Phil Gyford gets it. He’s used the Guardian‘s open content API to produce Today’s Guardian, a site that takes daily Guardian content and compiles it into what I’d be inclined to call the closest thing to an ‘online newspaper’. It’s a pleasure to read through, and far easier to navigate than the Guardian‘s own site.
In explaining his motives for creating the site, Phil writes about three things that news organisations need to consider with their online news-reading solutions:
- Friction: how easy it is to actually begin reading an article
- Readability: how easy it is to actually read that article
- Finishability: that sense of satisfaction you get from having completed something
I think he’s hit the nail on the head. In my mockup of a ‘problem-solving online newspaper’, I thought it was important to give readers a jump-off point for reading: an article that is clearly marked to the reader as “You should read this first” (low friction). I suggested hiding distractions to make it easier for readers to get through entire articles without their attention wandering (high readability). I also considered that news should be presented as a ‘package’, to give people a sense of having consumed their daily/weekly ‘dose’ of current events (finishability). Today’s Guardian is the solution I’ve been looking for.