Users

who will be the users of your ai solution

This card covers who will actually use your AI tool day to day. A reporter, an editor, and a fact-checker each bring different needs, skills, and pressures. Knowing the real users keeps you from building for an imagined average person who does not exist in your newsroom.

Questions to explore

// use these as prompts in a workshop or on your own. There are no right answers.

Who in the newsroom will open this tool most often, and what are they trying to finish?
How comfortable are these users with AI, and what worries them about it?
What does a user already do today that this tool would change or replace?
Who might be expected to use it but would quietly avoid it, and why?
How do the needs of an editor differ from those of a reporter for this same tool?

Expert voices

// notes from the journalists and AI experts who helped shape this kit

“Always ask which direction the tool points: audience-facing or newsroom-facing. Is it used by your reporters, your editors, process management, or your public audience? The answer changes everything about the design.”

Jasper Steinlein, DW

Things to consider

Talk to the actual people who will use it, not only the ones who requested it.
A tool built for everyone often fits no one in particular.
Watch what users do, since it often differs from what they say they want.

using this card

Pull Users when it is relevant and set it aside when it is not. Pair it with the other AI Solutions cards, lay them out on a table, and use the questions above to get everyone on the same page. Capture what you discuss on sticky notes or in a shared doc.