Designing for user experience: Case study of Peil as an innovative user-centric news service from VG

Abstract

In today´s innovative media market, media companies are increasingly investing in finding new ways to create attractive products and services for their consumers. User-Centered Design (UCD) is one approach for developing such products and services by involving users into the development process. This thesis examines user-centered design in the media context. Through a case study of news app Peil, the thesis specifically looks at user-centric news application development with a special focus on user experience. Empirical findings are discussed in the context of theories and guidelines from human-computer interaction (HCI), user-centered design (UCD) and user experience (UX). The main findings reveal that the development process of Peil mostly follows general practices and guidelines suggested by theoretical proposition. However, some discrepancies specific to the media industry have also been revealed. The content aspect has shown to be the most challenging aspect of user experience when developing user-centric news applications, while usability aspect has shown to have the highest correlation with users overall satisfaction. By mapping the development process of Peil, together with its success and shortcomings, this thesis serves as a guideline for designing innovative user-centric news applications.