User-Centered Service: Understanding Need + Access
It is conventional editorial wisdom that understanding reader preference is a necessity — so in addition to tracking analytics, editors will often try to capture readers’ tastes by asking them, via reader surveys.

The problem? Designers and editors both know that what people say they care about is often different than how they actually behave. Behavior is influenced by many factors, all of which may change over the course of a day (or week, or year). Readers may say they want more stories about municipal water treatment because they know that’s a “good” thing to say — or even because they genuinely intend to sit down and learn about water safety. But after the survey, when the editor runs analytics, she’ll see that people still click far more

Service designers will pay attention to things like: When does this person interact with the product? How (mechanically, step-by-step) do they interact with it? What else is going on in their lives/days when they do? What do they do with it? And especially: What do they do with it that surprises us? What places do they get stuck? Are there any parts of the product they can’t access? What makes them stop using it? Are there other products they use instead of this one? Why? Are there any points we would expect them to use this product and they don’t? What can we see about why?

Service designers work to get beyond stated user preference, to better understand user behavior and lived experience. What does safe water mean to the readers who said they wanted more stories about this topic? How are their lives affected by it? What kind of information about water safety, if any, do they need and rely on? What are the consequences if they don’t get it? What kind of information could be of help that they don’t even know about?

How might we make our in-house knowledge available to other institutions and industries that could benefit from it?
We could bundle our “institutional expertise” on city issues and sell to paying subscribers, including the government, universities, philanthropies, nonprofits, and businesses

How might we feature more voices that our readers already trust?
We could hire more writers from groups that are historically underrepresented in media.
We could rely on “citizen journalists” reporting issues in real-time.
We could hire people that have deep networks in our city and put them through journalistic training, instead of flying in trained journalists with shallow or no ties to the city.

Delivering Service
Once we’ve observed the behavior and context of our own audience, we can start to draw insights. Thanks to existing analyses of reader behavior, we already have some insights into universal audience needs:

Conventional wisdom: People don’t trust “the news.” Insight: People rely on reporting in times of crisis and disaster.
Conventional wisdom: People don’t trust “the news.” Insight: People trust voices they know and admire.
Conventional wisdom: People don’t want to pay for journalism. Insight: People pay for specific services journalism provides, namely information: real-time data, fact-checked quotes and statements, accumulated research, analysis of complex problems, and indexed resources.

How might we get news to all readers who need it, in a way that they can access, regardless of cost?
We could partner with local caregivers, social work services, community halls, houses of worship, libraries, shelters, or hospitals to provide on-site access to our publication for free.
We could provide our publication in multiple languages. We could add close-captioning and voice text.
We could reimagine what form a “publication” product could take in these specific contexts: A news-and-meditation app for the elderly? Free publication-only computer stations at the library? Wearable tech in a hospital?

Framing these insights as a question of “how might we…?” allows us to immediately begin to try answering it.

What kind of journalism service can you imagine? Look at these “how might we’s:”