Digital Journalism Education Teach-A-Thon | Why UX Design Matters | Journalism Interactive...

User Experience Design In JournalismMichael Humphrey

Colorado State University

User experience is not about the inner workings of a product or

service. (Creator-centric)

User experience is about how it works on the outside, where a

person comes into contact with it.

(Consumer-centric)

The Elements of User ExperienceJesse James Garrett

What is UX Used For?Discipline / Strategy / Philosophy

Websites

Devices

Retail

Could UX Apply In Journalism?

Peter Moorville, 2004: The UX Honeycomb

Could UX Apply In Journalism?

Alex Gamela, 2011: 'JUX' Honeycomb

From Desirable

From Accessible

From Usable

Aren't We Doing This?

Let's See ...

User: Wants To Be Informed

… Not Overwhelmed or Misinformed

How much information is useful?

What are the qualities of veritification that create a sense of credibility?

(Anonymous source vs. Press conference.)

User: Wants Organization

… Not Clutter or Confusion

How are they seeking the information?

What format best fits breaking news? Sentence/grafs, lists, video, social media, liveblogs, all, none?

User: Wants Interaction

… Not Trolling (At Least Most)

Free-for-all vs. Curated conversation?

What does a user expect of information that they share?

How Do We Find Out?Users & User Data A/B Testing, Surveys, Focus Groups Analytics (but be careful) Social/Comments Sentiment Meters Retention/Sentiment Testing

Usability products Heat Map Analytics Mouse Tracers Navigation Flow Analytics

Flowcharts/Checklists Create procedures for certain news Reflect results of UX research

How do we apply UX in the classroom?

Three ideas:

Spend a section of your class turning the students into users/testers.

Have students apply two very different approaches to a project and conduct an A/B test.

Bring a focus group of users verbally critique a group project.