Investigating the impacts of design on the journalistic process
brief
Pitch is a design kit that provides journalists with a more structured method for brainstorming story ideas. I created this card deck for my directed study to answer the question of what it means to think like a designer as a non-designer. I analyzed various design kits and synthesized them with user research surrounding the pitch-identifying habits of journalists, creating a deck of cards with different prompts, games, and ideas to spark story ideas.
context
Directed Study at Northeastern University — Fall 2024
tools and methods
- Research & Synthesis
- Usability Testing
- Web Development
- Design Kits
team
Zach Marino — Creator
timeline
14 weeks
insights
The current media landscape prioritizes papers of interest as opposed to papers of record. Part of the user journey to be "relentlessly interesting" is to think of interesting pitches. Some journalists have a "sixth sense" for this, while others don't. I needed to create a solution that would support journalists in building that sixth sense, rather than doing it for them. I can achieve that through managing the cognitive load required to develop a pitch.
deliverables
I created a deck of cards that can be used solo or in a group to think of story ideas. At the conclusion of the project, I scaffolded a website in a week to share the cards digitally for free. There are three card categories: games, prompts, and topics. Game cards are solo or group activities to generate ideas. Prompt cards are questions to kick off brainstorming. And topic cards are "evergreen" article topics with included examples.
the challenge
What differentiates a designer from, say, a software engineer? Both professions problem-solve, take in user feedback, and create things that people use every day. They each have distinct hard skills, but beyond that, they are the same — on paper at least. As a combined computer science and design major, I wanted to answer this question by taking a profession I was familiar with and applying design principles to a workflow. I had just finished my co-op at the Boston Globe, so I decided to focus on journalism.
the outcome
I interviewed four journalists: Katrina, a recent grad from BU, writing at the Vineyard Gazette at the time; Eli, a former sports co-op at the Boston Globe who graduates from BU in May 2026. Brian, the current editor of the Boston Globe (he left the role to chair the BU journalism department at the time of this project); and Emily Turner, the deputy community editor for boston.com.
I synthesized the insights from my user interviews with research on different design kits to create a card deck that helps writers brainstorm story ideas. The deck works by managing cognitive load. Instead of staring at your computer screen trying to think of every idea at once, the cards provide singular prompts and games so that each potential idea is considered one at a time.
pitch website
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final report
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