Intro
Acting as an incubator, we designed and prototyped solutions to improve audience trust in CNN's reporting. This is part 1/2 of the capstone project
Major newsrooms including CNN have shut down comments sections to curb toxicity, killing meaningful dialogue between journalists and readers. I led the ideation and visual direction, translating research insights into concrete product concepts. I prototyped core features — Polls, Journalist Profiles, and Behind-the-Scenes modules — and shaped the editorial visual design to fit CNN's brand.
- Role
- Product Designer
- Duration
- 4 Months
- Team
- 5 Designers + me
- Skills
- User Research Prototyping Visual Design
opportunity
News organizations are shutting down comments due to hate speech — how can we create healthy feedback loops?
At a Glance
A lightweight, 3-part system to increase trust and engagement — polls, profiles, and behind-the-scenes coverage
Discovery
Major newsrooms including CNN have shut down comments sections — here's what their journalists told us
Newsrooms shut down comments sections to curb toxicity. This reduced moderation effort but killed meaningful dialogue. The journalists lost a direct way to hear from readers, resulting in reduced overall engagement and trust.
Key Insight
Creators on social media platforms have amassed millions of followers who trust them. What can newsrooms learn?
Influencers & Creators
Creators build trust by showing their process and personality. How can journalists have similar tools and spaces where transparency earns loyalty?
Social Media Platforms
Likes, follows, and polls create visible participation loops. We explored how this lightweight feedback could translate for CNN.
Process
How might we take the best parts of social media while upholding principles of good journalism?
From our research, three patterns guided the product direction: participation that feels safe, transparency that builds trust, and recognition that humanizes reporting.
Solution
Journalists can engage audiences beyond articles through profiles, polls, and behind-the-scenes context
They can customize their profiles, create and publish polls to gather audience perspective, and share behind-the-scenes context about their reporting process.
Polls are embedded within articles and journalist profile pages for increased feature discoverability
Polls are surfaced at moments where readers already pause, reflect, or form opinions, allowing them to contribute without leaving the article.
Readers can take polls, view results, and share them with others without leaving the CNN app
Each poll is attributed to a specific journalist to reinforce trust and accountability. Poll results and sharing options allow insights to spread beyond the article.
Behind-the-scenes context shows how reporting actually happens
Journalists share their process, sources, and context to build transparency and trust with readers.
Reflection
It was very tempting to start over, but the right decision was to propose solutions that fit into CNN's ecosystem
Lateral thinking and looking for inspiration
Rather than inventing new behaviors, I looked at tools journalists and audiences already trust — editorial review systems, creator platforms, and lightweight interaction patterns like polls and inline feedback.
If I had more time, I would build out the poll creation and results interface
The natural next step is to design where journalists decide what to ask, when to ask it, and how to interpret responses. This would include:
- A guided poll creation flow that helps journalists frame unbiased, clear questions
- Visibility into audience confidence, sample size, and response quality
- Tools to translate poll insights into follow-up reporting
