Design Proposal

JOUR3222/DECO3500/7350

Journalism Design and Social Mobile Computing

In the Know

Team name: The Fantastic Four

Name	Student Number	Contact Number
Jianghui (Christine) Zhang	42860110	0421 457 327
Maria Elena Moran	42445320	0432 345 774
Samuel Flanagan	43213553	0422 981 887
Yi (Nicholas) Zheng	43319101	0478 417 108

1. Focused issue

Many forms of Journalism and media are biased. Research which examines how and why the public perceives bias in the media, found that the perception of bias is both subjective and relativistic (D’Alessio, 2003). Due to the mass volume of media available, users often become tired of judging the accuracy, news-relevance and level of bias of the news stories they read. This will usually cause readers to develop a preference for specific news providers, instead of spending time evaluating other worthy news sources. This can cause consumers to lose perception and awareness of bias in the media and the opportunity to detect it. Audiences encounter two questions for the news they are presented with: How do news providers aim to prevent publishing bias reports? and What kind of bias are present?

In order to enhance news transparency, credibility and accuracy, users have the right to view and be presented a news topic from different viewpoints. Bias is sometimes unavoidable but it can be minimised if every reader had the chance to view and compare a story over time, from a range of viable sources. This will provide the reader the experience to be presented with a platform where they can make an informed decision of whether a news provider may show signs of bias and make their own justified judgments.

With the increasing number of digital news incorporating a user feedback system, it is important to “understand how people process and integrate technology-mediated messages from unknown others to make sense of their social world” (Lee, 2012). In order to reduce bias presented in the media and to enhance the public’s right to a make an informed opinion, we have created a journalism web application which provides a range of stories over time and a free-to-comment news platform called ‘In the Know’.

2. Product Description

2.1 Outline

In the Know is a web-based application that brings different published news articles from multiple media organisations together, thus allowing the public to consume the news from different angles. The news is divided into topics/issues which have been covered in the news to allow for an efficient and informative experience.  

This application contains two features to allow users to sort through the news by different orders. One is a timeline-history view and the other is a user-ranked view. The default view on the web application will show the news articles set in time order, once selected. These will be sorted by the original publication date and time (timeline-history view) and original article published, with access to links for any updated versions.  Alternatively, articles can also be sorted by popularity and quality, based on the number of votes from the audience. By providing these two versions of viewing and sorting tools, people can make an independent and more informed decision on which news articles they believe are presenting issues with bias and which articles they prefer. The timeline-view of articles provides the audience the opportunity with a platform to research an issue accurately, as represented in the news over time. The user-preferred ranked articles will provide a shortcut for users who would like to read an article voted on quality by other readers. This will tailor to a larger audience and offer more convenience to both kinds of users.

The ranking interface is designed so that the audience is presented with summaries of a minimum of three news articles . Each summary contains a link to the full article, and each article contains a vote button. This offers an opportunity for users to rate the impactfulness and news relevance of each article from a range of news providers and to verify the quality of the article by voting for their most preferred media report from the report list. This vote will then be taken into account and affect the ranking list displayed on the topics page with the best voted articles at the top.

2.2 Intentions

The ranks will also influence the ranking of news organisations, of which the ladder will be displayed on the homepage of the rank view. This will hold news organisations accountable within the eye of the public on the quality and impactfulness of their news pieces, and hopefully provide stimulus for them to either continue making more informed opinions on the news they are presented with everyday and maintain or attain a high awareness of potential bias in the media.

By listing and sorting event-relevant articles into news topic categories, In the Know provides an overview of news issues for users, with an interactive user interface design to view the most impactful/news-relevant articles in the reporting media. The ranking of article quality also provides news media companies the opportunity to analyse the public preference of reported articles.

2.3 Technical Aspect

Editors choose headline issues or recently updated news stories as the main topics displayed on the web application. Related reports from different media are collected and categorised into different viewpoints based on their attitude. If there are too many reports presented in the media at the time, the editor will decide on the articles to be displayed. During this decision process, bias will be minimised by ensuring the editor will not be presented with any of the news organisations names who have published the stories and will be presented only the content itself. The group has yet to make the decision on the total number of reports to be displayed per topic. Ideas for sourcing the news articles which will be displayed include extracting information provided by Factiva and also those trending the most in the media at the current time. News issues could also be suggested by the audience, if it has yet to be covered.

In this case, we will use Polymer to construct the front-end framework. After setting up every featuring frameworks, we push data from the back-end by using Django, so users can see this issue with reports collection displayed on the app.

2.4 Interaction

This section introduces main interactions that In the Know will deliver in the final presentation.

2.4 a) Main page

Users can login to their personal account and view recent news topics from their account page. On the top there is a banner showing the headline news video, headline description, website logo and main navigation. On the right hand side, there is a filtering bar which displays all issue categories. The website body lists all the news issues by selecting specific issues which have been filtered by the filter search. By clicking on the article, users can view the news content with its flowing comments.

2.4 b) Timeline view

Users can read the summary of each report within this issue displaying as an IM speaking-dialog-box. Each news provider has an avatar and ‘speak out’ their viewpoints with visual speech bubbles displaying the story. If something catches the user’s attention, they can click on the speech bubbles to read the whole content.

2.4 c) Rank view

Users can click on the control panel on the right hand side of the navigation bar and are able to select and view articles based on its popularity. The upward arrow indicates the number of users who think this article is impactful to them. The downward arrow indicates the number of users who do not believe the article is news-worthy or is poor quality. A user may provide a reason for their vote via the comments section.  The vote number on each opinion is positioned close to the vote arrow.

2.4 d) Full article view and the live comments

The article page contains a text field for users to comment on the article, which means each viewpoint is open for the public to discuss and criticise. Users can submit comments at anytime at any paragraph of the article where they wish to make their comment can be done so by simply entering their thoughts in a comment input field placed at the bottom of the screen. Comments will be shown in a Danmaku form which presents as live comments or flowing comments. Danmaku can save all the previous comments placed by other users. The screen will constantly display all the saved comments (possibly shown as a fade-in & fade-out effect)  when individuals are reading the articles.

2.5 Target Audience

This application is designed for adult readers who are aged about 22 - 50 years old as they read news everyday, are potentially more aware of bias in the media and are more likely to exchange ideas with other users in the public communication platforms. They are the people of the public who want to be able to make informed decisions on whether the issues which have been presented to them in the news media, contain bias and to have a total overview of the issue/topic by being able to view different news angles taken.

In the Know is also great for individuals and organisations concerned about the future development of digital journalism. These types of people typically strongly “support online comments about their daily content and unlikely to ban comments” from the public commenting channels (Gary, 2014).

3. Team Roles

Name	Course	Roles
Yi (Nicholas) Zheng	DECO7350	Developer, Designer
Jianghui (Christine) Zhang	DECO7350	Project manager, Developer, Designer
Maria-Elena Moran	JOUR3222	Researcher, Editor, User-testing, Marketing Strategist
Sam Flanagan	JOUR3222	Researcher, Editor, User-testing, Videographer

• Who will lead the team and manage the project:

Jianghui (Christine) Zhang will be the team leader and manage the process of the whole project. She will be in charge of the team coordination, task allocation, project information and the team performance by controlling the process of project development.

• Who is responsible for logistics eg: equipment, meetings, transport, etc:

Filming equipments: Christine, Nicholas

Scripts: Sam, Maria

Camera man: Sam

Meeting time arrangement and control: Maria

Meeting records (blog posts, photos): Christine, Nicholas

Name	Key Roles
Yi Zheng	Back-end and Front-end development
Jianghui Zhang	Front-end development, Project coordinator, Database development
Maria-Elena Moran	Content editor, Provider of feedback
Sam Flanagan	Content editor, Provider of feedback

• How will decisions be made:

UI:

The main design mockup and prototype will be generated by Nicholas and Christine. Maria and Sam will test the interface as the primary users and provide their feedback. Each group member can raise their idea about UI. The final decision of UI design should be approved by Christine who is responsible for determining the team outcomes.

Technical solution:

Product manager provides performance requirements before product development level. The web developers offer specific technical path, and illustrate the reason for other developers to follow. After determining all required materials and information, we will work to provide a plan for a solution to a problem identified. The product manager can use the information provided to make a final decision on stages within product development.

Content selection:

Content editors are responsible for the research, summarising and editing all articles in order to produce a suitable piece for In the Know.

Other issues:

If anyone feels they are experiencing a problem, they should raise questions in the group meetings or any group communication channels such as Facebook, Instant messaging or Email. The product manager has the responsibility to make the final decision based on the results of team discussions.

• How will the team handle poor performance and resolve conflicts:

• Poor performance

The team manager has the right to keep track of the process of and contribution from each team member and is responsible for the control and production quality by supervising, modifying and recommending team members to improve the development process. In the event that a group member performs poorly, his/her workload will be examined, redistributed and modified by the team leader and other team members. The redistribution should attempt to fit the team member’s skills and commitments.

• Group Member Dropout

In the event that a group member leaves the group, his/her workload will be redistributed between remaining group members. The redistribution should attempt to be fair, but also take the skills and commitments of remaining members into consideration.

• Group Conflicts and Solution

In the event of significant conflicts between group members, any disputes will be resolved by a majority vote between all group members. If no majority consensus can be reached, then the team can send an email to the course coordinator to solve this issue.

• Communications: Where and when will your team meet and how will you all communicate?

Meetings will be held during our workshop sessions, Friday 11.00a.m to 1.00pm, and other appointment times, which will be decided in advance and posted on the Facebook group. Members are expected to attend and join within group discussion. Meetings are subject only to illness or other unavoidable personal commitments.

Commitments include:

1. Work obligations
2. Family emergency
3. Other university submissions
4. Unforeseen circumstances (e.g. accidents, traffic, extreme weather)

If they are not able to make the meeting, group members must notify other teammates 24 hours prior to meeting via email, Facebook or SMS. A phone call is only used for emergencies. An additional meeting can be held when it’s necessary, arranged once a week and to ensure everyone can attend to that meeting. The group will maintain regular contact outside of these meetings as well so as to ensure that all assessment items are covered and up to date.

• Where will files be stored and shared and what are the file naming conventions:

• Facebook group to post messages and share files
• Google Drive to manage document or delivery statement
• Codes sharing based on github

• Social platforms:

Social platforms to be used include an instant messenger group for daily communication (Facebook messenger) and Facebook for weekly posting of the tasks; blackboard announcements and yammer notifications of that week. This is most convenient and has been agreed to by each team member as each person in our team uses Facebook as their major communication channel. Moreover, Facebook will push a notification when a new post updates; It will effectively remind all members to check updates every time. Additionally, a member will be contacted by text or phone call for situations which may require urgent contact.

Google drive can be used for sharing and collaborating team documents. This is the most popular collaboration tool which would be used in any of the team projects.

Github is the most popular code sharing community. It is based on Git which is one of the most powerful version control system in the IT field. It will help us to track and manage our code. At the same time, it is a good place to backup each stage’s work and a good tool to avoid unrecoverable collapses when users provide new codes from their own devices.

• Plans: Identify the key tasks that need to be completed and when.

Stages	Tasks	Key Deliverable	Resource
Stage 1 -- Research & Concepts Generation	Problem Research	Reports	Library database
	Brainstorming	Basic Concepts	All members
	Concept Refine	Concept Cards	All members
	Design Scope	Design Proposal	All members
Stage 2 --  prototype design	Banding	Basic VIS	Graphic design software
	Interface & interaction mockup	Mockups	Balsamiq or other prototype tool
	Prototyping	Paper Prototype	Paper, Printer
	Test Design	TestCases	N/A
	User testing	Feedback collection	All members and other testers
	Iteration	Unknown	All members
Stage 3 -- implementation (With QA)	System Analysis	Analysis document	UML tool
	Coding (Back-end & Front-end )	Webpage	IDE, Editor, Server Zone
	Setup database	Model figure & data tables	Database environment
	Integration	Web app	All  components of Development
Stage 4 -- Testing & Finalising	Testing	Bugs	QA, Testers
	Evaluation	Evaluation report	N/A
	Deployment	Installation	Server Zone
	Documentation	Project document	N/A
Stage 5 -- Video	Script Writing	Script	N/A
	Shooting	Video Material	Camera, Tripod, Light, Microphone, All members
	Editing	Final Video	Video editing & Graphic Software, Video material