Timeline: May 2023 - Oct 2023
Role: UX Designer
Team: Me (Solo project)
Every piece of news represents an aspect of the society. By watching news, the public stays aware of the societal trend, so they can make informed decisions for themselves in a global context.
Concern #1: Fewer and fewer Americans choose to keep up with daily news because:
Concern #2: More people use social media for news consumption (Pew Research Center), but social media news consumers are less informed on news and less engaged (Mitchell et al.) because:
How to combat the misinformation, the insufficient depth of news, and allow more user engagement to make social media news source more reliable and appealing?
To understand how potential users utilize social media for news consumption and identify their challenges, I conducted interviews with 9 individuals (age 17-25) with the following questions:
1. How do you primarily stay informed about current events?
2. How do you learn about news on social media? E.g. Following news accounts, searching on social media, sharing articles among friends, etc.
3. Do you believe social media is a good tool to learn about current events?
4. What are your concerns, if any, when getting information on social media?
5. How often do you share, comment, or repost news on social media?
1. Convenience: The participants reported that they use social media because it allows them to passively receive news through algorithmic selection without active effort.
2. Effectiveness: Social media serves as a comprehensive tool to meet their needs for engagement with the outside world, combining news consumption, updates from friends, and communication, all in one place.
There are 3 core goals my product need to achieve: Convenience, Engagement, and Accuracy.
Social media, news aggregators, and credible news websites/apps each can meet 2 of the 3 core goals.
Core element / features in social media, news aggregators, and news websites that fosters convenience, engagement, and accuracy:
To address the user needs and achieve the core goals, I came up with 2 possible solutions: Making a social media-like news app vs. a news-based social media app.
Delivering news to users that desire discussion around news topics
Multiple sources, likes, comments, personalized news feeds, expert opinions/analysis, discussion threads specific to pieces of news.
News curated through algorithms. Social elements are secondary. Users only interact with each other in the comment section / specific news discussion thread.
Have a strong focus on news consumption. Fostering convenience and accuracy by showing news from reputable sources and display in one place. Comment and shares tailored for news content only, resulting in meaningful discussions.
Hard to differ from a good amount of existing news websites that already allows comment sections. Limited interactions may constrain the scope of social interaction.
Social networking space with a focus on news-sharing
Multiple sources, likes, comments, user profiles, messaging, sharing, community groups, user-generated content
Displaying trending news from various sources. Users can also post about news articles on the platform alongside personal updates. User interactions are not limited to discussing news.
Allowing the users to access news, communicate, and engage all in one place, which can lead to a higher rate of interaction. News from reputable sources along with community-driven peer reviews can help avoid misinformation.
Highly free space for users to post personal updates can result in privacy issues. Also harder to maintain a positive online environment.
A news-based social media app would carry a more balanced approach between accuracy, engagement, and convenience.
Additionally, our target users are social media news consumers. A news-based social media app addressed directly to their needs to access credible news, engage in meaningful discussions, and share their opinions freely.
I started my design with a low-fidelity sketch on paper. I took inspiration from Pinterest for the "Blogs" page.
News articles on the homepage are organized by category. The blogs page is devoted to user-generated content, ranging from news commentary, personal stories to recipes.
Using Figma, I came up with 3 designs for each and conducted user testing.
The same 9 people from earlier user research voted for their preferred version. I chose the version that got the most votes to move forward.
Here is a video for final prototype walkthrough.
You can also click here to navigate the prototype yourself!
I conducted usability testing through contextual inquiries, asking 6 potential users to perform the following tasks:
1. Find the news article about the Russia-Ukraine war.
2. Find some earlier entertainment news about Kim Kardashian. When was it published and from which source?
3. Find a blog about Samoyed.
4. Where would you go if you want to see your friends' blogs?
5. Go to user profile, find the page with posts that you liked.
This UX project faces several limitations and areas of concern that could impact its effectiveness and user satisfaction:
The age demographic of our interview participants was 17 to 25. The project does not represent the needs of a broader user base, potentially overlooking the preferences and usability issues pertinent to other age groups.
The substantial freedom for users to post content risks diverting the app from its goal of enhancing the news browsing experience, making it challenging to ensure that the platform remains dedicated to its original purpose.
The extensive freedom users have to generate content also poses challenges in maintaining a positive and respectful online community without regulation or clear guidelines, which could deter users seeking constructive discussions and interactions.
The project is lack of research on color preferences. It utilizes relatively bright colors, which, while intended to create an engaging and lively interface, might not be universally appealing.
Addressing these limitations will require an effort to expand the demographics of research participants, implementing measures to keep content focused on news, establishing community guidelines, and reevaluating design choices based on a wider range of user preferences.
1. Research participant recruitment: A big challenge was difficulties recruiting participants for user research, resulting in a participant pool that was narrowly confined to a specific age group. This limitation posed constraints on the comprehensiveness of user research phase.
1. Creating user personas is crucial.
I skipped this step because of the time constraint as well as the assumption that user research alone would be sufficient to understand user needs. User personas help create realistic representations the potential users, and facilitating a personal connection with the audience through storytelling in case studies.
2. Usability testing is critical at every design update.
If I conducted a usability testing after creating the homepage prototype, I could have identified and addressed the confusion regarding scrolling between the "New" and "Earlier" sections to avoid such issues.