5 ms·

NPR's Guide to Hypothesis-Driven Design for Editorial Projects

129 points by danso 7y ago

klenwell 7y ago
Interesting idea and, at a glance, it looks pretty well thought out. It was obviously inspired by Agile/Scrum and the software development process. I like the checklists and noticed it has a couple retrospective point, which I think is a critical part of Agile development. A couple things I'd be interested in for follow-up: - How does it go in practice with an actual project? Any real world examples or case studies? - Any practices introduced here that could be carried back into the scrum / software development world?
- danso 7y ago
  I saw the guide linked to a recent indepth writeup on how the NPR Visuals Team developed the project page for their White Lies investigative podcast: http://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/05/17/white-lies.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/05/17/white-lies.html An excerpt: > In keeping with our hypothesis-driven design process, we started the project by identifying likely audiences for our digital experience, the contexts by which they’d come to the site (via a promo on social, etc.) and their expectations. With that audience exercise in mind, we decided on a few primary editorial goals for the project: > - Provide a standalone narrative for people who only encounter the story on the web (and may or may not go on to subscribe to the podcast) > - Intrigue readers and entice them to listen to the full podcast > - Provide multimedia material that couldn’t fit into an audio-only experience > - Introduce newcomers to the history surrounding the murder, including Bloody Sunday and the civil rights struggle
  - klenwell 7y ago
    One thing I noticed the document doesn't address: what if the hypothesis is wrong? Is the project abandoned? Or is that included in the eventual product/result? And is the product in this case an editorial story/article? First sentence suggests a "storytelling project": > Hypothesis-Driven Design (or HDD for short) is a problem solving method that helps editorial teams take a user-centered and evidence-based approach to the discovery, design, and development of new storytelling projects. I assume that means podcast/This American Life-style stories.
    - danso 7y ago
      Don't know the answers to your questions, though it seems the Visuals team produces work for daily stories, not just big features like special podcasts and series. They also produce a few projects that don't seem to originate from the radio/podcast side: - What do Red and Blue America Have in Common? Craft Breweries and more: https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/11/19/elex-18-districts.html https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/11/19/elex-18-districts.html - Listeners' favorite albums: https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/01/03/all-songs-considered-poll.html https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/01/03/all-songs-considered-po... - Visualization of redactions in the Mueller report: https://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/04/22/reading-between-redacting-barr.html https://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/04/22/reading-between-redacti... - Previously, on Arrested Development (an interactive database of AD's jokes and gags): https://apps.npr.org/arrested-development/ https://apps.npr.org/arrested-development/ - Playgrounds for Everyone (a crowdsourced guide to accessible playgrounds): http://www.playgroundsforeveryone.com/ http://www.playgroundsforeveryone.com/ - Book Concierge (book recommendations): https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/ https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/
    - Jtsummers 7y ago
      Not just podcasts. Follow the link provided in GP, it's a mixed-media format (audio, text, images). It seems the "hypothesis" here is about how to present the information. Hypothesize about the format, propose an experiment, see how users react, evaluate how to proceed. It's an application of Scrum project management with multiple prototypes (hypothesis -> prototype) as experiments on how to present the information. It's not about the story's hypothesis (X happened because of Y, oops that's not how the facts pan out).
    - prepend 7y ago
      I imagine a repo of “terminated stories” kind of like how clinical trials have to register their trial before knowing the results. Probably not practical for NPR, but I’m going to try it out for my internal collection of projects.
king_panic 7y ago
Admittedly, I don't like a lot of NPR content, but I think they do a wonderful job of storytelling. Thanks for sharing this, it's in my reading list.
heyyyouu 7y ago
I cannot imagine the staff it takes to pull this off. Most publications are not staffed nearly to levels that would make them able to even try to follow what's outlined here. This is pipe dream, and as someone in the industry it makes me question their staffing and funding levels, actually.
- Jtsummers 7y ago
  What industry are you in and why do you think that the proposed approach is not achievable with a modest staff? (Or perhaps NPR has more developers and designers than I realize.)
  - heyyyouu 7y ago
    Online publishing, technical and editorial side. 20 years. This is an incredible level of staffing. I don't know that the payoff is worth what it takes with this 38 page process.
    - Jtsummers 7y ago
      I'm still curious why you think this is an "incredible level of staffing". Can you quantify "incredible" a bit for those of us not in the publishing industry (perhaps there are workload levels I'm not recognizing being pretty much exclusively in the software world).
      - heyyyouu 7y ago
        38 page process to get something done. That's insanity. Most places the editors have pre-prepped art that you slap on. There's no time or staff for careful crafting.There's not even editors to look at writers pieces before they go up anymore in most cases. Writers do their own production! MAYBE, if you have a special project, you might have ONE meeting, if not two. No one has these kinds resources to have the staff to have these kinds of meeting and these kinds of processes, not even at the big guys. You'd have to be flush with staff to even allow your staff to have enough time to entertain something like this. And again, that's so much time to spend on something -- look at all these meetings, these discussions, and then look at those results. I don't see the payoff here.
westurner 7y ago
HDD – Hypothesis-Driven Development – Research, Plan, Prototype, Develop, Launch, Review. The article lists (and links to!) "Lean UX" [1] and Google Ventures' Design Sprint Methodology as inspirations. [1] "Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021827.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021827.do [2] https://www.gv.com/sprint/ https://www.gv.com/sprint/ "How To Write A Technical Paper" [3][4] has: (Related Work, System Model, Problem Statement), (Your Solution), (Analysis), (Simulation, Experimentation), (Conclusion) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18226543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18226543 [4] https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#story-18225197 https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#story-18225197

129 points by danso 7y ago

Interesting idea and, at a glance, it looks pretty well thought out. It was obviously inspired by Agile/Scrum and the software development process. I like the checklists and noticed it has a couple retrospective point, which I think is a critical part of Agile development. A couple things I'd be interested in for follow-up: - How does it go in practice with an actual project? Any real world examples or case studies? - Any practices introduced here that could be carried back into the scrum / software development world?

danso 7y ago
I saw the guide linked to a recent indepth writeup on how the NPR Visuals Team developed the project page for their White Lies investigative podcast: http://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/05/17/white-lies.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/05/17/white-lies.html An excerpt: > In keeping with our hypothesis-driven design process, we started the project by identifying likely audiences for our digital experience, the contexts by which they’d come to the site (via a promo on social, etc.) and their expectations. With that audience exercise in mind, we decided on a few primary editorial goals for the project: > - Provide a standalone narrative for people who only encounter the story on the web (and may or may not go on to subscribe to the podcast) > - Intrigue readers and entice them to listen to the full podcast > - Provide multimedia material that couldn’t fit into an audio-only experience > - Introduce newcomers to the history surrounding the murder, including Bloody Sunday and the civil rights struggle
- klenwell 7y ago
  One thing I noticed the document doesn't address: what if the hypothesis is wrong? Is the project abandoned? Or is that included in the eventual product/result? And is the product in this case an editorial story/article? First sentence suggests a "storytelling project": > Hypothesis-Driven Design (or HDD for short) is a problem solving method that helps editorial teams take a user-centered and evidence-based approach to the discovery, design, and development of new storytelling projects. I assume that means podcast/This American Life-style stories.
  - danso 7y ago
    Don't know the answers to your questions, though it seems the Visuals team produces work for daily stories, not just big features like special podcasts and series. They also produce a few projects that don't seem to originate from the radio/podcast side: - What do Red and Blue America Have in Common? Craft Breweries and more: https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/11/19/elex-18-districts.html https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/11/19/elex-18-districts.html - Listeners' favorite albums: https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/01/03/all-songs-considered-poll.html https://blog.apps.npr.org/2018/01/03/all-songs-considered-po... - Visualization of redactions in the Mueller report: https://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/04/22/reading-between-redacting-barr.html https://blog.apps.npr.org/2019/04/22/reading-between-redacti... - Previously, on Arrested Development (an interactive database of AD's jokes and gags): https://apps.npr.org/arrested-development/ https://apps.npr.org/arrested-development/ - Playgrounds for Everyone (a crowdsourced guide to accessible playgrounds): http://www.playgroundsforeveryone.com/ http://www.playgroundsforeveryone.com/ - Book Concierge (book recommendations): https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/ https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/
  - Jtsummers 7y ago
    Not just podcasts. Follow the link provided in GP, it's a mixed-media format (audio, text, images). It seems the "hypothesis" here is about how to present the information. Hypothesize about the format, propose an experiment, see how users react, evaluate how to proceed. It's an application of Scrum project management with multiple prototypes (hypothesis -> prototype) as experiments on how to present the information. It's not about the story's hypothesis (X happened because of Y, oops that's not how the facts pan out).
  - prepend 7y ago
    I imagine a repo of “terminated stories” kind of like how clinical trials have to register their trial before knowing the results. Probably not practical for NPR, but I’m going to try it out for my internal collection of projects.

king_panic 7y ago

Admittedly, I don't like a lot of NPR content, but I think they do a wonderful job of storytelling. Thanks for sharing this, it's in my reading list.

heyyyouu 7y ago

I cannot imagine the staff it takes to pull this off. Most publications are not staffed nearly to levels that would make them able to even try to follow what's outlined here. This is pipe dream, and as someone in the industry it makes me question their staffing and funding levels, actually.

Jtsummers 7y ago
What industry are you in and why do you think that the proposed approach is not achievable with a modest staff? (Or perhaps NPR has more developers and designers than I realize.)
- heyyyouu 7y ago
  Online publishing, technical and editorial side. 20 years. This is an incredible level of staffing. I don't know that the payoff is worth what it takes with this 38 page process.
  - Jtsummers 7y ago
    I'm still curious why you think this is an "incredible level of staffing". Can you quantify "incredible" a bit for those of us not in the publishing industry (perhaps there are workload levels I'm not recognizing being pretty much exclusively in the software world).
    - heyyyouu 7y ago
      38 page process to get something done. That's insanity. Most places the editors have pre-prepped art that you slap on. There's no time or staff for careful crafting.There's not even editors to look at writers pieces before they go up anymore in most cases. Writers do their own production! MAYBE, if you have a special project, you might have ONE meeting, if not two. No one has these kinds resources to have the staff to have these kinds of meeting and these kinds of processes, not even at the big guys. You'd have to be flush with staff to even allow your staff to have enough time to entertain something like this. And again, that's so much time to spend on something -- look at all these meetings, these discussions, and then look at those results. I don't see the payoff here.

westurner 7y ago

HDD – Hypothesis-Driven Development – Research, Plan, Prototype, Develop, Launch, Review. The article lists (and links to!) "Lean UX" [1] and Google Ventures' Design Sprint Methodology as inspirations. [1] "Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021827.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021827.do [2] https://www.gv.com/sprint/ https://www.gv.com/sprint/ "How To Write A Technical Paper" [3][4] has: (Related Work, System Model, Problem Statement), (Your Solution), (Analysis), (Simulation, Experimentation), (Conclusion) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18226543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18226543 [4] https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#story-18225197 https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#story-18225197