Niche News and the Mobile Web: An Alternative Interface

The presentation of web content has become increasingly complex as the content is ac- cessed on several different devices. When presenting content on mobile phones there are several options to choose between, such as responsive web design, web applications, or native applications. Each option has advantages and disadvantages that should be considered to achieve a positive user experience. This thesis presents and discusses three possible interfaces for presenting niche news on mobile phone. The goal of the research was to understand which design elements and which functionality of niche news presentation is core to the user experience, as well as discern the technology on which to present these features. To this end, design science research was employed as the research method. A co-operation with Serienytt.no, a niche news blog, was arranged in order to gain access to existing content, and for readers to test and evaluate the prototypes. The prototypes were created in three iterations, of analysis, development and testing. A web survey was used to gain an initial understanding of the user group. Heuristic evaluation, with a total of seven experts, was used to improve upon the first and second iterations, while user testing was used for the summative evaluation. Five readers from Serienytt.no participated in the testing. An analysis of the collected data showed that all of the technologies tested can result in positive user experiences. Responsive Web Design is the cheapest to produce, while ap- plications cost more, but can give a more varied user experience. As for the design elements in niche news presentation, it was shown that simple and clear interaction is the most ap- preciated. Elements such as single columns, tabs, search bars and share-functionality are all valid and easily understood by users. In functionality, it was shown that the expec- tations of functionality is different between a website and an app. A mobile website is expected to convert most of a website's content, while an app is not necessarily expected to have the same functionality. These results are based upon data collected in this study, as well as previous research. The results presented in this thesis are based upon the analysis of the data collected in this study, as well as previous research. These results are compiled into a list of guidelines for niche news on mobile phones, which highlights the main considerations that should be made when adapting niche news content to mobile phones