Top 5 questions we get about user needs

So, user needs are everywhere. Reuters say it’s something worth spending time on - and spending time with. At smartocto, we’ve been evangelising about them for years. But if it’s kind of new to you and you’re not sure where to start, it can feel like a whole lot of effort and a bit overwhelming.

You probably have questions. And you’re not alone. Here are the five most common questions we get on the subject…

1. What are user needs, exactly?

Simply? The fundamental questions readers have about what’s going on in the world around them.

But this isn’t just “what happened?” - these are more honest needs that people have, and sometimes it can be less than obvious what readers actually want and need:

• “How’s this latest budget announcement going to affect my mortgage payments?”
• “Everyone’s talking about Brexit like they’re an expert and here I am thinking it’s a cleaning product….”
• “All this talk about war is really depressing me, give me some good news for a change!”

It’s long been assumed that people visit a news site to get breaking news, but increasingly that’s not the case. The problem is that newsrooms are still producing this kind of content - but the audience doesn’t necessarily want it.

Our research has concluded that there are 8 needs readers have. They won’t necessarily look to get them filled in one place, but it’s really important that newsrooms are aware of the breadth of this requirement.

Download the poster with the User Needs Model 2.0 in English, German or Spanish here.

2. Why do I need them?

For any single news story people need different kinds of information. They might need a summary, an update, tips on how to apply this new information to their own lives. It could be that they need something to stop them scrolling, something to lighten the mood, something to help get a bit of perspective or reassure them.

What they probably don’t need quite so much are updates.

Updates have been the bread and butter of news content for as long as anyone can remember, but the reality is that with social media and the 24 hour news cycle, updates appear as if by magic.

And, frankly, they don't need you if all you’re doing is providing updates.

User needs help ensure that you’re connecting with your audience - and in doing so ensure that your audience is repaying that effort with attention and loyalty. It’s a win-win for everyone.

3. How do you start using user needs?

You can’t manage what you don’t measure, so the first step is this:

1. Look at our universal guide to user needs. There are 8 (2 under each ‘driver’).
2. Go back over the last two weeks of your content. Categorise each article into user needs.
3. Look at your analytics dashboard. Rank the past two weeks’ content by your key KPI.
4. Is there a correlation between user need and performance?
5. Most people find they’re overproducing ‘Update me’ articles and finding that those articles are underperforming by the metrics and KPIs valued by that newsroom.
6. In the case of Update me articles, consider if a follow up article, written from another user need, might be a good idea.

4. I don’t think my team is up for this. Any advice?

Cultural change is a big obstacle. If this feels relatable, start small. We often advocate starting with looking at follow ups rather than trying to instigate a user-needs driven newsroom strategy right from the go.

Growth hacks are a good idea: they’re typically small, shorter in timescale, require less widespread buy-in, and allow you to try out little tweaks here and there from which you can monitor progress.

• Pick one section of your newsroom
• Identify which need tends to get underproduced
• Select the KPI that matters most to you there
• Undertake a two week trial, producing more of that kind of content and keep track of the results

Check out the details of one such growth hack here.

5. Do user needs work?

Yes. That’s the short answer.

Obviously there’s nuance, but if you put your audience and output under the microscope, you can’t help but see an uptick in performance.

Here’s a graph showing the average daily CPI scores for articles published at Dutch newsroom Omroep Brabant. No prizes for guessing the point at which User Needs was rolled out.

(What’s the caveat, then?)

Unfortunately, there’s no switch you can install to turn user needs on. There’s no plugin you can install. It’s up to each newsroom exactly how they apply this framework to their own workflows. The hardest and most time consuming part is the initial prep work. If you’re able to set up a system whereby each article is tagged for its primary user need, that’s a brilliant start. This process is best and most effectively done by the newsroom itself, because it’s a self-learning process, and the more your staff understand how it works, the easier they’ll find it to apply a user needs lens to how they’re writing stories.

As luck would have it, there’s a webinar coming up on this very subject. You should sign up!