Script
For each interview, we prepare separate sheets of scripts to ask more contextual questions per participant.
We focused on learning the potential difference in workflow and difficulties that International team might have due to the location.
Interview Script for International Design Director
Recordings
We voice recorded the entire session and screen recorded the demonstration of the Toolbelt workflow.
Voice Recording of International Design Director’s Interview Session
Screen Recording of International Design Director’s Workflow Demo
Summarized Notes
Role
Digital Design Director, International
- Work with editorial teams
- Provide support to International .com editors
- Build up long-form data, e.g. special reports, franchises
- Work with commercial teams
- Design and build native advertisements
Goal
Keep offering the product to both of their editorial and commercial audiences, and pushing the boundaries of what their platform can do
Experience
14 years with CNBC
Day-to-day Work
Varies on the type of project
- Development work on a proactive basis
- Build up long-form data, e.g. special reports, franchises
- Creates Skin and News Story/Video/Slideshow Contemapltes
- Design and create digital display native ads
- Short-form native: Advertiser Content template that has a different layout – display of the sponsor logo and ad, two column, lot of interactive elements
- Long-form native: Full-page experience with single column
- Free-form: complete Wild Card – snap scrolling, video background, etc.
- Work with US team to give International requirements on CNBC products, e.g. iOS, Android apps
- Rank the Franchise on homepage once the Special Reports campaign launches
Communication
- Editorial team
- Weekly meeting with the editor
- Get the copies from the editorial
- Commercial team
- Bi-weekly meeting with the commercial creative solutions team
- Weekly meeting with a producer to catch up on native advertisements, projects, etc.
- Graphics team
- Work together for the graphics, logos, etc.
- Teams in Asia
- Process gets longer as communication happens overnight
- Developers in U.S.
- When needing coding help
Prioritization
- Find out when things have to go live – both commercial and editorial deadlines
- How long it’s going to take
- How much materials he has in hand
Often-used Content Type and Features in Toolbelt
Content Type
- Wild Card
- Custom elements and modules in the story
- Custom layouts
- Free-form native ads
- Franchise
- For special sponsored contents
- Skin
- Upload .css and .js
- Set sponsorship header, badge, etc.
- Advertorial Story
- For “Advertiser Content” that gets a yellow banner on the top
Pain Points
- Constant frustration from not having all the resources and relying on the U.S. teams, and they often have their workflow and timeline
- e.g. He doesn’t have access to Templates, so have to ask the U.S. teams, but that often results in long waits
- Searching is difficult
- Often uses the filter by user – filter with his name
- Lot of heavy-lifting on building native ads
Wants
- Improve the quality of input and briefing
- Better connectivity and faster machine
- Page-building tool to make the process of building native ads easier
Tools & Software
Communication
- Face-to-face
- Sometimes Hangout
- Slack
Production
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Microsoft Office
- Google Web Designer
Code
- Javascript libraries, e.g. D3 for data visualization
- Sublime Text Editor
- FTP
Work Behavior & Rules
- Usually find content using the author field
- Soft-launch the sponsored Franchise on Friday-Asia’s Thursday, and launch on Monday morning
- Uses the “dev” environment to develop the full, free-form ads
Miscellaneous
- International is smaller than U.S. teams, which makes it more agile
- Have more native advertising – clients want something unique to them, which requires more custom work
- Looking into chatbots – have a prototype using with Facebook
- Most Franchises use Topic Template, but moving to Immersive Template