Greg Krehbiel, director of marketing operations for The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc., compiled this list with a little help from the SIPA online forum. Greg is one of five track chairs for SIPA 2013, June 5-7, in Washington, D.C. (Register today! The early-bird deadline expires Monday.)
Different types of information lend themselves to different devices, presentations, etc. For example, smart phone users tend to have them at all times, but you don’t carry your PC around. Some devices are good at search and others are not. When considering a new digital publication, thinking through the factors listed below can help target the idea:
Is it immersive or a quickie?
When you read a novel you want to be immersed in the experience. You have to think about it, and you don’t want to be distracted. You don’t have the same expectation when you look up a definition of a word or check your email.
Is it interactive?
Does the user expect to interact with the content? E.g., quizzes and discussions are interactive, lectures and essays are not.
When will it be consumed?
Do they want it at the point of purchase, to download now and read later, to come back to again and again, etc.?
Is it sequential or is it searched?
Is the material structured (e.g., linear, or with a table of contents) or is it random access—something you would expect to search?
Integration
Will the user be incorporating the material into some other work or process?
Is the buyer the user?
A professor might order a book for a class, and the boss might choose a data service for his division. Is the person who makes the buying decision the same as the person who uses the content?
On demand or casual use?
Does the user need it to make a decision, like driving directions, cost comparisons, ratings on products, etc., or is it a matter of education or entertainment? Closely related to this is immediacy.
Product discovery
How will the buyer find this product? To what extent must it be searchable? What is the role of metadata (e.g., proper classification by category, subject matter, etc.)?
Annotation
Will the user take notes, pull excerpts or highlight the material?
Archives
Is older content valuable?
Location
Does the information need to be available on a mobile device?
Does technology really help?
Search helps, but quirky bookmarking tools on a digital product can be less convenient than a yellow highlighter.
Should the presentation of the information vary by use?
The way you read a menu in the restaurant might be different from what you want to see online.
Distribution
Does distribution need to be controlled? If so, how?
Financial sense
Does the back end—fulfillment, revenue recognition, customer experience—support the business model? Some sales reps sell stuff that cost more on the back end to build than the actual product.
Perspective
Does your evaluation keep some perspective in mind while answering these questions? It’s easy to get excited about what we can offer, but is that super fancy product anything the user cares about?
Social
Has the social and community elements been accounted for?
Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline