Study on Usability of iPad News Apps

By now, many large publishing houses offer their most popular print titles as apps for the iPad. The usability schemes are as varied as the business models. A current analysis of iPad news apps in Germany by Goldmedia Custom Research GmbH, a Berlin-based market research institute, reveals that uniform and intuitive standards for user interfaces aren’t yet in place. The lack of standards frequently leads to usability problems.

Goldmedia identified four types of content navigation in an analysis of Germany’s top 20 news apps for the iPad: print-style apps, online-style apps, apps with hybrid formats, and mixed formats.

The qualitative user test showed that users wanted more value compared to print editions and that they expected the tablet computer’s appealing features would be put to use in the apps. The majority of users prefers the landscape format for iPad news apps.

Currently, information displays for various iPad news apps are extremely different. Universal, logical navigation standards are yet to come. Tech savvy users surely have fewer problems with the lack of uniformity – in fact, they might even view the different navigation concepts as an added bonus. But for everyone else, standards and a consistent navigation structure are very important. The goal of Goldmedia’s study was to address this problem by compiling user guidance standards for news apps based on an analysis of the apps and users’ opinions.

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