CLIENT

MoJo

ROLE

SUMMARY

I worked with a team to design an app for journalists that would merge necessary content to live stream news reports.

UX Designer
Project Manager

TOOLS

Sketch, Adobe XD, Google Docs,
Pen + Paper

TEAM

Carissa Gabiliheri
Margaret Hanken
Daniel Sjarif

DURATION

2.5 Weeks

PROBLEM

In this day and age, a dependence on mobile phones has changed the way that news is received, taking a toll on traditional journalism. How can reporters and journalists be helped to better adapt to such changes?

In the field, journalists want to mix and edit their content and information, consisting of B-Rolls, interviews, and location settings, in a way that does not compromise quality and effectively reaches a wider audience.

APPROACH

Mojo is an app specifically for journalists in the field that allows them to import and record B-Rolls, interviews, photos, and maps to edit and merge these elements on the spot to create and livestream a credible news story.

Discovery + Research

Surveys

Given our user demographic, we conducted a survey with 106 journalists with varying levels of experience in the field to gauge their existing expectations and pain points.

Q: Do you often miss footage due to technical issues?

Q: Would you ever use your phone for a live broadcast?

Conducting this survey offered us the insights that:

Many journalists lose the chance to get necessary footage for a story due to technical issues
Journalists already depend on their phone for various features and functions, even to the point where they would depend on it for a live news report

Interviews

Following our interviews, we wanted to gain deeper insight regarding our user demographic, so we talked to 7 journalists in the field with varying levels of experience. We inquired about their daily schedules, pain points, and any noticeable trends in journalism.

USER 001:

"The station has very little patience for bad quality."

USER 002:

"We don't use news vans. They're a pain in the a**."

USER 003:

"Everything in the field is moving towards the phone... People don't get news in the same way anymore."

Interviewing these users offered us the insight that:

Journalists encounter pain points such as technical trouble and navigating physical distances
They also understand that there is a general transition towards news received through social media and mobile phones, which is more accessible
Journalists also already use a myriad of apps on their phone from social media to Notes

C&C Analysis

Speaking directly to our user demographic provided us the insight that journalists are already familiar and dependent on a myriad of existing apps and their features. We wanted to better understand these functions to see if they would be beneficial to include in our approach, which led us to conduct a C&C Analysis.

Conducting this analysis offered us the insights that:

Competitors offer a live stream function that is easily accessible
Each of these competitors allows for the user to save videos to the camera roll and share to social media
None of the apps allow for users to access functions without signing up

Synthesis + Ideation

Personas

Harmony Hall

About: Harmony has just been promoted to work as an MMJ for NBC News. She just moved to the LA area and is dependent on social media to discover news stories and to do daily tasks. She works remotely to put together at least one story per day.

Pain Points: She doesn't have a lot of experience with a lot of equipment. She also feels unsure about her work and wants to report stories without compromising quality.

Scenario: Harmony records the information primarily with her iPhone using apps such as Notes and Camera. One Monday, she arrives at the scene of a house fire and tries to gain the information that she needs for her story.

Lance Lancaster

About: Lance started as a production intern at ABC Channel 30 and worked his way up to be a reporter, which he has been for 9 years. He is very close with his camera crew.

Pain Points: He is concerned that the rise of mobile journalism will eventually replace folks like his hardworking camera crew. Despite this, he does agree that reporting with phones does reach more viewers quickly and more efficiently.

Scenario: One day, Lance receives information regarding a house fire. He and his crew load the van and head to the scene, hoping to get the footage that they need to create a compelling story to be selected by the station managers for the nightly news.

Feature Prioritization

Developing the personas of Harmony and Lance and outlining their journey allowed us to understand that journalists in the field need a solution that allows them to record, edit, and access content such as B-Roll footage, interviews, and location settings in order to create a seamless news report. Subsequently, we thought to offer them a solution that streamlines this process while reaching a larger audience and not compromising quality.

This led us to synthesize our research to ideate and prioritize features using the MoSCoW method:

Heuristics

Our research and subsequent synthesis and ideation were only supported by a heuristic evaluation of a prototype previously created by the client.

Conducting this Heuristic evaluation provided the insight that with the current prototype:

Users are unable to easily go from the landing page into the actual features of the app
Users cannot access their pre-recorded footage during a live stream
The existing Call-To-Action buttons are mislabeled
Users cannot import previously obtained footage or save the projects they create on the app to their camera roll or to social media

Design + Testing

Prototyping

Research was synthesized to implement and test the following features on the Paper Prototype:

Onboarding Process

explaining functions

Option to Skip ahead

Option to import previously recorded clips

Carousel Navigation

Circle Record button

Option to customize Maps

Option to Exit out

ONBOARDING

INTERVIEWS

MAPS

Clip selected to play during livestream

Time allotted during live stream

Microphone / Flash functions during live stream

Option to flip camera direction during live stream

LIVE STREAM

Testing the Paper Prototype provided the insight that:

Clearer Call-To-Action buttons needed throughout the app, especially during the Live Stream
Option to clearly exit Live function needed consistently
Feature to play B-Roll and Interview clips during live stream not entirely clear

These concerns were taken into consideration for the Mid-Fi iteration:

Clear explanation of app on initial landing page

Projects Page for easy access to created news reports

Hamburger menu to easily access individual clips and account info

Consistent buttons throughout recording and live

Testing the Mid-Fi Prototype provided the insight that:

Users would want an option to capture/take/import photos to use in live streams
The buttons to clip thumbnails and play them are too small to be pressed
Option to toggle volume during B-Rolls is missing

These concerns were taken into consideration for the Hi-Fi iteration.

Rebranding

During usability testing, we asked users about their opinion regarding the app’s initial name, VOSOT. All of them felt that while it was a journalistic term, it was an inadequate representation of the app’s capabilities. This allowed us to ideate on and test MOJO, meaning Mobile Journalist, which users felt was more apt.

Hi-Fi Prototype

LANDING PAGE

B-ROLLS