Navigation Systems' Impact on Usability in Mobile Applicatons : A Study on Mobile Newspaper Applications

• Main Authors: Henriksson, Emilia, Lundström, Mikaela
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Jönköping University, Tekniska Högskolan 2021
• Subjects: navigation; mobile interfaces; newspaper applications; usability; Human Computer Interaction; Människa-datorinteraktion (interaktionsdesign)
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-53474

Navigation is one of the least explored areas when it comes to usability in mobile interface design. Navigation can be divided into three categories; structural, associative and utility navigation. In this thesis structural and associative navigation will be further investigated in the context of mobile newspaper applications in order to find out how structural and associative navigation affects the usability of newspaper applications respectively.  Usability tests were chosen as a method to answer the research questions as it gives a clear overview of how users navigate the applications. The participants of this study were between 36 and 55 years old as this is the most common age of consuming news by online newspapers. After the usability tests the participants were interviewed to get a further insight of how they experienced the two navigation categories.  The results showed that when the users use structural navigation they can more efficiently find news articles that are of interest as long as the navigation system is logical and well thought out. Structural navigation makes it easier to narrow down the large amount of news applications to fit within a certain area of interest. Associative can feel illogical and random to use due to the lack of structural connections between information, but it can be easy to learn thanks to its similar design across applications. It can then help the users to quickly find more information about a certain topic.