The NewsCube is a platform that allows journalists to research, create and publish complex stories. It is designed to facilitate storytelling from multiple perspectives and encourage information synthesis. With a NewsCube, journalists can aggregate existing stories and documents, create relationships between items and organise story components. They can also share their stories and involve users in the storytelling process.

The NewsCube has been developed as part of a PhD research project. This project explores how interaction design effects journalistic storytelling. Essentially, it set out to redesign journalism from a technology perspective, to create something that exploited digital media more than online journalism does currently.

The NewsCube aims to make quality journalism more engaging. If publishers can boost reader engagement with important stories, then they get more or their readers’ time and attention, and they can capture audiences who come back. For media companies this is more valuable than clicks or shares.

Feedback on our prototype suggests the NewsCube has some important qualities for boosting reader engagement. Participants said the NewsCube:

• could increase time on site;
• was appealing to younger audiences;
• provided added value to readers.

You can find out more about the research at NewsCubed.org.