This document summarizes a study evaluating the interaction design of tablet journalism in Brazilian news publications. It found that (1) affordances were not properly communicated, causing users difficulties perceiving additional content and navigation mistakes, (2) there were false affordances like non-tappable headlines and navigation buttons that did not function as expected, and (3) usability problems with visibility, feedback, consistency and discoverability. The study concluded that Brazilian news apps were too based on print models and lacked dedicated UX design roles, resulting in interfaces that did not effectively communicate their functionality to users.

1. Luiz Agner | Presenter
Evaluating
interaction design
in Brazilian tablet
journalism
CO-AUTHORS:
RENZI, A.; VIEGAS, N.; BUARES, P.; ZANFAGNINI, V.

2. Contextualization
• Data show that 46% of readers, in average,
access news via mobile devices and social
networks, as well as online video.
• This is an increasing trend that comes with the
fall of the audience of the old media. This trend
is bigger among readers under 35 years old.
Reuters
Institute for the
Study of
Journalism

3. Contextualization
• Big changes
threaten the news
industry business.
• There are
researchers who
anticipate the
end of print
newspapers
by 2043.

4. Goal
• To contribute to guide interface designers and
journalists to create content for tablet publications.
• To help the design of better gestural interfaces.

5. Case study: O Globo A Mais
• A digital edition with
content specially
created for tablets by
newspaper O Globo*,
one of the 3 largest
distribution** in Brazil.
* Esso Journalism Award for Best
Contribution to Brazilian Press
* *Average 330.000 daily copies

6. Theoretical concepts
• Usability: ease of learn and use, user
satisfaction and productivity.
• Communicability: means the property of a
system to transmit to users, in an
appropriate way, intentions and principles
that guided its design.

7. Semiotic approach
• Interface design is not only the intellectual idea
of a system model, but also the communication
of this model.
• Interface is a message sent from the designers
to users.
• Communicability is the property of software to
efficiently and effectively explain to users its
interactive principles.

8. Affordance
• First described by Gibson, psicologist.
Made popular by Donald Norman.
• Affordance means “what you can do with something”
(Nielsen/Budiu)
• Perceived affordance - When people can see what
they can do.
• Hidden affordance - When there is no information
available.
• False affordance - When information suggests a non
existent affordance. Can cause mistakes.

9. Research methods
• Interviews
with professionals who
develop news content
and news design.
• User observation
testing
based on cooperative
evaluation.

10. A few findings: affordances
Affordances were not
properly communicated.
Users had problems to
perceive additional content,
like videos, infographics and
more text in the stories.
There was no clear
differentiation between
sensitive and non-sensitive
areas to tap. This caused
navigation mistakes.

11. Cover: false and hidden
• False affordance.
Readers think that you can
tap in the headlines to go
directly to the stories inside
but that’s impossible.
• Hidden affordances.
You can swipe the photos
header but this possibility
was not clear for the readers.

12. False affordances
• Basic errors of communication.
• When readers want to go back to the previous page,
the Back button just closed the app and sent the
user to O Globo newstand.

13. False affordances
• In this example, users though that header was
sensitive to tap but it was not.

14. More problems
• Visibility
• Feedback
• Consistency
• Non-destructive operations
• Discoverability
• Scalability
• Reliability
Norman (2010)

15. A few insights
• In Rio de Janeiro, news apps are still too much based
on print model.
• Journalists in newsrooms are not well prepared yet to
create news content for readers interaction.
They don’t pay attention to consolidated knowledge
and standards of HCI science.
• There is no specific responsibility for UX nor job
positions for interaction designers in the newspapers’
team.
• The reader (as user) is forgotten.

16. A few insights
• Affordances need to be perceived by users, so we can
conclude that it is a communicability issue.
• Designers are authors of a message transmitted to the
users. This message is about who the users are, what
their needs are, and how they can use the software.
• Human-computer interaction is a metacommunication
process, because user interfaces may be considered as
higher-order messages sent from designers to users.

17. Thanks!
Luiz Agner
facebook.com/luiz.agner
www.agner.com.br
luizagner@gmail.com
iniciacaocientificafacha@gmail.com