How can one team elevate a nation's storytelling?
The most successful project to emerge was our In-Depth Storytelling Studio+. Leveraging knowledge gained from user testing and research, we:
- Increased awareness of internal KPIs
- Raised the bar for digital visual production
- Unlocked possibilities for sister teams to build richer, more interactive and engaging reader-centric experiences
During my tenure at Gannett (the USA TODAY Network), I collaborated on numerous projects with the Storytelling Studio—formerly Gannett's Innovation Lab. Most notably, I contributed to redesigning and relaunching longform content with several innovative twists.
Our primary goal was to expand beyond traditional longform stories to support a diverse range of storytelling formats. These included:
- Short-form stories
- Visually impactful narratives
- Timeline frameworks
- Quiz tools
- Photojournalist tools
- Collective list curation and creation
- Experiments with varying story arcs
Instead of limiting ourselves to longform content, we created a versatile framework that enhanced digital storytelling across multiple formats.
Following the initial launch of our new framework, our team focused on growth through recirculation and explored various funnel acquisition methods. We invested significant time in experimenting with novel approaches to audience engagement and growth, while continuously fine-tuning the reader experience. Our efforts yielded direct and substantial positive impacts on subscriptions and engagement metrics.
Our small, bespoke development lab explored ways to improve and reimagine network storytelling. We aimed to foster increased adoption of features that benefited our audience, such as:
- Social sharing
- Reader engagement (time on site)
- Newsletter subscriptions
- Ad revenue
- Gamification techniques
Full Project List
- In-Depth: A storytelling framework with 3+ years of support, enhancing digital experiences and presentations
- The Pulse/Detroit Now: An experimental mobile-first news experience
- Collections: A mobile-first CMS for creating curated lists in a flat-file structure (50 States project)
- Explainers: A highly impactful visual story framework with a custom builder
- Quizzes: A weekly news quiz platform
- Breakfast: An internal tool similar to Canva for creating social images
- Distance Dance: A social promo landing page
- USA & Main: A custom news front for the Money team
- Moonlanding: A custom landing page for the Florida Today team (50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing)
- PrestoPlus: A Chrome extension embedded within the network CMS to augment a virtual assistant
- TigerTiles: A 2048 game for the Detroit Free Press Newsroom
- Here & Now: A progressive prototype leveraging localization data to encourage engagement
- WriteAway: An interactive virtual assistant integrated with the CMS
- Mosaic: A framework designed for short-form, blog-type content
- Storystacks: An interactive timeline designed to highlight story arcs
While many of these projects remained in development, some were sunset due to lack of demand or high maintenance costs.
I'd love to share some prototypes with you!
Get in touch 👉 joshua@jshmllr.com
