Global survey on what news readers want
(contributed by Pat)The folks at Innovation Media Consulting have recently released the results of their 2009 global survey on newspaper readership, subtitled readers want "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". It looks like a comprehensive piece of research, with many interesting findings, but there are 7 key themes they highlight in this report:
- The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
- Deeper investigative reporting
- Improve the quality of your writing, reporting and storytelling
- In a crisis of confidence, good news matter
- Put some boundaries around sensationalism
- Differentiate and engage me
- Find out what's relevant to me and my community
Each one of these points has been echoed loud and clear in our own recent user research, so these are by no means issues restricted to print.
History of the Australian Web
(contributed by Manuel)The History of the Australian Web is a visualisation of Internet usage in Australia between 2001 and 2008, based on Nielsen figures for the top 100 websites. The animation tracks their fortunes over time and allowing for an exploration of different aspects of the data.
iPad vs. iPhone: A User Experience Study
(contributed by Manuel)Nate Bolt, Brynn Evans and Cyd Harrell share their research that compares iPad and iPhone User Experience...
Several companies have shown interest in mobile payment systems from startups like Square to mega-corporations like Visa. But what is the iPad's user experience in a real-world, business environment? ... So we conducted an observation of 14 customers over three months at our neighborhood coffee shop, Sightglass, that just happened to be an early user of Square on both the iPhone and the iPad. We observed and recorded those customers' mobile payment interactions with the Square app, and interviewed select customers. Our first study was in December 2009 (with the iPhone) with a follow-up in April 2010 (with the iPad).
Two important business considerations came from our studies: (1) speed kills (in a good way), and (2) shared is the new private.
Crowd-reading on the iPad
(contributed by Scott)In his post entitled Code Sprint Yields Important Lessons for iPad News Apps, Matt Baume reveals how new iPad interfaces being developed, seemed to try to make the most of the device’s potential for non-traditional interaction with news content…
One of the most creative interfaces was developed by Joey Baker, Chris Peters, Jonathan Wong, Stefan Gorzkiewicz, Cody Brown and Kate Ray. Their Smartbook app (now called Open Margins) was designed to detect news-reading habits and use that data to improve the reading experience for other users. They called it "crowd-reading."
For example, when a user finds content difficult to understand, he is encouraged to shake the iPad in frustration. As a pattern of frustration emerges, other readers are warned when approaching a difficult passage. In future versions, users might pet the screen to indicate enjoyment.
Another innovation from the Smartbook team: Pinching a page (as though zooming out) would condense a passage down to a summary; spreading fingers like you would to zoom in would offer more detailed content. Although they didn't have time to build that functionality during the weekend event, it's an example of the kind of gestural innovation that might one day become second nature to iPad users.
It's also interesting how Matt draws attention to the fact that "end users" were not well represented in the proceedings.
The Quick List
No waffle, just links.- Pat suggests How and when to conduct mobile research appropriately (you need to register on Quirks.com to read this) by Emily Goon
- Angus suggests The End of :hover? by Andy Croll
- Manuel suggests World Cup 2010 Twitter replay
- Manuel suggests Ethnography in Industry: Objectives? by Victoria Bellotti and PARC
