UX review of the new Quartz app for Android
I’ve been a Quartz reader for some years, it’s a news portal launched in 2012 for business people that live in what they call a new global economy. Last month they finally made available their app version for Android, and it’s changing the way I consume business news.
With the growth of the bots solutions, I thought this was another one, but it’s not. It uses a very similar interface and even gif’s and emojis to create a chat atmosphere but you can’t talk back with the sender, just chose from predefined options.
But this doesn’t mean that isn’t good, they probably just realized that if you put a chat layer on it, the expectations would be much higher.
First use
As soon you open the app it starts talking with you, there is no login, no preferences to choose or form to fill. And as expected, the first interaction it’s a conversation between the app and you, to learn the basics of how it works and set your expectations on how the experience will be. Once you pass through this quick introduction, the content just starts to flow.
The flow
Regarding interaction, it’s a straightforward flow, the app load and it automatically gives you a shot of the first news. And you always have two options after it, one to know more about the news and other to skip to the next one. These actions are not static and explicit, it changes depending on the news content, what sometimes bring some sense of humor.
After some time you start to notice that it always try to maintain it quickly, like when you have to message something important for someone and try to make it short and easy. There is also an interesting use of media, in order to reinforce the chat ambient the app uses images, gifs and emojis to make content more enjoyable and relaxed.
It’s not and endless feed, it has an end after cover all the relevant news of that moment, always closing with some sense of humor. You never now how many they are and when more content will be available since the app doesn’t use notifications.
Pros and cons
In one hand, it’s changing my behavior on how I access business news. In general, I spend from 5 to 10 minutes to cover all and if I really want to go deeper into a subject, I can just tap on the icon that opens the original news source. Also, the app doesn’t try to push more and more news on you, as soon as you have seen all the content the interaction ends.
On the other hand, the feed is linear in a way that you can’t escape, this itself it’s not a big problem. The problem is that you will be guided through a series of news that is not controlled by you. What makes me think on how this data collected on the app is used, just to highlight news on the web version? Or for something else?
