User

A User is an individual on the platform. Users can act in one of two ways:

• Users are connected to an organization when an organization adds the User to their team.
• Users can sign up for an individual account to function on the platform as a freelancer/contributor/contractor. (In development)

Using the platform as different kinds of user

A User is able to switch between accounts on the platform by signing in and out with different emails.

Example: madison@criterionnews.com can be associated with the Organization 'Criterion News', while the email madisonthomas@email.com could be associated with a ContractorProfile. When Madison is logged in with the first email, she has access to her organization and associated content and teams. When logged in with the latter email, she has access to her dashboard as a contractor.

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A User's profile page displays biographic information and recent stories. When a User visits their own profile, they can also see their private Notes and their current tasks.

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User Stories

Organization User: A User who is associated with an Organization on the platform

Madison is an editor at Criterion News. Madison creates a User account for herself and then an organization account for Criterion News. Madison can add members of her team to Criterion by entering their email addresses and other details. Madison's team members receive an email that confirms their addition and provides a link to login with a temporary password. The team member can now log into the site and update their password, edit their profile and participate in the platform as a member of the Criterion News team. Content created by an organization member is associated with the User's organization.

• An organization User can be a member of multiple teams.
• The User can use different emails for each team or the same email across teams.
• The User must use a unique password for each team.

An organization User can see and do many things as part of an organization.

• An organization User can see a dashboard of all organization content including shared and collaborative projects, series and stories. (excluding content marked sensitive, meaning it's only visible to organization Users adding to the Project, Series or Story.)
• An organization User can see sensitive items that they are on the team for.
• An organization User can edit most things.
• An organization User is visible to other members of the organization and to other organizations that are partnered with their organization.

Within an organization, a organization User can be one of three things: admin, editor, staff.

A staff User can create and edit content, add assets, create and edit projects, series, stories, facets, tasks, events and notes. A staff User can be assigned to teams and participate in most things.

An editor can do everything a staffer can do plus be listed publicly to receive pitches from ContractorUsers, add contractors to a "trusted/ongoing contributors (name tbd)" list and assign those freelancers to existing projects, series, stories, etc. (This is the mechanism for including freelancers in more complex relationship than just assigning single-instance content)

An admin can do everything a staff User and editor can do plus make changes to the organization itself, create networks, invite organizations to join networks, create and edit all other Users.

• Admins are the only users that can delete Networks and Projects (This is due to how much data is associated with these structures).

Independent User: A User who is on the platform as a contractor

Jenna contributes to Arctic Times as a freelancer. Jenna creates a User account for herself as an individual.

• An organization can invite her to pitch by messaging her with the email associated with her account, selecting her from a public listing of contributors.
• Jenna can pitch editors that have chosen to be included in a public listing of editors accepting pitches from contributors on the platform.

Organization User and Independent User: A User who is both a member of a team and also a freelance contributor

Maria is a member of the Criterion News team who has been added by the Organization owner. Maria can view the dashboard associated with being a member of the team and do all the things a team member can do. Content created by Maria is associated with Criterion News.

Maria also contributes to a number of organizations as a freelance contributor. Maria has created a contributor profile on the platform and can switch her account over to the contributor profile. While using the platform as a contributor, Maria can not access anything associated with her organizational teams. (This feels like an appropriate guard against a compromised account affecting multiple accounts.) She can do all the things a standard contributor profile can do.

Considerations

This feels like an appropriate starting point, however, future improvements would include a better experience using multiple profiles as a team member and an independent contributor. Given how common it is for people within journalism to work and contribute to multiple organizations, this is an appropriate area to focus on user experience improvements over time.

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Fields

All Users

user_type

• Choice of admin, editor, staff or other
• Admins can do all things, editors can do almost all things, staff can do most things.
• Other is the designation for users that have ContractorProfiles.

first_name

• The familiar name the User identifies by.
• The acceptable name for attributing things briefly such as comments or images with more information available via hover or click.
• Ex. "Madison," "Anna-Maria"

last_name

• surname of the user

credit_name

• The full name of the User as would be used for the credit/byline on content.
• This is the name that is indexed by the search feature.
• allows appropriate diacritic marks, spaces and hyphens for faithful representation of User's real name.

name_pronounciation

• Text field that allows a User to enter a comment regarding appropriate pronunciation of their name.

chosen_pronoun

• Field allowing User to select pronoun for appropriate third-person reference.

phone

• The contact phone number for the User.

bio

• A short bio that can be associated with User within the organization or attached to content.

location

• The User's primary location they are reporting from.
• Ex. A User covering the Pacific Northwest from Seattle would list Seattle here.

expertise

• List of skills and beat expertise that can be searched or filtered for.
• Ex. municipal government, data visualization, photography

photo

• Headshot or profile image for easily identifying the User in the platform.

website

• link to User's portfolio website or comparable presence.
• Ex. MadisonThomas.com or Medium.com/madisonthomas

notes

• A User's private notes.

title

• The User's professional title associated with that team.
• Ex. "Reporter," "Senior Producer"