A little opinion goes a long way

User Experience Research helps companies know how their consumers think to target them more efficiently. It is especially important for online news sites because they want to know how to retain an audience while increasing their revenue to make up for the losses in the print and broadcast world. 

The Los Angeles Times UER had several parts:

• A discussion intro
• Lots of surveys
• Card sorting
• Observation of surfing habits

Surveys and Sorting

There were many surveys to fill out for the UER. They were pretty long and even tedious, but we saw why they were important, namely in categorizing who we were as a reader, which I will address later. 

The card sorting was tougher than I expected. I know we talked about it once in a previous class, but actually doing the exercise showed how complicated it could be. Does TV fit under Arts & Culture? What about bars and clubs? Is that Arts & Culture? Or should there be a separate category. 

Still, we were able to find a category for each item. My partner and I had a pretty easy time because it was just the two of us, which helped a lot. We pictured a Web site and thought how we would want to find something if we were on the site. We sorted everything based on first impressions, and then went through them more carefully, making it easier to find categories for each card in the end. 

Who am I?

I ended up being a scanner, which is someone who doesn't read every story but loves to look through the headlines. At first I didn't really agree with being placed in this category, because I thought I read more deeply, but I actually think this is correct. 

I love to read the Drudge Report. I love to go through the headlines of The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times throughout the day. I want to know what's going on, but I won't go into every story in the papers. 

In the end

The findings of these exercises could help redesign the front pages. Scanners like me would be more likely to visit the Los Angeles Times home page if there were more headlines and links to scan. In addition, the surveys could show the Web site what stories they find more compelling and interesting, and the site could feature those articles. 

All of this shows the importance of UER. Although it shouldn't be the most important aspect that trumps all others, it must always be taken into consideration. Good content should drive the Los Angeles Times. If there is good content that is shown well, people will come. And that will bring revenue. And that's supposed to save the industry, right?