Usability Test Findings of G1, news portal of the Globo media group Brazil, May/2007

1. Usability Test
FINDINGS
Teste de usabilidade da Nova Home da Globo.com - RESULTADOS (Marcia Maia) Jun.2007 1

2. Agenda Objectives and methodology
Planning the sample
Elements to evaluate
- Comparison between Folha’s website and G1’s current website
- Evaluation of the new G1
- Initial perception
- Home page
- Tag Clouds
- Box ‘estado’
- Box ‘as mais’
- Article page
- Article page with embedded gallery
- Search
- The Web portal’s navigation bar
Items’ order of importance
Prioritizing the problems
Recommendations
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3. ABOUT THE TEST
Objective To observe user’s perceptions towards Folha’s
website or G1’s current website and the new G1,
as well as to evaluate some functionalities
Date 9th to 12th July 2007
Place Try’s Usability Lab (SP)
Methodology Folha’s website and G1’s current website:
Free navigation and guided navigation.
New G1: Usability test monitored by a moderator
in which the user follows a pre-determined task
list.
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4. Planning the Sample – IBOPE Ratings
IBOPE Category: News & Information > Sub-category: Cu rrent News & Global News > Channel: Globo Noticias
By Gender
Men Women
70% 61.98%
56.55% 59.91% 58.01% 59.80%
56.41%
60%
50% 43.45% 41.99% 43.59%
40.09% 40.20%
38.02%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Globo Notícias Terra UOL Notícias & Folha Online iG Estadão
Actualidad Informação News/Último
Segundo
This segment’s audience is predominantly male with Globo Notícias having the second highest share
of women users in the market.
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5. Planning the Sample – IBOPE Ratings
IBOPE Category: News & Information > Sub-category: Cu rrent News & Global News > Channel: Globo Noticias
By Age Group
1.25% 1.79% 1.48% 1.61% 1.43% 1.46%
100% 10.90%
65+
14.06% 12.64% 14.98% 13.60% 18.34%
50 - 64
80% 24.85%
25.17% 24.82% 25.76% 29.74% 25.14% 35 - 49
60% 25 - 34
24.99% 22.57%
24.59% 22.05% 22.57% 22.46% 18 - 24
40%
19.89% 16.71% 12 - 17
19.56% 17.96% 14.34% 15.16%
20% 16.67% 2 - 11
13.52% 13.98% 14.78% 14.40%
12.61%
4.60% 2.22% 5.10% 3.66% 3.55% 3.03%
0%
Globo Terra UOL Notícias Folha Online iG Estadão
Notícias Actualidad & Informação News/Último
Segundo
Globo Notícias has an audience slightly younger than its copetitors: leads the 12-17 ag group and
has the second highest percentage of users between 18 and 24 years old and 25 and 34 years old
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6. Sample
Total sample: 10 people
6 men
4 women
Profile
Female Male
1 woman between 20 – 25 y.o. 2 men between 20 – 24 y.o.
1 woman between 26 – 30 y.o. 1 man between 25 – 30 y.o.
1 woman between 31 – 35 y.o. 2 men between 31 – 35 y.o.
1 woman between 36 – 45 y.o. 1 man between 36 – 45 y.o.
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7. Interviewees’ Internet use profile
Most of the interviewees access the Internet daily, more than once a day
(6 out of 10 interviewees)
Most of the interviewees access are used to access the Internet from home
(9 out of 10 interviewees)
5 of the interviewees use IE, 3 use FireFox and 2 did not know what their browser was
None of the interviewees leaves the favourites window open on the browser while navigating
Most of the interviewee use the tools bar on the browser (google, yahoo...)
(7 out of 10 interviewees)
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8. Interviewees’ Internet use profile
Interviewees’ main interests on the Internet:
Orkut
Google
Msn
Shopping
Banking
News websites, gossip websites, downloads websites
Main news websites accessed by the interviewees:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
FOLHA
Obs: Some of them
ESTADÃO already knew G1 but
TERRA but were not used to
access it
GLOBO.COM
OUTROS
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9. COMPARISON
FOLHA x G1
Teste de usabilidade da Nova Home da Globo.com - RESULTADOS (Marcia Maia) Jun.2007 9

10. FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO G1
x
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11. FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO G1
x
To access Folha’s website: To access G1’s website:
8 users typed the URL 4 users typed the URL
1 accessed it through parent Web portal UOL 3 accessed it through parent
Web portal Globo.com
1 looked it up on Google
3 looked it up on Google
Obs: significant number of arrivals at G1 via
Google reinforces the importance of SEO
practices
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12. Pontos positivos (segundo os entrevistados)
Main positive aspect (according to the interviewees)
FOLHA G1
The colours, the look It doesn’t have that much content displayed
on the home page as Folha’s website
“It’s not visually tiring” “It doesn’t have Folha’s ‘huddle’”
“The look is pretty clear, clean”
“Good utilisation of colours”
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13. Other positive aspects (according to the interviewees)
FOLHA
FOLHA G1
G1
Colours (aspect pointed out by the majority) It doesn’t have as much as Folha
It’s not visually tiring It doesn’t have Folha’s ‘huddle’
The look is pretty clean, clear Categorisation of news / News design
It looks more like foreign news outlets, more More sparse
discrete See more below the photo (article page)
News are focused in São Paulo More organised than Folha’s website
Latest news / News ticker No advertising
Relevant news Menu division
Well organised A lot of photos
Summary of everything. Quite complete Weather forecast
Updating (frequency) Latest news / Times on the latest news
Diversity Live video streaming / Radio CBN / Videos
Correspondence between the newspaper and the Quite complete. Informs well.
news website Organisation. Large letters
There are videos, but there is no attempt to induce More complete articles
you to watch videos More modern feel to it. Easier
News from other agencies
Credibility
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14. Main negative aspect (according to the interviewees)
FOLHA G1
Excessive ammount of information on the Colour. Red in excess.
home page.
“Too much news”
“Too many things together”
“A huddle”
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15. Other negative aspects (according to the interviewees)
FOLHA G1
Overload of information on the homepage Excess of red colour
“Too many options”
Focused on Rio de Janeiro
Small font size
Position of the search box
Excess of advertising
Perception that the a large portion of the content
Lack of photographs related to the highlights is for susbcribers only
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16. COMMENTS ABOUT THE USAGE OF RED COLOUR ON THE CURRENT WEBSITE
“Red is overwhelming”
“There is too much red on the website”
”The excess of the red colour irritates me”
“I associate the red colour to tabloids and sensationalism”
“Everything on this page looks important and urgent. There
is no hierarchy”
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17. NEW G1
Teste de usabilidade da Nova Home da Globo.com - RESULTADOS (Marcia Maia) Jun.2007 17

18. First impressions
Visually lighter than the curent website, less ‘blocky’
Organised and clean
Excessive amount of information
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19. Comments about the colour and the amount
of content
G1 ATUAL G1 NOVO
“It’s much better, but there is still too much red.”
“Wow! There is too much information here!”
“The colour is much better now!
“It’s clean, I like it”
“Overwhelming! What am I supposed to do here?”
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20. What first catches your attention on this page?
1º Advertising
(6 users)
2º Main headline
(4 users)
2º
1º
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21. HOME
Videos on the home page
During the sessions, most of the users
said that G1 has a strong presence of
videos. This element was explored by
6 users.
The ‘play’ button was understood by
all the participants.
“It’s like YouTube. ”
“This arrow means that it’s a video”
In some cases, such as dark backgrounds,
the ‘play’ button looks like an element of
the image.
“It looks like he is holding a small board”
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22. TAG CLOUD
Tag cloud
The vertical tag cloud was understood
as a part of the main menu.
Most of the users associate the tag cloud to
popular search terms, but the relationship
between size and relevance is unclear.
Some of the aspects mentioned by users as
possible reasons for the size variation:
Editorial relevance of the topics;
Amount of information about the topic
available on the website;
Aesthetics.
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23. TAG CLOUD
Tag cloud – Globo.com Home Page UT (May 2007)
Most of the participants of the Home Page UT understood the behaviour
of the tag cloud.
Possible reasons for the different results in the G1 UT:
- Placement (underneath the main menu instead of on the
bottom of the page);
- Shape (vertical instead of horizontal);
- Colour (the use of the red colour makes the tag cloud look like
an extension of the menu);
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24. SECTION PAGES
“Most read”, “most emailed”
and “most commented
Most of the users did not explore this box on
the news section pages. Only 2 users
mentioned this box spontaneously.
When asked to look at this box, most users
did not realise that they could click on the tabs.
Only 3 participants used the tabs to navigate
through the content of this box.
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25. STORY PAGE
Ability to change the font size
Easily noticed by most of the users.
Video signage
The ‘play button’ was easiliy understood by the partcipants.
Links to related stories (”saiba mais”)
Most of the users like the new position of this element - integrated to
the stoty text instead of an the bottom of the page.
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26. STORY PAGE
Breadcrumbs – It was used by 3 participants to navitage through
topics and sections pages.
“Main page” Box - During the sessions, participants used
this box to ‘monitor’ the headlines on the homepage. However,
most of them went back to the homepage to read
more about a specific stoty.
Poll - Only 2 participants used this feature. It was not mentioned by
the other users.
Comments - Most of the participants noticed this feature.
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27. GLOBAL NAVIGATION BAR
Most of the users preferred the new navigation bar.
Reasons for the preference:
- Prominent search box;
- Visually clean;
- Roll-over effects
Negative comments:
- The link to “All sites’ was considered small and difficult to find by 2 users.
x During the UT sessions,
the participants made
spontaneous comments
about the new navigation
bar. In the end of the
sessions, all of the
participants were
encouraged to compare the
the old and the new bars
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28. SEARCH
It was used by all the participants at least twice during the UT sessions. They used the search to look
for specific topics (some of them featured on the website).
The new position of the search box was praised by most of the users.
“I don’t have time to read all the stories to find what I
want. I just search for the topics I am interested in”.
“The search has to be in your face because
people don’t bother reading all the pages.”
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29. Importance Hierarchy
Teste de usabilidade da Nova Home da Globo.com - RESULTADOS (Marcia Maia) Jun.2007 35

30. How important are the following items on a news website?
Latest news 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
VERY IMPORTANT
IMPORTANT Very important + important = 10
LESS IMPORTANT
Less important + not important = 0
NOT IMPORTANT
Search 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
VERY IMPORTANT
IMPORTANT Very important + important = 10
Less important + not important = 0
LESS IMPORTANT
NOT IMPORTANT
Local news 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
VERY IMPORTANT
IMPORTANT Very important + important = 10
Less important + not important = 0
LESS IMPORTANT
NOT IMPORTANT
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31. How important are the following items on a news website?
Blogs & Columns 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
VERY IMPORTANT
IMPORTANT Very important + important = 7
Less important + not important = 3
LESS IMPORTANT
NOT IMPORTANT
Live video streamings
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
VERY IMPORTANT
IMPORTANT Very important + important = 6
Less important + not important = 4
LESS IMPORTANT
NOT IMPORTANT
Financial indexes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
VERY IMPORTANT
IMPORTANT Very important + important = 6
LESS IMPORTANT Less important + not important = 4
NOT IMPORTANT
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32. SUMMARY OF
RECOMMENDATIONS
Teste de usabilidade da Nova Home da Globo.com - RESULTADOS (Marcia Maia) Jun.2007 40

33. Summary of recommendations
Review the amount of information displayed on the home page
Refine the graphical application of the ‘play button’ on images
Review the positioin and shape of the tag cloud
Redesign the ‘most read’, ‘most emailed’ and ‘most commented’ box (information design
and interaction).
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34. Next Steps
Prioritisation of issues - Product management
Solutions Workshop - Product team
Release planning
Design and Development
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