Creating a World-Class Content Experience

Thanks for the intro, Sam. So I'm Mike Dolan. I'm the creative director at Quartz. And I think I heard there's a few people from the Quartz Arazi in the audience. Yes? No? No? That's fine too. So all right. So I'll give you a quick intro and tell you what Quartz is. So Quartz was started about 5 years ago. We're essentially a global news site. We believe in the free movement of people, free movement of commerce, free movement of information. And the thing about Quartz is basically we believe that we make really big decisions with our heart and really small decisions with data. And that's the kind of thing that informs everything that we do in Quartz, all the content that we make, and essentially how we've gotten where we've gotten in the last 5 years. So basically, we're a guide to the new global economy. That's our tagline. That's what we do. We're writers, journalists, UX people, engineers, etc. So what I want to talk about today is I've basically set up little quizzes, little questions, little things that you can take here back to whatever your business is, whatever you create, and you can kind of take these and help apply this UX to make what you do better if you're kind of on board with the Quartz philosophy and you think it's going to work for you. I can tell you, you know, it works for us, and we've been incredibly successful. And what I'm gonna run through today are the kind of things that we really think and talk and care about at Quartz. And this is how we make everything that we make. So very quickly, what do we make at Quartz? So we have Quartz, which is qz.com. We've just launched Quartz at Work, which is a site for working better. We've launched Quartzy, which is our lifestyle site. We also have several different emails. We have the Quartz native app. And then we have Atlas, which is an open source tool that we use to make charts. A lot of people around the world use that to do visualizations. And then we also have the Bot Studio, which we run with a grant from the Knight Foundation. And what we're doing there is we're experimenting with new technology to figure out how you can take that technology and use it to make both journalism and content better. So we're trying to figure out, you know, what is the next thing. So basically that's my pitch for Quartz, but qz.com and, you know, anything you need to know and learn, you can check it out there. So the most important thing I think when we talk about content, in some ways I know this is con-con, I'll probably get eggs thrown at me for this, I kind of hate the word content in a way because it sort of divorces what you're creating from what it should be, which is creating something that generates feelings in people because ultimately what we think about at Course, and when you're creating content, the thing that you wanna do with that content is actually create goodwill. And what I mean by that specifically is, when someone interacts with something that you make and put out from your brand, the most important thing you want them to walk away from is feeling good about your brand. And, you know, and I think when, when we were in such like a data-driven world with content and everything is driven by metrics, you know, a lot of times we as marketers, as content creators, will, will do things that may help our bottom line, that may help the numbers and the metrics look good or drive some kind of numerical success, but they leave the user coming away with, with a bad feeling about the brand. And if a user has a bad feeling about your brand, that's something that's really, really hard to come back from. So our philosophy when we make content is just always make sure that the user comes away with goodwill, that they feel good about the brand, that it's always a good experience, even sometimes when we have to sacrifice what might be, you know, a metric or something numerical, or we have to take the harder way around to make sure that they feel good. So the 3 things I want to talk about to start with are the big overpinning philosophies of exactly how we get into the weeds with making content at Quartz. And so like I said, you can kind of think of these in a way as like a little quiz or almost like if you're kind of like a philosophy nerd, like a Socratic method that you can take back to run content through. Like basically if you ask yourself these questions, if you— when you're making something, if you kind of run through this and you really apply some rigor to it, whether you take one of these things or none of these things or all of these things, if you just sort of examine what you're making through these lenses, I definitely— for us, it helps us improve what we do. And these are sort of the guiding lights. So the first one here is aim for the intersection. And this is really, really important. And when you aim for the intersection, what I mean specifically is there's things that you want to say as a brand, as a content creator. And then, you know, there's actually the things that your audience cares about. And those are generally, you know, they're not the same thing. Like what you want to tell your audience and what you want them to do isn't necessarily the best thing for your audience. So Basically, how do you find the intersection of these two things? So what we do at Quartz is we have something we call obsession mapping, which is kind of like a really fun exercise, and the more you do it, the better you get at it. I mean, you can do this with one person, but it actually works best with a couple of people or a group. Basically, everybody gets a piece of paper. You write it— one person writes the top of it, the audience. One person writes the top of it, the brand. You go off into your corner and write the things that you care about. What is important to your brand? And then somebody else is writing, you know, what's important to your audience? Like, what do they actually care about? And it's probably not the things that you consider a KPI. And when you've done this, you can take these two things, you come back together, and when you find two obsessions that match, then you've found something that is worth creating content around. So obsession mapping really drives a ton of what we do at Quartz because we run our newsroom by obsessions. We write about the things that we're obsessed about, and then we go out and we talk to our audience, we find out what they're obsessed about, and the two things where they meet, that's That's how we find the intersection. And for us, this has been a really powerful tool. That's why our journalists don't have beats, they have obsessions. And same thing with our content. We write about things that we're obsessed about that our audience is also obsessed about. So this one here is one that I feel really strongly about, which is audiences have values, but people have value. And I think the way that we— the way that many people, or we look at audiences, right? You define an audience by a bunch of numbers. You know, it's— how old people are, it's where they live, it's what they do, it's how much money they make, it's all these things. But actually, an audience is really a set of feelings, you know, a set of like shared common interests and shared common things. So one of the things that we challenge ourselves with here, and this is another exercise that you can do, is can you define your audience in a really clear and thorough way without using any numbers or data? You know, can you describe them? You know, can you think if you were If you were a novelist or if you're a writer, can you write about your audience and talk about the things that they feel deeply about and care deeply about without using a number? And I think when you start to do an exercise like this and you take the numbers away from your audience, you start to understand that they're not just a conglomeration of data, you know, that they're actually real people and there's things that they care about. And when you can bring your content into a place to reach them based on the feelings, not on the numbers, that's going to get you much further. Because when people care deeply about things, they tend to take action more often. which is something that we found at Quartz. And I think this is, you know, it's tough. I know that we're, most of us likely, the content we put out is probably 90 or 95% digital, and that metrics are really important. But what I would just say here is I think this is a worthy exercise to take the time to see what it would look like if you measured your audience in a way that was not numerical, that was just based on sort of gut feelings, almost the way things were done 30 years ago before we had digital metrics. So the other big arching thing that we think about is content is a product. And in the sense of we never think of just writing or making a video or making an infographic and putting it in a container. We design and think about everything from the ground up as a cohesive piece. So basically when we have a story that we want to tell, we sit down and we think right at the beginning, you know, what is the best way to tell this story? And I mean, that can be anything. Sometimes it might be text. Sometimes it might be text and video. Sometimes it might be a website. Sometimes it might be an app. But whatever it is, at the beginning of the process, we have our product team, our engineers, our designers in there. So I think it's worth thinking about, you know, if you're someone who all of your content goes directly on a website, or it goes directly on a blog, or it goes directly on Medium, it would be worth thinking about, are there other ways that you can communicate the same message through a different format, or make something new to start with? So we feel really strongly that content is, as a product, is what defines The thing. And if you kind of think of the way that people consume writing, consume reading online, you know, it's a lot like walking into a store. There's tens of thousands of things out there on the shelf, and they're all packaged a certain way. So you can do the exercise and think of, well, how is my thing packaged? What— when people just take a quick look at it, that one-second glance, or they see it in a search, what is the— what is the packaging? What is the product that is differentiating my offering, my content from other people? And if you conceive it as a product and not just a piece of writing, you know, it's no longer 500 words or 3 images. It's actually a complete thing that you're designing from the ground up. This is a place where we've also had a really strong amount of success by having that product thinking. And that's also why I think another thing that we do differently is our engineering and our UX teams are integrated with the content teams, and we all work together to build these things from day one. So the next part, what makes a good content user experience? So for us, there's 3 things. It needs to be consumable. It needs to be accessible. And it needs to be respectful. Respectful. Sorry, the letters dropped on that slide. I guess designing for the big screen, um, as I talk about designing good content, clearly fail, fail. So this is going to sound really dumb, but the most important thing about anything you're putting out is it needs to be consumable. And what I mean is, can people actually access and see and read what it is that you're putting out? And this sounds really dumb, like, well Of course people can consume it. But if you actually— I'm sure you've had this experience. There's so many places you can go on the web where you're interested in reading something and you actually can't consume that thing. And it could be because the page doesn't load. It could be because there's so many pop-ups that it's unreadable. It could be because you have to enter your email before they let you read the thing. It could be because you have to watch 30 seconds of pre-roll before you see the video. But for us, making it consumable is important because If a user is not able to consume what they want from you immediately, they're going to leave and they're never going to come back. So, you know, give yourself like, you know, draw a hard line in the sand here. You look at what you're putting out there and say, is it actually consumable? Or are we doing things to generate metrics, to generate signups, to generate whatever it is we want to do, some kind of dark pattern behavior on our content to get people to do this? Because for us, it's all about making it consumable. It's the reason why, of course, you know, we don't take any IAB ads. It's all sort of done in-house to make it get a good experience. So I would take the challenge here. Can you go and make sure that what you're putting out in the world is something, you know, that people can actually see? And another obsession that we have at Quartz is, is page loading. Like, we are absolutely maniacally obsessed with seeing how fast we can make the pages load. And, you know, generally when they, when they do different sort of independent studies, we're usually like in the top 10 or top 15 places, you know, for journalism as far as making the site read. So I would say here, you know, when was the last time you actually checked the site load speed of your site, and you know all the different things that can slow it down. It's worth going through and seeing, you know, can I make this load faster? Because the faster you can make the page load, the more consumable what you're putting out there is going to be. So the next one here, is it accessible? Can people actually get to this? And I think, you know, increasingly as the world has become really, really connected, I think as content people, especially content people if most of us here are from the US, you know, we're all generally on pretty fast internet connections, we all generally really have newer devices, like the newer operating systems. But that's actually not the case for a vast majority of people globally. So, you know, what you're putting out there, is it accessible? Is it accessible to people on low bandwidth connections? You know, are people who have poor connectivity, are they able to read what it is that you're putting out there? Another one is, what about people who use adaptive devices? Do you make anything for people who use screen readers? Do you make anything for people who have auditory impairment? Do you make any concession for people who use adaptive devices? We're really obsessed with thinking about making— we feel really strongly that everything we create is worth putting out into the world. So by doing that, we make sure that it's accessible, that the, the largest number of people, regardless of whatever digital impediment they have, are able to do this. And I mean, there are W3C standards that are out there that are a really good starting place for you to look in. If you go, they can, you know, you can do an audit of your site, and I think I think you— if this is something you haven't investigated, you might be surprised at how inaccessible your content is to people in certain places depending on bandwidth and the types of devices they use. And the other thing I would say here is like, even though right now this doesn't seem like a huge thing in the US, if you're building a business for the long term and you think a year from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now, you're looking to have a global audience, this is something you should really take care of now because people are gonna come back to your legacy content at some point and they're not are not gonna be able to access it because they're somewhere outside the US. So when you go there to build that audience, you should be prepared for all these different scenarios to look into. So is your content respectful? So when you read an article that's like, "33 ways to tie your shoelaces," like, is that respectful of the reader? No, no one needs 33 ways. Maybe you need one or maybe you need two. And, you know, respect for the user, for the reader is really important because, like me, you know, I'm a marketing person as well, and we all sort of have our goals that we're driving towards. But again, those goals might not really be what that user is trying to do. So I think if you put yourself in the shoes of your users and say, do I respect my user? Is what I'm doing good for the user, or is it good for me? At first, this can be a little bit of a bitter pill to swallow, especially if you're in a metrics-driven business, especially if you're doing a start. But I think what we found worked for us is at Quartz, we've always been respectful of the user since day one. And even when it's tough, you know, we've hung on to that and stayed the course that we will never do anything that is not respectful to the user. And what it's done is over the last 5 years, we've been able to build— again, build that goodwill and build people who just have so much love for what we do at Quartz because we're always respectful, both in what we write but also how we present it to them. So I would think, you know, wherever you can You might have some idea like, you know what, this article needs to be 500 words, and I would make the counterargument, if you could cut that down to one sentence and the user, the reader comes away with something really valuable from that one sentence, that's gonna make them love what you're doing and love your brand more than just trying to fill up space, or we just have a posting schedule, or we have a social media schedule. So I think if you really think tough about what being respectful of a user is, you can sort of start to make these decisions, and I think brands and companies that are in it for the long haul traditionally, and now and in the past, always have respect for their user, and they, and they do what's right for the user and the reader. So basically now we can get to a little bit of, of the tactical piece. You know, how do we do some of these things, you know, very much in a tactical sense? So basically, how do you create a good content user experience? For us, and from a technical side, there's 3 things that I think anyone in this room can look at, you know, this afternoon or when they go home tonight that you might be able to immediately improve on and might help you right off the bat if you investigate into some of these 3 things. So the first one is readability. So essentially readability is, you know, when we talked about is your thing consumable, a big part of that is readability. And if you go out onto the web, there are a lot of readability offenders. And what I mean by that is Readability means you should have a white background with black text or a black background with white text as a second option. And making that change if you don't have it is huge. And when you go to sites that have pattern backgrounds or really busy UX or really funky fonts that aren't ones that you see, those are real tough readability challenges. And I see tons and tons of them out there because, again, you get into your mind like, oh wow, it would be really cool if we had our company logo running on the background here. It'd be really cool if we had dancing cats. And all this stuff. But really, if somebody is coming to hear what you have to say, they just want to read the thing. So I don't think there's any shame in having, you know, just white background, black text. I mean, that even goes back to, you know, David Ogilvy said that 50 years ago for print, that that's how it should always be, because if people can't read the thing, they can't see it. So I think just really thinking about the colors and fonts that you use for text is especially important. Again, this sounds like everyone's probably rolling their eyes like, of course I know that. But if, you know, I see it out there every single day, and there's things that I want to read, and I'm not gonna call out any sites, or some sites I think the journalism is really good, and I literally physically cannot read what they're saying on there. So it'd be worth doing a little bit of a readability audit on your content when you put it out there. So navigation, I think there's really two, two things that navigation needs to be doing when you're talking about content. So the first thing that navigation needs to do is it needs to let the user know what they are seeing and identify it. And again, I think the challenge here is it's really easy to kind of fall into giving things like cutesy names and cutesy categories that don't really mean anything, or, you know, what I kind of think of as like, you know, startup, like, techno jargon. But basically, if you're not from this world and there's all this jargon, readers and users are not going to understand what it is that they're looking at without further explanation. So the whole point of navigation really is to let people people know what they're looking at. And the second part of navigation is wayfinding. It's basically to let someone know where they are and where they can go from here. So, you know, again, these sound like really simple things, but even having, even having a menu structure that lets people know what part of the site they're on is important. And I think too, especially some of the off-the-shelf, um, sort of content services that you use don't really do a good job of this. And I mean, our solution for this is we essentially built our own version of WordPress WordPress, which is open source. Anyone who's interested, you know, you can go out there, you can download it, you can use it for free. It's something that we, we build and maintain, and we feel really strongly about providing open source tools for content people, for journalists, um, for anyone who wants to put information out into the world. But that's how our menuing works. It's all very simple. It just literally tells you the name of the thing that you're seeing, and then somewhere at the bottom there's wayfinding navigation.