Comparison of iPhone news apps: NY Times and USA Today.

1. New York Times vs. USA Today:
iPhone App UX Review
Suzanne Ginsburg, Principal
suzanne@ginsburg-design.com
@suzanneginsburg
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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

2. UX Review Goals
• Review design strategies & patterns emerging in the iPhone
News app space.
• Suggest which of the above are working well & which could
use improvement.
• The goal is not to suggest that one app is better than the
other.
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3. Brief app intros
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4. The New York Times
• First print issue published in 1851.
• Web site launched in 1996.
• First iPhone app in July 2008.
• Version 2.1 is included in this review.
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5. USA Today
• First print issue published in 1982.
• Web site launched in 1995.
• First iPhone app in December 2008.
• Version 1.1 is included in this review.
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6. UX Review
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7. Content & Navigation
USA Today category navigation closely mirrors sections on web site.
NY Times content is primarily accessed via filters (latest, popular, saved.)
Most sections
from web site
accessible from
Headlines view
List of site
sections in
“More”
(selected tab)
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8. Header & Footer
USA Today conserves space & provides valuable info in header (weather).
Much better if weather was for “my” location (I don’t live in NY).
Logo, section
Includes logo
name, and
& refresh.
weather for NY.
Last update
with refresh at
bottom, plus
“Info” link.
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9. List View
NY Times shows almost 4 headlines, otherwise content very similar. That said, the
prominence of the NY Times ad makes it seem like USA Today has more content.
Images slightly
larger.
Headlines in
blue like web
site.
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10. Article View (with photo)
USA Today puts emphasis on the article text. NY Times has more features in terms of
what you can do with the article: share, save, resize text.
Enables
navigation to
other items in
list view.
Clicking on
blue icon
Beautiful
shows overlay
image but
with larger
where’s the
photo
article?
Compact ad
format &
placement
doesn’t get in Ability to
way of article. resize text.
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11. Article View (no photo)
The differences are less striking when no photo is present.
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12. Photos (Grid View)
USA Today breaks Photos into categories; clicking on a category will open up a pane to
display photos. NY Times uses the same grid view as the built-in Photos app.
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13. Photos (Detail View)
Completely different strategies for Photos. USA Today is focused on viewing photos with
captions in a slideshow, whereas NYT uses Photos to navigate to articles.
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14. Sharing
More sharing options on USA Today. In both cases, user is taken out of the app for email
sharing; hopefully they’ll update for 3.0.
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15. Visual Design
USA Today uses the same color coding from their web site.
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16. More USA Today Screens
Snapshots includes trivia & polls, perfect for the mobile user with a few minutes to spare.
Wide range of options for sharing via Twitter: Twitterific, Tweetie, TwitterFon, Twittelator.
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17. More NY Times Screens
New York Times has Search as well as the ability to Save articles. USA Today doesn’t
have either of these features.
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18. Recommendations
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19. Recommendations
# 1 Prioritize “More” content
The NY Times has a lot of rich content in
“More” but the user will never see it
unless they click on that tab.
NYT could take an approach similar to
USA Today (categories at top) or allow
the user to customize which sections are
shown, as done on AP News.
AP Customize screen
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20. Recommendations
# 2 Make personalization easy &
transparent to users
USA Today asked to use my current
location but New York is still my
“favorite” location (shown in top pane &
in the upper right on the start screen.)
Apps should have a clear strategy with
regard to user-provided & GPS-provided
info for personalization.
USA Today weather
(defaults to Favorite pane)
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21. Recommendations
# 3 Balance the display of images
and text
Images for NY Times articles can take
up an entire screen, getting in the way of
the user’s primary goal: to read the
article.
In contrast, USA Today allows users to
view a larger version as needed. Note
the NY Times image size works well for
a slideshow view. USA Today provides
overlay for larger image view
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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

22. Recommendations
# 4 Keep form factor consistent
throughout app
NY Times byline search results leads to
a page that’s not formatted for the
iPhone environment. Ideally, this search
result should be the same as the app
wide search result.
NY Times has 2 search result
formats--the one in front is better
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23. Recommendations
# 5 Keep the user within context as
much as possible
Both applications take the user out of
context when sharing articles via email,
Twitter, etc.
This may change once both apps
upgrade to OS 3.0.
Whole Food share via email keeps
user within context
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24. Thanks for viewing!
• That’s all for now!
• There are many other interesting details but I’d like to keep
these reviews to under 25 slides. If there’s interest I may
expand future reviews.
• Suggestions for future reviews are welcome. Please send
email to suggest@iphoneuxreviews.com
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25. Suzanne Ginsburg: suzanne@ginsburg-design.com
@suzanneginsburg
Wednesday, July 1, 2009