I put together two web pages, both featuring the same news article; however one also included a video and pictures. I then sent the two versions to 2 sets of 10 people, who then filled out 1 of 2 questionnaires (depending on which article they read) to indicate how they rated various aspects of the article they read.

Conducting the experiment in this way allowed me to make direct comparisons between the 2 article versions and identify whether there were any clear and consistent differences between them.

The majority of the questions on both questionnaires were the same so I could make direct comparisons as previously stated. However, I also added more questions specific to each article which I believed were relevant. For example, for the text based article questionnaire, I asked what would improve the article. This allowed me to see whether people felt elements such as video or pictures would improve a standard, text-based news article.

Interestingly, 80% of those that read the text only article felt that pictures would have been beneficial to the article and 50% thought that a video would also have improved it.

Another article specific question asked whether those that read the infotainment article felt that the video benefitted the article. 70% stated that it did, suggesting that they found it useful and enjoyed receiving news in this format.

Generally the results slightly favoured the infotainment article, as it rated 7.8 out of 10 for enjoyment compared to 6.1 for the text based article. The infotainment article also rated 8.2 for how informative it was compared to 7.1 for the text based article. These results show a slight preference for news in the form of infotainment but the results were only marginal and hardly conclusive.

For my third artefact I decided to explore consumer preferences in terms of news content, in order to determine whether they prefer their news in the form of 'infotainment' (pictures and videos etc.) or static, text-based news content.

I did this by making 2 different articles for the same news story. The first simply had text content:
http://stephengreig.co.uk/xperia-part-one/

The second had text content plus pictures and a video:
http://stephengreig.co.uk/xperia-part-two/

The participants then completed 1 of 2 surveys (depending on which article they read) to indicate how they rated various aspects of the article they read.

I have made an infographic to show the results and conclusions of my 3rd artefact:
(Click to enlarge)

Artefact Description

The second artefact was a mini website which aimed to discover whether consumers are more willing to click on links to news articles with videos.

Artefact Analysis and Evaluation

The results of this experiment were recorded using ClickHeat, an open source heatmap that allowed me to see how many times each link was clicked. This proved very useful as I could see visually, which links were getting the most clicks throughout the experiment rather than only at the end. A disadvantage of using this method was the accuracy of the results, as I had to manually count the number of clicks on each link, which could have led to marginal inaccuracies in the numbers recorded.

The eight article links were laid out side by side in three rows. I feel that it is possible the placement of the links may have affected the results; for example, the first article link (which didn’t include a video) on the page received the most amount of clicks by a clear distance with 37 clicks. This particular result appeared to be an anomaly, as it was not in keeping with the general trend produced by the other results.

The other results consistently displayed a slightly greater number of clicks for the article links containing videos. Although the video links generally seemed to record better numbers, this conclusion is questioned by the one non-video link that recorded the most clicks of all. As previously stated, this may be because it was the first link on the page. Alternatively, it may have been the subject matter of this particular news story that attracted clicks, regardless of whether or not it had a video. This points out a possible flaw in my research methodology, as the reliability of the results must be questioned due to the fact that the subject matter of the articles may be the sole reason that people clicked on them, not necessarily due to it containing a video.

I feel that this artefact shows, if only slightly, that news articles with videos attract more clicks, suggesting that ‘infotainment’ is one of the pressures that is reshaping the news media industry. However, this artefact is far from proof and I would like to explore this area further.

Here are the slides for my presentation of my 2nd artefact which I have dubbed 'News Time'. The presentation outlines my rationale for doing this artefact, the results I recorded and the conclusions I have come to.

I have now completed my second artefact, which I have dubbed 'News Time'. My first artefact was inconclusive as to whether people would be more willing to read a news article if it included a video. Despite this I believe that in a more covert study that the majority of people will click on news stories with videos, as I feel it is more of a sub-conscious decision.

So this artefact is a mini-website featuring links to 8 news stories, 4 with videos and 4 without, which are clearly indicated. I will then measure the amount of clicks that each news story gets using a piece of software called 'ClickHeat'. ClickHeat is free to download and all I had to do was include the files in my root folder of my website and insert a few lines of JavaScript into my code.

Ultimately, this artefact will go some way to identifying whether 'infotainment' is a real pressure that is reshaping the news media industry.

You can view my second artefact my clicking the image below:

Back before I started the project, my client SPS sent me 2 Excel Spreadsheets; one a fairly basic list of pages for the website; the other a much more complex document detailing all of the courses and their categories and sub-categories. Here are a couple of screenshots of the spreadsheets:

Pages


Courses

I am still in the design stage of my client project website design, but have made a lot progress since my last update. I have designed the look of the internal pages and made ammendments to the basic template as requested by the client, whom I have been in regular contact with via phone and email. They client, SPS, have had a new logo professionally designed with my website design in mind, which I have subsequently added to the site.


The above is how the course list pages will look. The courses have been split into 3 categories which all feature in the main nav menu and which all have their own sub-categories. In order to simplify this multi-level hier-archy of courses, I plan to implement a jQuery dropdown menu on each of the course list pages. In the above shot you can see the sub-category menu; when one of these is clicked, the actual course page links will slide down below.


The above screenshot is how the sub-category menu will look when an option has been clicked on and it is expanded.


This screenshot above is an rough design of how the actual course pages will look. They will all feature sections such as location, duration, description and so on.


This is the design I have done for the contact page. I have organised all of the necessary of the content, so the company's contact details are instantly visible as well as the contact form.

Artefact Description

The first artefact was an online questionnaire which aimed to find out how people access news as well as other general news consumption habits.

Artefact Analysis and Evaluation

My online survey was completed by 78 people and highlighted several interesting points; some of which confirmed my expectations and others that surprised me.

The majority of people indicated that they use a TV to access news (65 of 78) but only 20% of these people identified it as their primary source of news, whereas 43% of desktop computer users and 41% of laptop users claim that these mediums are their main ways of accessing news. The mobile phone also proved a popular way of accessing news (45 of 78), but only 10 of these 45 people said it was their main news source, suggesting that it is used for convenience when other, more preferable mediums are not available.

Surprisingly, 47% of the people surveyed still access news via newspapers; however only 1 of these people said it was their main news source. This is further proof that online news consumers are the primary audience, which needs to be reflected in the business models of news organisations.

The survey also pointed out that consumers are selective in their consumption as 59% access news via specific interest news websites; however it appears that this is not instead of but as well as accessing general news, as 80% claimed to access news via general news websites as well.

Interestingly, despite 87% of people claiming to access news daily or even more frequently, only 2 of the 78 people surveyed claim to purchase a newspaper daily. In addition to this, a 57% majority indicated that they never purchase a newspaper at all. These findings strongly highlight the need for news organisations to utilise sustainable online business models, as my survey indicates that the printed market is losing numbers.

A huge 73% majority stated that they would not be willing to pay for online news content, which suggests that the subscription-based online business model would not be effective in generating revenue or sustaining a customer base.

Finally, my survey was inconclusive as to whether news content is being forced to become ‘infotainment’ in order to maintain consumer numbers, as the results were very even when asked if they would rather read an article with an accompanying video. I still feel that in a more covert study, more people would read a news article if accompanied by a video as I believe it is more of a sub-conscious decision rather than a rationally thought out decision.