A Personalised News Platform for de Volkskrant
For my graduation I performed a project at DPG Media and de Volkskrant. Within this project I researched the possibilities of personalisation for the digital news platforms of de Volkskrant with a focus on the app. During this project I spend most of my time at the office for product development at DPG Media and a part of my time at the editorial floor of de Volkskrant.
During my whole project I have involved readers, journalists and the product developers at DPG Media. Within the theory analysis, interviews and conversations I had with these stakeholders I have identified five reasons for implementing personalisation in the digital news distribution product of the Volkskrant:
Based on these insights I created the following design goal:
Design a personalised digital news service, that fits the vision and mission of de Volkskrant. It should limit the overload of news content, while offering a diverse set of articles to not just update the readers, but guide them in a better understanding of the news and occasionally surprise the reader with new topics and insights. This will facilitate the process of broadening the horizon for the reader and improve their reading experience.
This was used to create the final design concept:
The final design concept proposed a collaboration between journalists and an algorithm. A co-curated feed would not take out the talents of the journalists out of the current news feed but would add the possibilities to that. The algorithm could then show someone's favourite columns and themes, as well as news items that would surprise the readers.
For the design, the difference between these two curations was made clear by different signals. The first is the addition of the text 'De belangrijkste verhalen voor jou' (The most important stories for you) and the different scroll direction. An important addition is that this horizontal scroll should not be endless, otherwise it could help evoke the feeling of being overwhelmed by the news.
The second personalisation-design was added to the bottom of every article. This new interface brought new functionality to the reader and helped the reader to dive deeper into the articles they find interesting or relevant.
These designs were all tested with Volkskrant-reader through the whole country through digital interviews and tests. I would also like to invite you to try out the newly designed Volkskrant-concept as presented down below:
