Business Challenge
Denverite reached out to Universal Mind to assess their new company and make sure they are headed down the right path. In order to accomplish this goal we decided the best course of action was to perform a heuristic review, and conduct user research .
Newspapers, and TV stations are dying. What will replace them is still uncertain. The trust people once had for local news is shattered and what will replace it is unknown. Denverite hopes to fill that gap.
Our challenge is understanding why the old model is disappearing, and give Denverite the best path moving forward to attract new readers, keep old ones, and remain a trustworthy source for news.
All of the work for this project was executed by me. I had a mentor overviewing and offering recommendations.
PROCESS
Our process for this engagement contained two distinct parts. Our time frame was just under two weeks, so we spent week one doing a heuristic review, and week two doing user interviews with the intent of building archetypes and a series of recommendations.
ARCHETYPES
An archetype is built through direct interviews with users, capturing observed patterns of behaviors and attitudes. The difference in an archetype and a personas is subtle but important. An archetype educates the team to what a set of people’s goals are, and why/how they are using the application. A persona is a description of buckets of users that shows stats about them in an attempt to build empathy with them.
Personas typically have a longer life span, but require more skill and time to consume them. Archetypes are easy to make fast and actionable decisions on, but as companies grow, pivot and evolve they will sometimes lose value.
SOLUTION
Our solution to Denverite’s problem was both specific and generic. We had several specific results recommendations repeated during our interviews that made it into Denverite quickly. We made several generic recommendations that will live with the Denverite team for a while as they grow.
RESULTS
From our recommendation Denverite started a podcast that is quickly becoming the most popular Denver local news podcast. They are also growing dramatically month after month.