conversation about moments in someone's real life: what happened the last time they used what you make, how it felt, what they did afterward, what could have made it better.
A failed interview hands you comfortable, wrong conclusions, and sends you away more certain, not less, of the wrong things.
Three habits that help:
- Ask about the past, not the future. "What news would you like to read?" invites aspiration, and people are bad at predicting their own behavior. Instead, ask what they did and how they felt.
- Take institutions out of the question. "How do you feel about local media in our town?" gets you opinions. "What's the last story about our town you shared with a neighbor?" gets you what was useful.
- Ask what people would lose. Agreeing costs nothing, so "Is this useful?" gets polite yeses. Absence is harder to fake: "Was there a period when you couldn't get to it? What did you do instead?" Or: "If it disappeared tomorrow, what would you miss?"
And don't only talk to your biggest fans. Mix in lapsed subscribers, people who signed up and went quiet, and people who complained once.
People won't tell you what to build
Nobody says "I need a newsletter on X." They tell you where in their life they're struggling, frustrated, or curious. The pattern that repeats across interviews is the opportunity, and it's rarely the one you expected.
Until next time, you can:
- Read the full column at RJI, with a great example of a strategy pivot thanks to interviews.
- Take our gut check self-evaluation. It shows how you compare to others who have taken it.
- Write to us at servicedesk@gazzetta.xyz with feedback, questions, or an interview story of your own.
Patrick & Madison
P.S.: At the LION Summit in San Diego this week, you can get an early edition of the free step-by-step resource we're launching with The Lenfest Institute for Journalism in October. Join us for coffee and the beta booklet.