Ideas for Arc XP

For our brands, "User Need" is now a required metadata field for scheduling/publishing (Composer > Planning > Kickers), but it is not currently visible in the primary workflow surfaces editors and reporters use to manage stories. As a result, users must open individual stories and navigate into the editor to confirm the selected User Need. This creates avoidable friction, slows editing workflow and makes it difficult for editors to assess story mix and catch misclassification early.

Request
Please surface the selected User Need value in story preview/list interfaces in WebSked and Composer, using existing story metadata already stored in Arc.

Primary use cases

1. Editors scanning the day’s lineup in WebSked need to quickly see what each story is tagged as without opening every story.

2. Editors/reporter managers reviewing story lists in Composer need to confirm whether a story’s assigned User Need matches editorial intent.

3. Teams auditing story mix need to see, at a glance, whether coverage is overly concentrated in one need state or missing others.

4. Users troubleshooting scheduling/publishing blockers need clearer visibility into whether the required User Need is already present.

Requested UI surfaces

1. WebSked Planning popover/card
When a user clicks a story item in Planning, the metadata panel/popover currently shows fields like:

• Website

• Section

• Author

• Slug

• WebSked date

• Published date

• Last updated date

Please add:

• User Need

Preferred placement:

• in the metadata list with the other fields, e.g.
  Website | Section | Author | Slug | User Need

• alternate option: as a chip/badge/pill near workflow/status chips, if technically easier and visually clear

2. Composer story list view
In the main Composer story list/results view, where users currently see fields like:

• Workflow status

• Last modified

• Author

• Source

• Budget line

Please add:

• User Need

Preferred placement:

• inline with existing story metadata in list rows

• exact placement can vary, but it should be visible without opening the editor

3. Other story preview/detail surfaces
Wherever Arc already exposes preview/detail metadata prior to “Open in editor,” please evaluate whether User Need can be included there as well, especially if those surfaces already pull from the Planning metadata set.

Functional notes / assumptions

• User Need already exists as story metadata and is already required for scheduling/publishing.

• This request is about surfacing existing data, not introducing a new field or changing validation logic.

• Based on editorial review, the field appears to live alongside other planning metadata already being exposed in parts of the UI, so this may be a relatively lightweight metadata-display enhancement depending on implementation constraints.

Why this matters
This would improve workflow in three ways:

• reduces friction -- fewer clicks and less digging into individual stories

• improves tagging quality -- editors can spot questionable user-need assignments earlier

• supports editorial planning -- teams can evaluate coverage mix across a day or planning window at a glance

Current pain points observed

• A story can be worked on for a long time without the user noticing missing/incorrect User Need until scheduling/publishing time.

• Editors can’t easily scan whether the day’s stories are balanced across needs.

• The only reliable way to see the value today is to enter the story and locate the field directly.

Nice-to-haves / future enhancements

• Color treatment by primary user-need family to make scanning easier at a glance. Proposed grouping:

  • Know = green

    • Update Me

    • Keep Me Engaged

  • Understand = light blue

    • Educate Me

    • Give Me Perspective

    • Help Me Discover New Ideas

  • Feel = pink

    • Inspire Me

    • Divert Me

  • Do = purple

    • Help Me

    • Connect Me

    • Give Me an Edge

• This color treatment could be applied to a badge/chip if the UI supports it, but is not required for MVP.

• Filtering and/or sorting by User Need in Composer/WebSked could also be considered in a later phase.

Success criteria

• An editor can see a story’s assigned User Need from WebSked Planning without opening the editor.

• An editor can see a story’s assigned User Need from Composer list view without opening the editor.

• Users can more quickly identify whether a story is correctly tagged and whether the daily mix is balanced.

Priority
Medium, with strong newsroom workflow benefit. Not blocking publishing, but meaningfully improves usability of a now-required field.