This presentation is about the gap between what mobile users want and what news apps actually present.

1. Mobile Experience:
A Normative-Empirical Gap

2. Mobile Experience
A user’s interaction with a product or
Conceptualization
service that encompasses his or her
General awareness, adoption, learning, and use
(Alben, 1996; IBM, 2007; Norman, 1999; Norman, 2004).

3. Mobile Experience
“safety, functionality, usability, and
Conceptualization pleasure experience”
Quantitative Jordan (2000)

4. Mobile Experience
“usefulness, ease of use, hedonics,
Conceptualization aesthetics and pleasure/fun”
Quantitative Mahlke (2005)

5. Mobile Experience
“ease of use, helpfulness, affective
Conceptualization
aspect, minimal memory load, and
Quantitative efficiency”
Ryu and Smith-Jackson (2006)

6. Mobile Experience
Experience must be understood in a
holistic and constructionist approach
Conceptualization by listening to users’ stories of
Qualitative
experience with technology
(McCarthy & Wright, 2005)

7. Mobile Experience
Experience must be understood in a
holistic and constructionist approach
Conceptualization by listening to users’ stories of
Qualitative
experience with technology
(McCarthy & Wright, 2005)

8. Mobile Experience
a process of
Conceptualization
Quantitative
using content and services
(Xu, 2012) in an integrative, interactive and
immersive mobile environment

9. Studies on Mobile Experience

10. Studies on Mobile Experience

11. Studies on Mobile Experience

12. Studies on Mobile Experience

13. Studies on Mobile Experience

14. Studies on Mobile Experience

15. Studies on Mobile Experience

16. Studies on User Experience
• Technology-based
• Design-oriented
• Little research on content-based mobile experience

17. Mobile Experience
Integrated Customization
Categories Interactive Empowerment
Immersive Services

18. Mobile Experience
Components Homepage (25) Storypage (36)

19. Research Questions
RQ1:
How important is mobile experience to mobile
users?

20. Research Questions
RQ2:
To what extent has mobile experience been reflected
in news apps?

21. Research Questions
RQ3:
How big is the gap between normative mobile
experience and empirical mobile experience?

22. A Web Survey
Survey Period: Dec. 17-31, 2011
Completes: 254/319 (80%)
How Important: Web experience in news apps

23. Demographics
Location China (256) Singapore (60) Others (3)
Gender Female (216) Male (103)
Education University (273) Others (46)
Occupation Students (176) Others (143)
Web News 84%
Mobile Web 77%
News Apps 26%

24. News App Analysis
Sample: 20 news apps
Categories: News agencies, radio station, TV stations,
newspapers, Online only

25. Results (homepage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Hyperlinked other media outlets 65 5
Hyperlinked other apps 46.4 15
Selecting different media 66.6 75

26. Results (homepage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Follow via microblog 72.5 10
Follow via blog 63.4 0
Follow via other social media 66.9 20

27. Results (homepage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Follow via blog 72.5 10
Follow via microblog 63.4 0
Follow via other social media 64.2 5
Publish news 66.9 20

28. Results (homepage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Select editions 68.5 10
Select regions 81.1 10
Select languages 78 0
Select news 81.5 15
Select media 69.3 15
Save news 64.5 70
Font size 55.5 25

29. Results (homepage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
IM 50.7 0
Email 61.4 15
SMS 52.4 5
Phone 48.8 5
Feedback 66.9 45

30. Results (homepage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Navigation Bar 83 95
News Search 81.5 15
Help Info 59.5 30
News Categorization 88.2 90
News Archives 69.3 0
Usage Log 72.9 15

31. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Audio/Video/Slides + Text 74.2 0
Text + Audio 71.4 15
Text + Video 81 45
Text + Photo and Graghics 81.4 85

32. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Text + Slides 56.8 40
Text + Narrated Slides 58.4 0
Text + Timeline 74.1 0
Text + Graphics 73.8 5
Text + Animations 61.2 0

33. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Backgrounder 76.2 5
Explanation 74.4 0
Data 69.1 0
Quotes 61.5 0
Ohter related content 69.2 20

34. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Audio Presentation 53.5 5
Text Presentation 61 0
Slide Presentation 40.4 0
Narrated Slide Presentation 46.1 0
Animation Presentation 49.4 0
Games Presentation 31.7 0
Website Presentation 66.2 5

35. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Commenting news 78.5 20
Rating news 70 5
Sharing news 80.7 85

36. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
IM 60.2 0
Email 64.3 0
Feedback 75.9 5

37. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Follow via microblog 68.8 5
Follow via blog 62.9 0
Follow via other social media 62.2 0

38. Results (storypage)
Importance Usage
Web Experience
(N=254) % (N=20) %
Online Translation 78.2 0
Online Dictionary 79.9 0
List of Audio/Video 62.8 5
List of Readings 71.6 0
Saving News 76.2 70
Downloading News 75.7 15

39. Findings
Importance of Web Experience
On average, 67.1% attach importance to ME on
homepage while 66.64% on storypage

40. Findings
Usage of Web Experience
On average, only used in 25% news apps (homepage)
only used in 15% news apps (storypage)

41. Findings
Importance and Usage Gap
47.12 percentage points on homepage
51.64 percentage points on storypage

42. Discussion
Apps remain largely limited in fully utilizing mobile
experience features due to overemphasis on design-
oriented experience

43. Discussion
Content providers remain dominated by “content is
king” mindset

44. Discussion
More mobile users pay more importance to Web
experience beyond content

45. Discussion
There remains a big gap between normative and
empirical Web experience.

46. Recommendations
News apps developers/content providers should
leverage Web experience to enhance mobile news
communication.

47. Recommendations
Content remains important but to experience
content has become more important.
Experience is king!

48. Further Studies
Experiments/Focus Groups/Content Analysis/Survey
Effectiveness/Impact
Experiment a WE fully utilized app