New York Times Paywall

In UX - Capstone, we were assigned a Harvard Business Review case and asked to identify any gaps and to address them with a user experience solution. The study was regarding The New York Times’ decision to enable a paywall. Although successful, the company received quite a bit of criticism.

ABOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES

Founded in 1851, The New York Times is a global multimedia news company based in New York City.  The Times is ranked 3rd in circulation in the United States and 18th in the world. Despite winning 127 Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, The Times had steadily declined in both subscriptions and advertising revenue. In response, The Times enabled a paywall, readers who exceeded the free monthly allotment would be directed to purchase a digital subscription. Within the first year, the digital subscribers grew by 390,000.

RESEARCH

Ecosystem Map

I started the research process by creating an ecosystem map of the news media industry and how newspaper companies fit in that landscape.

Competitive Analysis

Next, I compiled a competitive analysis to assess The Times' strengths and weaknesses in comparison to its competitors who had implemented a successful paywall. I focused on the paywall plans, cost, and features.

Strategy Blueprint

Then, I created a strategy blueprint. I wanted to visually diagram The Times' strategy rationale as I understood it. This would serve as a blueprint for building a solution that was in line with their mission.

IDEATION

Inspiration

During my research, I came across Jack Andraka’s Ted Talk. Jack, at the age of 17, invented a new method of detecting pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer. Test results are available in 5 minutes and cost 3 cents per test. Jack was able to accomplish this task in part by having access to unlimited scientific articles that were behind a paywall and outside of his financial reach.

Watch Jack Andraka’s Ted Talk

Insights

Based on the data from the ecosystem map and the competitive analysis, I found that individuals who obtain their news from multiple methods and sources were being underserved. Also, inspired by Jack’s Ted Talk, I wanted to acknowledge the issue of information aristocracy and make information available to individuals that may not be able to afford to pay monthly paywall subscription.

User Persona

To address my insights, I created the following two personas.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The current state of The New York Times is focused on monetizing their articles by selling weekly unlimited subscriptions. Unfortunately, this neglects readers that would like to purchase individual articles, resulting in the loss of revenue stream. A Pay As You Read service would address this gap by allowing readers to buy only the articles they are interested in, instead of the pricey weekly subscription.

SOLUTION

Offer a Pay As You Read service to readers that would like to read more than ten articles yet do not want to pay the pricey weekly subscription fees. I arbitrarily set the price of each article to 10 cents. Additional time and research would be required to assess the actual cost.

Prototype

I created a prototype of the Pay As You Read service on The Times’ web interface.

The task flow below will guide you through the process purchasing an article on The Times’ website.

Launch prototype