Newser - The new-gen news app
A News app that re-establishes trust, counters misinformation, and promotes unbiased journalism.
Project Brief
In response to the evolving challenges faced by the news industry in India, particularly declining readership and diverse criticism, this project is a submission for a competition organized by InfoEdge. The primary objective is to address these challenges by developing a innovative news app that revitalizes the news consumption experience, catering to the changing dynamics of audience engagement and countering the issues currently plaguing news agencies.
TL;DR
Commencing with guerrilla research, our project delves into comprehending the intricacies of the Indian news industry ecosystem. We initiate by mapping assumptions and conducting user interviews to gain insights into how individuals perceive both news and the news industry in India. Our research focus is tailored to individuals aged between 15 to 30, allowing us to discern key behavioral traits.
With a deeper understanding of our audience, we crafted a mobile news app that leverages crowdsourcing and innovative interventions to present diverse perspectives on news pieces. A pivotal aspect of our design involves the meticulous segmentation of news sections. These interventions serve a dual purpose: to reinstate trust, counteract misinformation, and advocate for unbiased journalism. The project, as a whole, is a strategic initiative aimed at reshaping the landscape of news consumption.
My Contributions
UX Research
User Persona
Journey Mapping
Scenarios Mapping
User Interviews
Academic Literature Review
User Testing
Interactive Prototyping
Problem Statement
Design a news app that provides every topic of news for young people across the globe.
Methodology
On a macro level, my design process typically follows the following structure in which each step breaks into several phases and sub-steps depending upon the need and demand of the respective project.
01
Validation
The problem statement needs to be validated primarily in terms of why there is a need of a new 'News App' when there are already so many news apps in the market.
02
Research
Once the problem statement is validated, thorough research was conducted to understand the problem and the context better. The following research was conducted henceforth.
Secondary Research
Primary Research
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Desk Research
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Research Papers
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Articles
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Comparative Analysis
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User Survey
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User 1-to-1 interviews
03
Define
Now that we have substantial data on what the problem is, we move forward to define the scenario.
For this, following activities were done.
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User Journey Mapping
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Empathy Mapping
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User Persona
04
Ideation
At this stage, a better picture of both - the problem statement and the audience is there. Now based on the research and analysis of user needs/scenarios we move to ideate some solutions. The ideation phase has the following breakups.
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Concept Flow Diagram
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Brainstorming
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Sprints
Research Plan & Research Goals
Assumption Mapping
Secondary Research
To understand the present scenario of the news industry
Internet Articles
Research Papers
Understanding Behavior
How are people consuming news? The Thoughprocess?
Why are people consuming news?
What are the types of news they are consuming?
How is the News Consumption Behavior in context of internal factors like time, focus, value etc?
Impact on news brands on the news consumption behavior.
This stage had a series of repetitive iterations of wire-framing, testing and re-iterating. Upon finalising a version of the wireframe to go ahead with, we moved on to make high fidelity mockups and prototypes.
High Fidelity Mockup and prototype
05
08
07
06
Wireframing
Design
Iterations
Prototype Testing
Audience
We are looking at a young audience preferable between age of 15 and 35 consisting of Gen-Zs and Millennials.
01. Validation
Assumption Mapping
Although there are many successful news apps in the markets the why there comes a need of designing another news app? Following maps the assumptions that could be the possible causes
Users getting lot of notifications
Not able to find relevant topic/category news
People might be getting same news irrespective of their interests .
The interface is not very user friendly
Imitating Newspaper
Clearing all notifications instead of going through them one by one.
Too many categories making the app confusing.
Users get overwhelmed with too much of information
The payment/Business model is not being invited by the users.
Multiple apps for different kinds of news
Not able to find relevant information or information the really want about.
Users are not able to figure ot if the news is authentic or not
Mimicing different genres and losing value
Frustrated by ads and other distractions
Young adults or teens aren’t finding it helpful and switch to other platform
Users aren’t able to visit back to the story they read earlier
Users are confused throughout the day
02. Research
Secondary Research
Reuters conducted a survey across 46 countries in 6 continents that included India, Indonesia, Peru and many other countries between January 2021 and February 2021. There were a total of 92000 respondents. Following are some major data points taken from the survey.
Much of the media is controlled by large, for-profit corporations, many of them privately held, and mainly funded by advertising.
No regulations on cross-media ownership. A culture of 24×7 news channels operating on ‘Breaking news’ models and polarised debates often distort and sensationalise news.
WhatsApp, YouTube, and Facebook are widely used for news and there have been serious problems with misinformation and hate speech.
YouTube continues to be the preferred partner for growth in news video.
The pandemic has hit print circulation and decreased advertisements, leading companies to slash salaries, cut jobs due to the drastic decline in economic activity.
Number of independent fact-checking organisations has grown in recent years, with support from international tech companies and foundations
India has consistently slipped in the Press Freedom Index of Reporters occupying 142nd position out of 180 countries.
Hindi is the language that online news is consumed in most with 192mn UV’s, Marathi follows with 32mn Malayalam is a close third with 31mn UV’s
The mobile web saw 263 mn UV’s while the mobile apps attracted 176 mn UV’s. However, engagement on the mobile web was 15 bn minutes compared to the 33 mn minutes spent on mobile apps.
Average minutes spent by a visitor on news sites per month in India are 191 compared to 293 worldwide. 90 percent of the users consume news on their mobile phones.
News aggregators reach for online news consumption is on the rise, attracting 56 percent of news viewers. The report states that the reach of aggregators is increasing by a staggering 187 percent in a year. Dailyhunt is the clear leader amongst news aggregators with 43 percent reach in comparison to the number two news aggregator Flipboard has only 6 percent reach, Newspoint has 5 percent, Google News 3 percent reach, Inshorts 2 percent and UC News only 1 percent. Not surprisingly, the report states that Video is a catalyst in news content consumption.
Consumption of online news in India is growing and we are now the second-largest online news consuming nation in the world with 282 mn unique visitors (UVs).
Research Paper Snippets
We investigated the differential diffusion of all of the verified true and false news stories distributed on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. The data comprise ~126,000 stories tweeted by ~3 million people more than 4.5 million times. We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information. We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. Contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.
The spread of true and false news online
Linguistic and network-based approaches have shown high accuracy results in classification tasks within limited domains. This discussion drafts a basic typology of methods available for further refinement and evaluation. and provides a basis for the design of a comprehensive fake news detection tool. Techniques arising from disparate approaches may be utilized together in a hybrid system, whose features are summarized:
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Linguistic processing should be built on multiple layers from word/lexical analysis to highest discourse-level analysis for maximum performance.
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As a viable alternative to strictly content-based approaches, network behavior should be combined to incorporate the 'trust' dimension by identifying credible sources.
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Tools should be designed to augment human judgement, not replace it. Relations between machine output and methods should be transparent.
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Contributions in the form of publicly available gold standard datasets should be in linked data format to assist in up-to-date fact checking.
Automatic Deception Detection: Methods for Finding Fake News
This challenge has not gone unnoticed or unresearched. Previous studies highlight the role that family background, socioeconomic status and parents' news consumption habits all play in forming an individual's news engagement'. However, with the emergence of a digital native generation in Gen , an established high-choice news environment and greater exposure to different attitudes, things might be changing.
Recent editions of the Digital News Report (2018 and 2019) show that there has been a slowing and even reversing of the rise in the use of social media for news access in some key markets. Companies are also beginning to focus more on quality and payment.
Within this context, phenomena like the increasing awareness of hate speech and the spread of fake news or 'misinformation' means audiences are placing greater importance on the value and quality of content an emerging trend uncovered in a recent Flamingo and Synthesis study investigating fake news in Kenya and Nigeria for the BBC.
How Young People Consume News and The Implications For Mainstream Media
Driving relevance of traditional news brands is not as simple as delivering an entertaining point of view that offers personal utility. Just as there are differences in formats. tone and content. there are differences in what is valued from the news depending on the moment, the medium and the individual. By understanding and successfully navigating these three variables, news providers will be much better placed to repeatedly generate resonant content that can build engagement with under-35s
How Young People Consume News and The Implications For Mainstream Media
Gen Z. as digital natives, have even higher expectations of a flawless, seamless. personalised online experience than Millennials. Convenience and instant gratification are hygiene factors. This isn't to say Millennials don't appreciate and value seamlessness but - having known a time before even a slow online world existed - perhaps they can be more forgiving. Gen Z appear to be a more transactional group than the experience-centric Millennials. We know DIV and collaboration culture is strong, but this also means they are resourceful and pragmatic: visibly considering what they can get out of the different relationships and activities the adopt. The personal utility of news is therefore seen in a particularly practical sense: 'how does it benefit me?' Driven by a more intuitive love for experience, we found discovery and learning came across stronger among the 25-35s Finally, perhaps due +0 their native and proactive approach online, for Gen Z. control over and curation of their online environment is ever more important
How Young People Consume News and The Implications For Mainstream Media
Research Paper Insights
Younger audiences are different from older groups not just in what they do, but in their core attitudes in terms of what they want from the news. Young people are primarily driven by progress and enjoyment in their lives, and this translates into what they look for in news.
The way the news media covers stories may need to change, including addressing issues such as negativity, stereotypes, diversity and how news brands present both themselves and their content on third party platforms.
News brands need to tell stories in ways that fit the expectations of young people and the moments when they are open to news. This means creating formats that are native to mobile and social platforms as well as incorporating these ideas into their own websites.
Broadcasters and newspapers are struggling to reach or build relationships with under-35s. This is an age group that tends to access the news via social media, aggregators and other non-traditional media.
Analysis
The core role of news, of allowing one to know what is going on in the world, should meet a fundamental human need: to connect people’s individual world with the wider world.
Primary Research
User Surveys & Interviews
To understand the situation better, I floated a survey. The inputs that i got were from parts of India. After that I conducted user interviews and got diverse insights.
Observed Patterns in User 1-to-1 Interviews
Following were the patterns observed in 1 to 1 interview. These patterns were repeatedly observed in people's answers and other people also agreed positively to these points.
I only share development and progress related news with my family. All other news seem not be appropriate for everyone.
Tushar Gupta
Student, 20 Years
One way to check the authenticity of any news is probably to cross check the news on multiple sources. If the news is similar on multiple sources then most probably the news will be right.
Amit Gupta
Architect, 27 Years
For news sometimes I watch youtube, sometimes I go to Whatsapp and facebook also. Who knows if these are authentic or not. But when you see the images and videos you feel like believeing it.
Shubham Kumar
Student, 24 Years
My father watches news every night when he’s back from office. I just sit with him and listen to whatever he is listening. Rest, I personally do not dedicatedly watch or read news unless someone tells me something big has happened in the world.
Ishita Chandra
Architect, 27 Years
Whenever I think of news, I get an image of two politicians screaming at each other. News have become comedy. I actually sometimes watch news just because I need to laugh.
Jincy Iype
Writer, 34 Years
Every News Source has some kind of agenda. They exist just to spread their own propaganda. There is no way now one can actually figure out if the information they are giving away is true or false. Better give up on watching news. It’s the only way.
Harshav Bessariya
Student, 28 Years
I read news because I am preparing for civil services and for that reason I need to keep myself updated. News is more like general knowledge for me.
However, I see there is sort of exaggeration in the media.
Rehan Azad
Urban Planner, 28 Years
Probably news industry was not that adultrated in old days. They had limited no. of news channels and they probably believed whatever the channels used to show.
Sudeep Kumar Biswa
Student, 20 Years
I like Google News simply because it’s convenient. When I wake up in the morning I open CNN and it has a news briefing and I see everything that’s going on. It’s easy to stay up-to-date on current events.
Altaf Hussain
Teacher, 32 Years
GenZ+ Late millennials Behavior Analysis
Thought Process
The GenZ and the Late Millennials do not consider news as a separate entity. Digital world has become a huge part of their life and they have more control over what they want to entertain and what they do not want to entertain in their life.
On a behavioural scale, this set of audience consider news as an entity within the intersection of what the they have entertained in their life.
Why Young people consume news?
Progress
News plays to a number of progress-related needs, focused both on the self as well as our position in society:
1. Status
In different contexts news relates to a social standing. Knowledge is valued. Being ‘in the know’ gives you gravitas and allows you to feel confident.
2. Identity
News helps you construct and communicate your identity. The news you engage with contributes to defining and demonstrating who you are, and your world view.
3. Learning
News meets our desire to better ourselves through learning,to explore and broaden our horizons.It allows us to develop new skills and ways of seeing the world,as well as to make savvier decisions and stay ahead of the curve.
Enjoyment
But news also plays to needs related to enjoyment, which can be just as inwardly focused as outwardly or socially focused:
1. Connections
News is the ultimate source of small (and sometimes ‘big’) talk that helps lubricate daily conversations. It allows you to confidently reach out and connect with those who are unlike you or have little in common, as well as discuss with friends and family. It delivers a wider sense of connection to the world at large.
2. Entertainment
News, like media more widely, can be fun. Being immersed in other worlds for pleasure, feeling inspired, enjoying creativity, or simply – but no less importantly – just passing the time.
3. Passion
News also helps us fuel andpursue our passions and interests, or to experience things we wouldn’t usually in daily life.
Types of News on a Macro Level
01. Access and ease of use
This type of content responds to audience frustration around complex or lengthy news stories, particularly those that require sufficient background information or knowledge to engage with. It breaks down complicated issues and makes them easy to understand
04. Relevance
Audiences have consistently said that they struggle to engage with news that feels distant and unrelated to their lives. News in this space is made to feel relevant to readers’ lives through both form and content.
02. Third Party Spaces
Audiences feel that news content on third-party platforms have not been designed for how they use the platform, are often trying to get them off the platform and onto another (‘click-bait’), and/or feel inauthentic to the news brand, unsuccessfully mimicking content that is native to the platform. This content enhances rather than detracts from the user’s experience of the platform.
05. Point of View
The audiences in the study expressed concern that news brands often force their own ideology on the reader. In contrast, news brands in this space enable the audience to develop their own point of view – not necessarily by avoiding opinion, but by presenting multiple opinions, or offering considered rather than polemic evaluation of the news.
03. Habit Building
The decline of traditional, habitual forms of news consumption presents a major challenge for news brands. Content in this space encourages and facilitates habitual consumption by its audience, in two ways:
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Attempting to restore traditional news habits
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Generating new forms of habit anchored in contemporary life (e.g. reading on public transport)
Young people's News consuming behavior
Types of News Consumer
The ways in which news is being presented to the users have become very diverse. This diversity has brought a huge impact on how people consume news. On a broad lever, News can be categorized in two ways - 'Brand Led News' and 'Self Led News'. Based on this, the following consumption pattern were observed.
The Heritage News Consumer
— Highest engagement with news brand apps
— Most dedicated to appointment news consumption
— Strong belief in the value of news
The Passive News Absorber
— Lowest engagement with News of all groups
— Scepticism towards the superiority of traditional news, and its ability to offer unbiased information
The Dedicated News Devotee
— Highest engagement with news brand apps
— Most dedicated to appointment news consumption
— Strong belief in the value of news
The Proactive News Lover
— High engagement with news but on their own terms
— They read news throughout the day, mostly through updated and Time-filler moments
— Scepticism around the superiority of traditional news; open to alternative outlets
Brand Led
Self Led
High Consumption
Low Consumption
General Insights
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The experience of news should feel as easy and accessible as Facebook and Netflix. This is partly about the way the content is written and presented – with clearer language and more explanatory content – but also about how relevant and interesting content is surfaced without having to work for it. Instant, frictionless access, recommendations that feel relevant and useful, and the right tone of voice will be critical to building loyalty and trust with these groups.
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News brands need to tell stories in ways that fit the expectations of young people, and the moments when they are open to news. This means creating more formats that are native to mobile and social platforms as well as incorporating these ideas into their own websites and apps. Visual formats, as well as on-demand audio podcasts, resonate strongly with young people because they have become integral to how they spend time on their mobile phones in general, and how they share and discuss content.
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The way the news media covers stories may need to change. Young people are often put off by relentlessly negative news. They don’t want the media to shy away from serious or difficult stories, but as part of the mix they want stories that can inspire them about the possibility of change and provide a path to positive action. They are tired of media agendas and stereotypes, but are not looking for blandness or balance for balance’s sake. Younger audiences respond to stories with a ‘point of view’ as well as human stories told from a ground up perspective. Authenticity, fairness, diversity and inclusiveness are the kind of values that resonate with under-35s. At the same time, journalism in the future needs to give young people more of a stake in stories and their outcomes.
Consumer based Insights
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The relevance of the news agenda for younger audiences: The wider news agenda is broadly relevant, but what dominates the headlines feels narrow and repetitive.
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Negativity and the news: The news is seen as overly negative, but there’s more to it than this.
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The state of opinions in the news: People want genuine opinions, not politicised interpretations.
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The tone of news feels misaligned with younger people: It is not always relevant; it can swing between extremes.
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The news not effectively using new formats: News doesn’t always feel in sync with the media environment it’s in.
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The state of trust in the news: Fake news is not a problem but a nuisance, and also a potential opportunity for attribution.
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The feeling that there is an overwhelming amount of news: The news can feel like a chore.
Define
Empathy Mapping
It was necessary for the project to understand how users felt and reacted to the existing news consumption trends to gather the gaps between what the user wants and what is being served in the news industry.
Says
Thinks
Does
Feels
User Journey Mapping
Now we have a fair bit of data on what people thought about the existing news apps and the situation of news consumption behavior. Following is an example of a typical journey a user goes through while news consumption.
User Persona
Based on all the interviews, surveys, and observations the following user persona was curated which aims to reflect our core user/audience.
Neil Pavan Karnick
27 years, Mechanical Engineer
A busy office going engineer who has a busy life schedule.
He like to keep himself updated with the lates happening in the world
Desires
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He wants a news app that covers every topic and has filters for categorization.
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He consumes more interactive and collaborative content.
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He loves it when news feeds are personalised to what he wants to know.
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He does not want to install multiple apps on his phone
Frustrations
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Does not like the no. of ads shown.
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Hates when the content is irrelevant.
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Overwhelmed with so much information.
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Gets irritated with lots of notifications.
Devices
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Owns an android mobile phone and a Windows PC
Ideate
Primary Goals
Based on all the research and user interviews, the following goals were taken as primary goals for the product. These three goals will also act as the three major pillars of the platform.
01
Building Trust
Consumers have lost trust in the news platforms. This product aims to rebuild the trust between news and consumers.
03
Unbiased Journalism
02
Countering misinformation / Fake news
Today, fake news and misinformation are all around us. The platform needs to take measures to counter this.
The journalists and News Anchors can be often seen as delivering biased or opinionated news. This creates a dilution between facts and opinions.
Brainstorming
Based on the three primary goals, brainstorming was started and many ideas were laid down
System Conceptualization
A system of how the platform would work was curated on a macro level. This concept will define the scope of the features that are necessary for the product launch. All the features were were shortlisted keeping in mind that the product would be an MVP.
NEWSER
(NEXT GEN NEWS PLATFORM)
Newser will have two sides to it. One will be the News app itself, and the other will be the News Client.
The News App
To be used by:
News Consumer
Prominent Features
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Crowdsourced Verification
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Agency/Author Follower Count
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Fact Check Badge
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Verified Author Badge
The News Client
To be used by:
News Agencies/News Curators
Prominent Features
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News Curation
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Controlled Media Capture (Every Capture to be logged on a public blockchain.)
Special Intervention
Every content will be logged on a public blockchain. Simultaneously, it will record all the changes and alterations made to any news over time. This way every user will be able to keep a track of when news was created and when it was altered/changed and by whom. This will reduce misinformation by holding each person/agency accountable for what is being curated/altered.
Wireframes
Based on all the shortlisted features, many wireframes were made.
The following wireframes are the ones that were finalized for the initial MVP
Colors & Type
New generation people like dark color schemes. We can see mobile OS and many prominent websites rolling out dark schemes on their platforms. Hence the selected color scheme was dark. To keep it appealing, shades of black was avoided and shades of popping violet, blue and some contrasting colors were used.
Colors
Type
Heading 01
Poppins / Bold / 36px / 125% Line Height
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Heading 03
Poppins / Bold / 20px / 125% Line Height
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Body
Poppins / Regular / 14px / 150% Line Height
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Heading 02
Poppins / Bold / 22px / 125% Line Height
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Heading 02
Poppins / Bold / 16px / 125% Line Height
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Tags
Poppins / Bold / 12px / 125% Line Height
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Hi-Fidelity Mockup
Once we were ready with our final wireframes and brand guidelines, we started making hi-fidelity mockups to be used in prototyping.
On-Boarding
Homepage Example
A demonstration of how a homepage can be of a particular user after custom on-boarding.
Home Page
According to the questions answered by the user during onboarding the home screen cards will change. The cards are designed on the basis of time and detail variations. Some cards will take less time to be consumed with limited information while other cards will take slightly more time to consume but will have plenty of information. Hence, different cards can be shown to different kinds of news consumers.
Switch between top three topics as selected during onboarding
Sidebar Menu
The sidebar menu will have tertiary controls and settings like managing favorite topics, announcements, profiles etc.
Home Page Cards
Latest News Card
Displays only News Heading with relevant thumbnails.
Consume more number of news in less time.
Live TV
A preferable landscape media player with big closed captions. Suitable for those who want to know what is happening on the go.
Detailed Excerpt
A card with a summary of news in limited words. People can get a short overview of the news to be aware of what is happening.
Image Slider (Landscape)
A slider section with limited items where the image is one of the prime elements in the news. Good for visual readers.
Image Carousel (Portrait)
Similar to the landscape image slider. But it can deliver more number of news in less screen space.
Text Based Carousel
A carousel that is oriented around the author. Apt for displaying opinions and statements delivered by people/author.
Detailed Carousel 01
A detailed slider that has all the relevant data points like the author/agency, excerpt, heading, and image. Fits Dedicated news consumers.
Detailed Carousel 02
Another version of detailed slider. This format focuses more on individual news rather that the previous version which focuses to display more no. of news in limited screen space.
Quick Swipe Stories
Imitates social media elements like Instagram Stories and reels. Apt for an audience with a low attention span who quickly want to get aware of what's happening in a very short span of time.
Branded Showcase
Displays all the news from a particular author or agency. Preferable for people who are brand led consumers/
News Archive
A list of recent news articles. A suitable card for someone who dedicatedly finds time to consume news in early hours of the day.
News Feeds
Imitation of popular social media platforms where news agencies and other journalists can share quick news bytes. Here users will be able to interact with the author, give their opinion and share the news.
Live TV
Users will be able to watch live news channels along with the journalists who go live from the event spot. Users will have the freedom to choose between channels and journalists.
Saved Articles
All the news and articles saved by the user goes in this section.
Agency Profile
This page will be the profile of the agency which will list all the articles published by the agency and it will also show basic details of how many people are following the brand, no. of articles published by it, and the journalists associated with the news agency/brand. Journalists will also have a similar profile
Search Popup
The middle button on the menu will open the search popup. This is a very intuitive search panel where users will get a hint of what to search as per his past searches in the search box itself. Along with that it will also list trending topics with some suggestive articles.
Longform Article Page
Vigilant Sharing
According to my survey, to cross-check the authenticity of a news people actually look for similar news on other platforms and social media. If they find similar news elsewhere as well then the possibility of the news being authentic increases.
Cross Checking
Upon clicking cross check, a section will open that will list multiple similar articles as published by different channel/journalists. It will also list social media posts from prominent people. Each article you open will make the authenticity score higher.
Interactive Prototype
