Semi-structured interviews, analysed thematically: every point on a digital post-it in FigJam, sorted into communication, collaboration and AI, then into seven themes. The picture was consistent — information overload, poor communication, time wasted, messages missed. One department head described hundreds of emails a day and deleting them to cope, with the stress and missed deadlines that follow. The leader of the EAI team wanted AI on it.

• Brainstorming, then “How might we…” — problems turned into openings.
• Four personas, for the range of people who would use it.
• One storyboard: an imaginary day with it.
• A great many paper wireframes, to decide what mattered.

BriefBot is an AI assistant that takes the mundane off the newsroom’s plate and works inside the tools already in use.

• It learns the job. A thorough registration teaches it the role; it keeps learning from how you work, and the home screen is yours to arrange.
• A calendar that keeps itself. Meetings and deadlines land in it on their own, so nothing is lost in the flood.
• Morning reports. A brief every morning: today’s tasks and deadlines, summarised.
• Slack and mail, tamed. Long threads summarised, emails translated and sorted by importance. Pick the apps to include, and it works across them.
• Accessible. Font sizes, voice commands, a text-to-speech reader, colourblind and dyslexic modes, light and dark — built against WCAG, with full compliance the aim.

• Usability tested in Maze.
• Time per task, feedback after each — quantitative and qualitative in one pass.
• The write-up is linked at the top.