It’s
the Holy Grail for communicators today: What will attract the
attention of readers online, and then hold it?
(And
if you don’t know what a Holy Grail is, then I’ve either piqued your interest
or you’ve already moved on.)
That’s
the quest the BBC set out on. (There’s that Grail image again.)
Over
a period of eight weeks, the British broadcaster tried various new storytelling
formats to see what kept younger people engaged.
In
an article titled 12 Prototypes, Eight Weeks and Lots of Tapping, What’s Worked
and Hasn’t in the BBC’s Quest for New Storytelling Formats, the broadcaster spent
two months testing new ways of appealing to younger readers.
As
Tristan Ferne, the lead producer for the BBC’s research and development
unit put it: What could they do to “make online news more accessible, engaging
and relevant to young people?”
Their
goal was to move beyond just publishing several hundred words.
With
a traditional article, “there is no interaction,” said Ferne.
“This
audience is spending all their time in Snapchat and Twitter, where there’s
constant interaction in the interface. There’s stuff to do with your thumbs:
You can swipe, scroll, tap. We found that [users] expected that.”
What Worked
And
so what did they find worked the best?
Expanders.
When readers see a
highlighted text, they can click on it to pop out some more information. (Like
above, with the holy grail, but keeping them on the page.)
With expanders
references to various terms, events and ideas can be expanded to give readers
context, definitions and additional information to help them understand the
story better.
Jump Offs.
Don’t want to read
the whole article? Readers can jump off by clicking on a different way of
getting the same content—a video or audio clip, for example. It could be video
or audio of the author saying, in his or her own words, the main point of the
piece.
Fast Forward.
Not only should the
video they jump to have subtitles, it should be easy to speed up or reverse. Skimmable
video, in other words. (As in the image above from the BBC.)
After all, most
people can read faster than others can talk. So why wait for them to say it?
Viewpoints.
Through viewpoints,
readers are invited to share their opinions or vote on an issue. For example,
after presenting an issue two points of view are expressed; readers are asked
to vote for the one they favour, and share their own ideas.
What Didn’t Work
Not everything they tried worked, like the ideas below.
Atmosphere.
Setting the stage
with background audio when users started reading an article was too distracting
for testers. And maybe a bit cheesy, too.
Drawing In.
“We tried to
present a story like the intro to a movie,” says Ferne. “We started with
background sound and blurry visuals and as you scrolled it came into focus and
there was a bit of background video, like the scene of the story before the
story came in.”
But it didn’t
work—people wanted to know right away what the story was about before investing
time in it. No teasers!
* * *
Looking at the
list, I feel tired; who has time to do all that? But if that’s the way
communication is going, communicators will need to follow.
What are your
thoughts?
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