A 48-hour Challenge: UI/UX Design Case Study on News-sharing Apps

Last weekend I had a very interesting and memorable experience taking part in the Jugaadathon (a 48 hour team design challenge) organised by Anudeep Ayyagari at GrowthSchool. This Article aims to recount all the findings and document my experience.

Platforms used: Notion, Figma, FigJam, Discord, Loom

Firstly I was assigned to a beautiful team of 7 members

• Kaavya Jeevakumar, the smart UX intern
• Vivekanandhan Subbalakshmi, the knowledgeable Visual Designer
• Adithya Prasanna Murthy, the zestful UX enthusiast
• Nitish Nayak, the lively Design Engineer
• Pooja Poojary, the busy Planning Executive
• Akhil Male, the quiet and curious college graduate
• And me 😄

Next we picked our PROBLEM STATEMENT from the pool of 5 options.

There are multiple news-sharing apps used by a single user and are often spammed with notifications. There is also a lot of fake news which gets shared. A news-sharing app wants to help users find relevant and important news easily every day and also understand explicitly that the news is not fake but from proper sources.

WHY THIS PROBLEM STATEMENT?

1. Due to changes brought about by the pandemic, people started depending on the news a lot to get updates about the situation around them. We really thought that this change in behavior would be very interesting to study.
2. None of us had previously seen a UX case study done on this topic and we really felt like this is a good industry to solve for since it actually caters to a wide range of people (culturally, economically and socially). We also felt that news apps are used by a lot of people but it feels like a space that hasn’t been explored much and has a lot of potential scope of betterment.
3. As a team, we realized that we have different skillsets and felt that we would all be able to cater to this problem statement in a very strategic and collaborative manner. Plus it was interesting to see how all of us had a very different take on news consumption.

On making conversation we decided to call ourselves the ‘South Spammers’ as all our natives were from the Southern part of India. 🤭

We then made a plan (that changed according to our situation)to stay on track for the next 2 days:

With our problem in hand, the first thing we did was to identify sub problems to tackle.

ASSUMPTIONS

Next we all started jotting down various assumptions that we had:

Assumptions about the User

• Spamming of messages usually leads to clearing of the content without viewing thus probably leading the user to lose access to important information.
• Too many notifications irritate the users and it clutters the bar on their phone
• Irrelevant news makes the user stop viewing the news thus losing access to credible news
• Users don’t want to spend time reading the entire content. They need short and crisp news
• Using multiple apps because users are not getting the content categories they want in one app.
• The user doesn’t want to waste time figuring out the relevance of the news
• Young people don’t read news from apps, usually depend on social media to get updated
• Users sometimes get overwhelmed by too many categories
• Users only check their phones and go through these notifications when they are free or during a particular time of the day when they are doing time pass
• Ads in the apps might irritate the user while reading the news
• One app not accommodating both the regional and international news might create a requirement for different apps.

Assumptions about the business

• News apps are trying to be like social media apps
• Businesses have to publish irrelevant news because younger generations prefer news with more fun instead of reliable news.
• News apps want to increase the time that user spends on their app so that they can show ads and generate revenue
• in order to increase the user screen time, news apps make users encounter eye-catching news rather than credible ones
• Assuming that this business started booming more during the pandemic
• Apps generate income through subscriptions.

HYPOTHESIS

We jotted down a few possible solutions to our assumptions.

• The app should ask the user initially, what categories are they interested to read from. And, show 8 out of every 10 news related to that category only (assuming that users get overwhelmed by too much info)
• Giving filters for notifications (in terms of content category and also frequency) because assuming that users get irritated by too many filters
• An App that includes all international and regional news that can be customizable depending on the users’ needs, will reduce the number of apps (assuming that people use more than 1 app)
• The app should provide info about all the trusted worldwide sources, and then in each article, it should mention which source has validated this news, as I’m assuming that users can’t differentiate between real and fake news
• App allowing the user to choose/customize the time for notification popup for news (assuming that people only check news notifications during free time)
• Users don’t want to spend time reading the entire content. They need short and crisp news.

After this stage we headed into the research phase.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Here we all categorized the various topics that needed to be researched and we all went and googled our separate ways into the night.

Here is a brief on what I collected:

• Types of young news consumers based on actions: (source)

— Heritage News Consumers : make a concerted effort to at least consume some of the same traditional news brands that they grew up seeing

— Passive News Absorbers : when something piques their interest, they search for it directly and care less

— Dedicated News Devotees have the highest engagement with news apps; they schedule time through the day to read news

— Proactive News Consumers “snack” across news brands rather than being devoted to any one brand in particular.

• Types of young news consumers based on frequency:

— Dedicated — Updated — Time-filler — Intercepted

• Stats

Gen Z is more likely to keep up with their news via video. (64% of 13–19-year-olds and 58% of 20–38-year-olds). 30% of Gen Z and 26% of Millennials saying that social media is their primary source for news according to YPulse’s most recent news consumption behavioral report.

Important Insights

Statistical

• According to a joint study by the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) and Nielsen India, there has been a 41% increase in time spent on news apps.
• Gen Z is more likely to keep up with their news via video. (64% of 13–19-year-olds and 58% of 20–38-year-olds).
• In India, the damage caused due to fake news on social media has increased from 137 million internet users in 2012 to over 600 million in 2020.
• Study shows that 265 fake local news websites in more than 65 countries are managed by Indian influence networks
• Pew Research Center found nearly 7 in 10 Americans feel exhausted and “worn out” by the excessive amounts of news which may lead them to avoid news consumption.
• The Reuters Institute’s “Digital News Report 2017” found that 57% of populations worldwide “sometimes” or “often” avoid the news
• An average visitor will only read an article for 15 seconds or less
• Over 50% of app users find push notifications annoying.
• 35% of push notifications are generic “broadcast” blasts to all users, it’s easy to see that a lack of relevancy plays a major role in this perception.
• Receiving between 2 and 5 messages in one week would cause 46% of respondents to disable push notifications. 32% of respondents said they would stop using the app altogether if they received between 6 and 10 messages in a week’s time.
• 20–24 years (30%) and 35 years plus (36%)

Behavioral

• Fake news has an adverse impact on individuals and society as it persuades consumers to accept false beliefs that are shared to forward specific agendas.
• Identifying relevant news from excessive amounts of information on social media requires substantial time, energy, and mental efforts
• Constant news updates and pop-ups of breaking news in social media may increase the feeling of news overload
• Too much information on social media can quickly cross users’ cognitive limits in processing news and can make them feel overwhelmed and overloaded
• As the frequency of news exposure increases, people gradually perceive news overload, which can lead them to shut down cognitively and deny the necessity of news consumption or to put less effort into acquiring news
• Older adults are more likely to rely on television, radio, and print media for their news than are those in the youngest adult cohort, who are more likely to use mobile devices.
• People prefer personalized push notifications
• As such, much of their media use is on-demand and algorithmically curated/personalized. The problem for publishers is that this means that individual news brands tend to play a small role in young people’s lives.
• Nearly as many find them a distraction, and comfortably over a third said they disturb them at the wrong time.
• WhatsApp is used for news
• People consider the news suggested by their friends and family as relevant news
• The messaging application is increasingly ubiquitous not only among general users but also in many Indian newsrooms where journalists use it to enable quick transfer of multimedia content.

Few points that got validated in Secondary Research Only:

The next stage took place on the next day. I was occupied with college. During the next few hours my teammates worked on primary research and analysis.

PRIMARY RESEARCH

This stage involves gathering information directly from users. A questionnaire was prepared and iterated for this purpose.

A total of 7 interviews were conducted. Following are the insights that were gathered and mapped out.

All the insights were grouped into categories like notification, extent of reading, extra information, caring about credibility, relevant content, multiple apps and deciding where to watch.

Important Insights

• Users mentioned that the timing of when the notification comes often determines whether the user will click on it (or even pay attention to notification), as users often feel that notification distracts them from their work/important activities.
• A lot of the users had even disabled the notifications because they felt like their entire notification dropdown gets filled with it which makes it difficult for them to view other important notifications.
• Users who care about whether the news they are receiving is verified, often go to google to check and see whether other trusted sites also confirm this news.
• Users that specifically read a lot prefer to have different apps for different topics such as business, finance, politics etc.
• Users also mentioned that they want to be able to understand the crux of the article very easily without putting in too much time and energy.

ANALYSIS

The validity of all the insights were checked:

A User Journey map was made to come up with relevant insights, followed by solutions for each phase of the journey.

HOW MIGHT WE QUESTIONS

HMWs were framed to aid with the solutioning with respect to certain areas in the next stage.

1. The spamming of notifications from the news apps tend to irritate and lower the overall experience of the user

💡 How might we ensure that there is a controlled flow of relevant notifications from the app?

2. The user feels the need to check for credibility of news and validate it. This additional effort results in user dissatisfaction.

💡 How might we provide the user with a confirmation that the news is verified and validated?

3. The burdening of irrelevant content on the users leads to them shying away from the news and the app

💡 How might we understand and provide the users with relevant content?

4. The user uses multiple apps to gather news, thus leading to the crowding of notifications and mix up of content.

💡 How might we try to provide a platform to the user that abolishes the requirement of multiple apps to fulfill their requirements?

5. The user feels that reading through the whole article to understand the conclusion is cumbersome and also he doesn’t want to spend maximum time in going through irrelevant content of the article.

💡 How might we provide the user with crisp and short content as per the users requirement?

At this point I joined back in the call I continued with the next stage.

IDEATION AND BRAINSTORMING

NOTE: Final ideas have been highlighted after looking at the user flow again

How might we ensure that there is a controlled flow of relevant notifications from the app?

1. While the user signs up, ask for which categories they’ll like to view the news on? And only push notifications regarding those categories. Also, use this category to show relevant news. Show 8 out of 10 new related to the selected category only. And, an option to edit the preferences.
2. Ask the user to set up Do Not Disturb Time. During this time, do not push any notifications to the user.
3. Providing customizable options to the user in order to select the time and frequency of notifications required.
4. Allowing the user to customize the topics for which he requires to receive notifications
5. By continuously taking the feedback from the users regarding the notifications are they creating any disturbance or showing the relevant content for the customer.

How might we provide the user with a confirmation that the news is verified and validated?

1. Show a Verified Badge against the news, which means the news has been verified by the app
2. The app interface should start with verification is done some blue tick mark that can make the viewers more confident in what they read from the app.
3. Providing the details of the source from which the news has been collected and also a reliable source to compare it with.
4. Allow the user to select from what sources he wants to get the news from (For eg, India TV, TOI, etc.)
5. Adding the credibility score of each news website from which the article has been taken beside the source name
6. Create a Like and Dislike feature in the app. Whenever a user finds the news is credible, he can drop a like. So, when some other user is looking at the news, by looking the counts of likes, he can get confidence that the news that he’s about to read can be a good one.

How might we understand and provide the users with relevant content?

1. Implementing a like feature where the news or topics that are liked by the user will be shown at a maximum quantity
2. Using search filters (categories and tags) to provide the news required by the user.
3. Implementing an algorithm to understand the recent items and searched done by the user, thus creating a UI that shall present the user with the news as per his mood and requirement.
4. Clear visual distinction between news and ads

How might we try to provide a platform to the user that abolishes the requirement of multiple apps to fulfill their requirements?

1. By making sure that the news will be in every language and covers the national and international news well.
2. Providing the user with options to toggle between regional and international news as per convenience

How might we provide the user with crisp and short content as per the users requirement?

1. We need to ask the user to fill a form, there the interests of the user will be collected based on the users interest the user will receive or see the content.
2. Provide a short context/summary of the news article against the news headline in order to provide the user with a better insight
3. Users should be provided with 2 modes

• Shorts with main points.
• Full script.

WIREFRAMING

At this stage I got out my paper and pen and made a few iterations of the blue prints of the app that we ideated solutions for.

Initially we thought of using the onboarding screens to collect information (sources, categories, time preference) to provide relevant content and notifications. But we were disproved and iterated other ways to incorporate our ideas.

High Fidelity Wireframes: (Figma)

A good few hours were put into discussions relating to the methods of alerting the user for the personalization options. In the UI stage we came to a conclusion of using a popup and a banner. An edit option was decided to be included in the settings page.

UI ITERATIONS

NOTE: The base app we chose is Inshorts which means that the design of this app was utilised. But our intention was to solve the problems at hand and not specifically improve this app.

USER FLOW 1

USER FLOW 2

SCREENS

In order to align our solutions with our Problem statement, we made edits onto a few major screens namely:

• News Feed
• Categories
• Notifications
• Home screen and Settings

News Feed

💡 Provide a way for the users to receive relevant content and verify if the news articles are credible and worth believing

Credibility of the news

The source of the article is mentioned at the bottom indicating that it is from a credible and tested source. The metric between the total number of users that have viewed the article and the ones that have liked it indicates whether this article is worth reading.

Problem Solved

• This solves the problem of the user having to reach out to other sources or to the Internet to verify/double-check if the news was real or fake that administers extra efforts on the user’s part and also demolishes the main intent of the news app to provide a single-stop credible news platform and also causes irritation to the user.
• The “like metric” solves the problem of the user not understanding whether it is worth spending his energy and time on this article. Also, it helps the user indicates that it is credible information.

Prioritizing Relevant Content

The menu icon provides a wide range of options that enables the user to restrict the content from any irrelevant categories or sources. Thus ensuring that the User receives only the content that interests him.

Problem solved

The users often feel irritated if they come across content that is not relevant to their context, this helps them hide stories from a particular topic/source. This solves the problem of irrelevant content.

Notifications

💡 Ensure that the user is not overwhelmed by notifications and receives a better experience for accepting them

Reducing Notification spamming

The Customizable timing option provides the user to choose when he is available to go through the notifications for the day, ensuring that the regular news updates do not cause any disturbance to the user. Choosing either the ‘Whole Day’ or a particular start and end time would enable both the app and the user to work in a better understandable environment.

Problem Solved

Users are usually overwhelmed by the regular news updates, especially if received during busy hours. Regular updates at unequal intervals of time by multiple apps tend to disturb and also spam the user’s notifications bar thus causing him to feel annoyed and clearing which makes him miss out on relevant updates from other apps too.

This solves this problem by allowing the user to decide when he can receive articles. This way they will at least be more inclined to read the article and the irritation from spamming will relieved.

Sources

💡 Enable the user to choose the sources from which he desires to receive the news. Ensuring that the user feels safe and also has a relevant flow of content

Making sure content is from credible user trusted sources

The ability to choose the sources from which the user can receive the news content ensures that he is comfortable with the news he encounters. With a feature enabled for the user to understand the credibility of news apps they can always go back to the settings screen to change their interests.

Problem Solved

This solves the problem of the user having to reach out to other sources or to the Internet to verify/double-check if the news was real or fake that administers extra efforts on the user’s part and also demolishes the main intent of the news app to provide a single-stop credible news platform and also causes irritation to the user.

Categories

💡 Provide the user with relevant information that is required by him based on his interests

Ensuring relevant information flow

The user is provided an option to select the categories from which he would like to receive news, thus ensuring that no extra content flow takes place. The categories can be updated in the settings depending on the interests of the user.

Problem Solved

Since user gets a lot of content (also in terms of notifications) this solves that problem by allowing the user to narrow down the topics that he is interested in. This way the app does not bombard the user with unnecessary information. This is also more likely to retain the user onto the app as the user will experience lesser negative emotions like feeling overwhelmed and agitated.

Home Screen and Settings

💡 Ensure that the user is educated about the new feature provided by the app with timely notifications at the times the user is in crisis

We realize that we cannot introduce all of the above-mentioned features in onboarding thus in order to push the users to select the features or use them whenever the mentioned issues are encountered a banner is provided for the first-time users post the new upgrade.

Helping the user to understand the new feature with customized banners ensures to help the user reach out to activate the feature easily.

💡 Not wanting to overwhelm the user with pop-ups and notifications at the beginning of his journey, we entertained the idea of only providing popups after the user has gone through a minimum number of articles in the apps

The user if he chooses to skip, along with another prompt after a 7-day interval, thus ensuring that the user is not overwhelmed with request popups and has sufficient time to go through the screen.

Confirming to personalize the user content would proceed to redirect the user to a series of 3 screens that shall provide feature customization.

Post providing the information required by the user for his new content personalization the banner and pop up would be forever disabled.

After this, we made a short video explaining the main points of our case study.

KEY LEARNINGS

1. The importance of communication and collaboration in a team of people who didn’t really know each other prior.
2. Time management played a huge role in this project as 48 hours was definitely a time crunch.
3. The need to disagree and commit in certain situations
4. the importance of changing our approach depending on the situation and taking important decisions at the right time.

This beautiful experience gave me the opportunity to work with amazing and talented individuals who are now friends. I understood many concepts whose practical application I wouldn’t have been able to comprehend on my own. As a college student, being in an environment similar to a potential work space has made me excited for the future.

UX Case Study by Sanjana Somanath Sannamari

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