London24 – User testing Findings 09 August 2013. Contents 1.Overview 2.Executive summary 3.Insight and recommendations – User behaviour – Homepage – News

London24 – User testingFindings

09 August 2013

Contents

1. Overview2. Executive summary3. Insight and recommendations– User behaviour– Homepage– News channel– News article– Sports channel

4. Next steps5. Appendices

Contents



Overview

Business objective• To gather practical insights during user testing that will

inform the design and development of the site in the future.

• Discover barriers to using the London24 site.

Specific research objectives • Understand how users consider London24 based off a

prototype possibly representative of the future homepage

• Understand how the prototype meets user needs for news and events

• Understand how the prototype meets user needs for Sport

Overview – Respondents (What’s on)

Overview – Respondents (Sport)

Overview - sessions

Overview• 8x one-to-one depth interviews lasting 60 minutes

– Participants from 19 years old to 42 years old– 4x Female, 4x Male

• Participant Segments:– 4x ‘What’s on’ focused – 4x Sports focused

• Testing details:– The prototype was mocked up by using flat images– Testing was run a laptop using Chrome to present the

images– Sessions were carried out in Central London, over one

day– All sessions were recorded

Overview – prototype journey

Homepage

Order and sequence of pages being tested

Newschannel

Articlepage

Sports channel

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Categorisation of issues

Description Icon Definition of the problem Total

No issue No issues were found with this functionality, feature, or page 08

Minor Users can easily work around this problemFixing this should be given low priority 08

SeriousUsers have difficulty, but are able to find workaroundsChanging this should be given medium priority

03

Critical Users are unable to use this featureChanging this is high priority 01

ObservationAn issue that has been observed by Spotless Interactive but does not have an impact on usability specifically

09

Executive summary

London opinionLiving and working in London was seen as a unique experience. Anything from informational needs to how Londoners find work was seen as possibly different to the rest of the UK, and a hole in the market.

London information, but also Londoners’ interestsWhile participants weren’t surprised to find information about London football clubs, those that supported non-London clubs were surprised to find that their team might not be present on the website.

Accuracy over speedParticipants often saw the strength of news and sport information on London24 not to be the speed of publication, but the accuracy that comes from a slower pace allowing greater fact check and less of a rush to get hits.

Executive summary

Update roughly every 12 hours? How much can change locally?

I quite like the London24 logo because it chimes

with street signs.I have two places: where I work and where I live.

Where is Manchester United?

Normally advertising annoys me.

It feels a bit messy, it needs to be tidier.

Advertising getting larger is so tedious

I like the idea of a London site that you then drill down into.

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Insight - User behaviour

Mobile, tablets, and laptops

Participants varied how they accessed their news content. Mobiles, tablets, and laptops were all used, and the choice of device varied depending on content.

Mobiles and tablets were highly used since they quickly loaded the content, and allowed participants to access content on the go. Laptops were often mentioned because they provided a bigger screen to read the content.

Recommendation:

Plan future development around the concept that users will be multi-channel, and flipping between them as best suits their needs and current situation, with special consideration for tablet and mobile.


Constant flow of news

Participants mentioned that the first time they’d get caught up on news was in the morning upon waking, or over breakfast. Participants then maintained that they constantly and consistently checked for updates throughout the day, when they had spare time (e.g. waiting for the tube).

News consumption is spread out through the day, with the expectation that sites will update with new information as it is released.

Recommendation:

Flag new content, and keep it near the top of the page to help users who are just ‘popping on to check’.


Apps and websites

Both websites and apps were mentioned by participants. The most common mentioned apps and websites were ‘The Times’, ‘The Guardian’, ‘Sky News’, ‘BBC News’, and ‘Timeout’.

Participants often associated an app with increased functionality, and news being pushed to them instantly through notifications.

Recommendation:

An app should provide increased functionality and value compared to the website. The app could include push notifications, GPS localisation, offline viewing, etc.

Insight - Homepage

What is local?

The concept of local was staggered through three different definitions each one with a different level of granularity.

1. Region: London divided up by general area, such as North, South East, etc. This was the grouping used for areas participants didn’t frequent.

2. Borough: in particular when participants worked or lived in an area they considered their borough to be local

3. Tube station or postcode: the most granular level participants used was to classify local by tube station or by postcode (e.g. N5), this allowed them to understand where something was within a borough.

Geographic Region

Borough

Tube

Insight - Homepage

Advertisements are expected

The adverts within the page were expected, with only one participants being shocked that an advert for M&S would appear next to an article about a stabbing.

The M&S advert was felt to be too large but that this wouldn’t impede the reading experience.

One participant mentioned how animated adverts were annoying, and would often pull attention away from the reason they visited a website.

Recommendation:

Keep adverts as they are with minimum animation.

Insight - Homepage

Missed sponsored feature

The sponsored feature was often missed by participants who required prompting to notice it.

Opinion over the sponsored feature was polarised, often with the same reason, with either participants liking it since it did not look like an advert, or disliking it because it was an advert that wasn’t clearly stating that it was an advert (e.g. hidden advertising).

Recommendation:

No change is needed, but consider testing different levels of explicitness to identify the ideal level of engagement.

Insight - Homepage

Engaging promotions

‘London24 promotions’ were noticed and appreciated by participants, however they were more inclined to engage with the family offer than the other promotions.

Participants felt that if they had an account with London24 then only promotions relevant to them would appear in the banner. Participants also mentioned that they expected a link to a central ‘promotions’ page.

Recommendation:

No change is needed, but consider creating a promotions page link within the ‘London24 promotions’ section.

Insight - Homepage

Images are appreciated

Participants liked images being associated with articles, and it helped their browsing experience.

Articles with images were seen as more important, while it was felt that images helped identify the topic without having to read.

Recommendation:

Use imagery to help users understand article subjects, and imply importance when navigating

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Insight - Homepage

London24, London for Londoners

The proposition was clear for participants upon viewing the website, and the content.

Participants identified that the website contained information about London, and could be a gateway to content about London.

Value was seen in this proposition because participants felt that local news sources better understood the ‘fabric’ of local areas, and would often provide more detailed information since they wouldn’t always be quoting from the same source as national newspapers.

Insight - Homepage

London says

Participants weren’t always clear about what information would be contained within ‘London says’.

While some felt it would contain views from other people, some thought it would contain articles from influential people that represent London (e.g. the Prime Minister).

Recommendation:

Test other names for ‘London says’ that could be more representative of the section such as ‘Opinions’.

Insight - Homepage

Local London

Participants understood that local London referred to areas within London, and that they could find area specific content within this section.

Recommendation:

No change is needed.

Insight - Homepage

What composes the daily digest?

Quite a few participants were confused about why articles were in the daily digest and how, or if, they related to the trending articles.

It was felt that possibly the daily digest was composed of articles that London24 was interested in pushing.

Recommendation:

Clarify why certain articles are in the daily digest by including page views or other data that would illustrate why is it in the list.

Insight - Homepage

Most read in London

Participants liked the ‘Trending London’ widget as it illustrated what was the most read on the website.

The ability to see the most shared, or the most commented was also mentioned by participants.

Recommendation:

No change in needed.

Insight - Homepage

Jobs and property within the site

Participants didn’t automatically assume that London24 would have property pages, or job descriptions.

Upon prompting they felt that they weren’t out of place, as long as both were present instead of just one. They also felt that London24 would be hosting this content rather than sending the user to a different website.

Recommendation:

Provide clearer links to both the job and property sections.

Insight - Homepage

What’s on is a key feature

The ‘what’s on’ functionality was interesting to all participants, especially the ability to limit to their local area.

A common idea was that the website would be able to detect where you are and provide results based off that data. This was a default expectation if London24 had an app.

Recommendation:

Place emphasis on the ‘what’s on’ functionality, and consider using GPS or IP location data to facilitate searching.

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Insight - News channel

Clear news channel

Participants identified and quickly understood the news channel page.

They understood how it was structured, with the newest content at the top, and separated out by section.

Recommendation:



Celebrities in entertainment

Participants did expect to find celebrity news or celebrity gossip within the news channel, however they felt that this information would be contained within the entertainment section.

By clicking on the entertainment section participants felt that they would see information about cultural event, but also about celebrities.

Recommendation:

Keep celebrity information within the entertainment section.


Headlines mean importance

When picking between articles with just a headline, or a headline with an excerpt, participants felt that the former represented less important news stories, and the latter would be used for new and interesting stories.

The text excerpt would also felt to be useful in helping participants understand if an article would interest them or not.

Recommendation:

Use different presentation techniques to imply different levels of importance in the articles and focus users’ attentions.


Where is Technology?

A few participants mentioned that a Technology section was missing.

As London is the capital of the UK, and contains a highly developed technology sector, these participants felt that a Technology was needed to help better represent London.

Recommendation:

Consider creating a Technology section if possible.


Crime & court, not Crime, and Court

The news sections were understood by participants except for ‘Crime’, and ‘Court’.

Participants felt that ‘Crime’ probably would contain general news that should be found in latest news (e.g. a stabbing), and ‘Court’ would contain court case news. The latter was seen as confusing, and not important.

Recommendation:

Merge the ‘Crime’, and ‘Court’ sections into a crime and court section, with the label ‘Crime’.


Updating accurately on a schedule

Participant’s ideas about how often the site would update varied greatly from only a few times a day to contently and instantly.

The most common idea was that since London24 was local, it wouldn’t update automatically but any news it put forward could possibly contain more information and be more accurate than an instant publication source.

Presenting the time an article was published was seen as very important as this helped participants understand the recency of the content.

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A good article length

Participants felt that the current article length was not too long or to short, and didn’t need to be changed.

Recommendation:



Appreciated ‘related stories’

The related stories section was liked by participants since they felt that they would probably be interested in other articles to the one they were reading.

A few participants however were worried that with its current location they could get distracted and end up not finishing the article before moving on.

Recommendation:

Move the ‘related stories’ section to lower in the page.


Badly positioned pull-quote

All participants commented on the position of the pull-quote and how it didn’t fit in with the formatting of the article.

While this didn’t impact the readability of the article, it was often one of the first things they would mention.

Recommendation:

Trial other pull-quote positions such as on the right side of the text, or less indented into the body of the text.


Comments are funny and fun to read

Participants noticed the comments section and liked it, however they were interested more from a voyeuristic point of view and the humour that could be found in the replies.

Participants didn’t tend to leave comments, but would read them to get a feel for how people were reacting, or to see the more extreme points of views that can be found on internet comment sections.

Recommendation:

Consider the moderation options in any CMS used to host comments, and how the posts can be moderated effectively.

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Insight - Sports channel

London, yet UK, football

Participants liked that they could find London clubs on London24, but considering that Londoners could follow clubs outside of London the absence over clubs such as Manchester United was felt.

While having information about non-London clubs was seen as needed, information about clubs outside the UK was felt to be too much unless it was important breaking information.

Recommendation:

Present information about clubs all over the UK, while keeping focus on the UK clubs.


Where are the London clubs?

A few participants missed the page section containing club information.

Participants associated scrolling down the page with accessing older, or less relevant, information. Placing the clubs near the bottom of the page meant there were missed since this content was expected.

Recommendation:

Create a page dedicated to London clubs with a clearly defined link, or provide a link near the top of the page that sends users to the club section.


Transfers and injuries

The most commonly mentioned piece of information that participants would be looking for was transfer and injury information.

Participants often visit websites just to check on the latest transfer rumours, and verify the latest injuries within their own team, as well as their opponents’ team.

Recommendation:

Include injury information articles, and consider the possibility of creating an injury related widget.


Football commentary

‘London says’ had particular value for the sports section, with participants being interested in exchanging their opinions with other fans, or just reading other fans’ opinion.

One particularly interesting use case was chatting during a match with other fans, or fans of the opposing teams.

Recommendation:

Consider building a proposition around commenting, exchanging, and engaging through sport commentary.


Most sports should be covered

While participants thought that the most sports should be covered the following sports were seen as the most important:- Football- Rugby- Cricket- Tennis- Athletics

Recommendation:

Provide coverage for the above sports when possible.


Updating quickly, but accurately

Information on the sports pages was expected to be kept up to date, but a delay of up to an hour was seen as acceptable.

Participants wished for their supported club to be updated instantly, but could understand a delay if it was compensated by accurate information instead of speculative information.

A score ticker as seen as important feature on the page for days where someone is playing a match.

Contents



Next steps

• Read & digest findings and recommendations provided in this report

• Decide with stakeholders which issues should take short, medium and long term priority

• Consider a future wave of testing when new features have been implemented

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Documents

London24 – User testing Findings 09 August 2013. Contents 1.Overview 2.Executive summary 3.Insight and recommendations – User behaviour – Homepage – News