Reader habits

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Steve McConnell

Responses to our online survey, as well as to the quick polls that have run for the past month on the NewsCenter, show our audience to be a devoted bunch. More than a third visit the NewsCenter daily or more often to get their fill of UC Berkeley news, and nearly three-quarters of our readers visit us at least several times a week. We’ve tried to cater to this appetite by publishing news early and often — which, interestingly, contributes to one of the peeves uncovered by the survey: that stories turn over too often for the infrequent readers, and drop down into the archive before thy even see them.

Browsing the NewsCenter was the primary source of campus news for a majority of survey respondents, while about 20% relied on search engines (most of those used the all-berkeley.edu search, while a minority relied on the custom news search or on external search sites like Google or Bing). One in eight used the new weekly e-newsletter as their primary source of news. I foolishly failed to include the UC Berkeley home page links as a news source in the survey; 5% of readers made it their write-in choice anyway, while nearly a third of respondents chose it on the NewsCenter quick poll, where I remembered to make it one of the listed choices.

This preference for news on the home page carried through to the question about where else readers would like to see Berkeley news posted. Eighty percent picked the home page, and 17% checked Blu — both sites where NewsCenter stories are already available. Departmental pages and Facebook also received a significant number of votes, while Twitter and other sites were far behind.

Popularity distinctions among different types of news were, well, less distinct in the survey. The un-favorites were more clear: Obituaries we least likely to be cited as news that readers wanted to read, followed by honors and awards. At the other end of the scale, general campus news was most popular, followed fairly closely by activities and events, research discoveries, and announcements from the administration. Only half said employee news was a top draw.  In the quick polls, which had a higher proportion of alumni respondents (see note below), employee news and administration announcements declined in favor, while research news moved up to #1.

Online videos drew a mixed response. About two-thirds of respondents say they watch general web videos with some frequency, but nearly half said they rarely or never watch news videos online.

[Footnote to the previous post, Peering into the audience: While the full survey found staff to be by far our biggest audience component, the single-question quick polls on the NewsCenter had a much higher proportion of alumni responses (27% alumni, 28% staff). It's impossible to know if this represented an actual shift of audience over the two surveying periods, or if alumni are simply more inclined to fill out an instant-response poll than a multi-question survey. It's also worth noting that the quick polls had a smaller sample size, topping out at around 100 responses, versus 300+ for the full survey.]

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Peering into the audience

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Steve McConnell

We’re closing in on 300 respondents to the redesign survey, so it’s time to sort through some of what we’re learning from the responses. I’ll save the narrative likes and dislikes for another day, and concentrate in this post on what the results tell us about the NewsCenter audience.

First, our audience tilts heavily toward UC Berkeley staff (50% of respondents). Alumni and, surprisingly, students were the next largest groups, both at around 14%, followed by faculty, retirees and parents, each in the 5% range. Of course, we can’t know for sure that these numbers match our readership, only the part of our readership with interest and time to fill out a survey. Still, it’s clear that determining and meeting the needs of campus staffers should play a significant role in the new design of the NewsCenter.

Ages were more evenly divided, with a bit more than half in their 40s and 50s, nearly a third in their 20s and 30s, and 11% at 60 or beyond.

Computers are nearly universal (99%) among our news readers, with smart phones trailing a distant second at 20%; no other news-reading device cracked the 5% barrier. This echoes the results of our ongoing website analytics, which show only a tiny fraction of our readers using anything smaller than a computer screen. However, it’s also a statistic we’ll keep an eye on as small mobile devices proliferate.

News source Often Occasionally Rarely Never
The web
78%
18%
2%
1%
Social network (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
8%
14%
21%
56%
Email
45%
35%
12%
9%
Friends/Co-workers
25%
45%
17%
13%
TV
7%
23%
31%
39%
Newspaper
21%
38%
27%
14%
Radio
7%
24%
28%
41%
Other
3%
9%
23%
65%

Finally, as probably befits an online survey, the web was the primary campus news source for nearly 4 out of 5 readers (see table at right). Email was the second strongest news channel (especially among older readers), closely followed by friends and co-workers. Social network posts fared surprisingly poorly as news sources; even among teens and 20-somethings, they were relied on occasionally at best. Then there were the traditional mass media, where print fared better than broadcast. Younger respondents especially shunned radio and TV news, while those who often or occasionally relied on newspapers were spread more evenly across the age spectrum.

More in my next post about news reading habits.

April 21 footnote: While the full survey found staff to be by far our biggest audience component, the single-question quick polls that have run on the NewsCenter for the past month had a much higher proportion of alumni responses (27% alumni, 28% staff). It’s impossible to know if this represented an actual shift of audience over the two surveying periods, or if alumni are simply more inclined to fill out an instant-response poll than a multi-question survey. It’s also worth noting that the quick polls had a smaller sample size, topping out at around 100 responses, versus 300+ for the full survey.

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Forum debrief

Posted on March 16, 2010 by Steve McConnell

After a couple of brainstorming sessions, including Monday’s open forum (lightly attended, but informative nonetheless), and some early results from the redesign survey (more anon), some common themes are emerging about content and presentation.

  • Hierarchy is important: ranking stories based on our editorial judgment and displaying them in ways that make it easier for readers to pick out the most important or interesting news of the day.
  • Big art can help do this, by drawing the eye to specific stories. Which, of course, requires us to find or create good images to go with our best stories, and a page design that lets us use these images prominently.
  • The page needs to be scannable, with top news and key sections visible at a glance, without having to read down one column and up another.
  • The page design should make it possible to quickly and easily get to specialized buckets of content, but that content doesn’t necessarily have to be visible on the page at all times — a button, tab or link could be sufficient in some cases.
  • The page needs to breathe more than is possible now, with so much type and so many tiny images packed into a small container. Opening this up should help with navigation and scanning, too.
  • Videos are nice, though many folks say they’re not likely to rely on them for their news. But videos for video’s sake are undesirable — the content has to be good, and the quality has to be at least decent, to be worth a prominent spot on the NewsCenter.
  • People want a chance to participate (even though, again, most said they rarely take advantage of the chance to comment on existing news sites). Having all stories open for comments gives a feeling of openness and inclusiveness, and seemed likely (though no statistics to back this up yet) to lead to a more involved community of readers.
  • News is what people come for. Other content, like sports scores or calendar listings, are mainly viewed on their own sites, and should not be dominant elements on the NewsCenter.
  • The current news search is unpopular. Expanded tagging and categorization would improve the findability and browsability of news stories.
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Contribute your 2¢: NewsCenter open forum on March 15

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Steve McConnell

Have some ideas, comments, questions, or suggestions on how to improve the NewsCenter? Come share them in person at a campus brainstorming session on Monday, March 15, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in 370 Dwinelle (on the F/G level of Dwinelle, adjacent to the Peet’s coffee bar; directions are here).

This is your best chance to participate in shaping the future of campus news delivery. We want to hear from you about what you’d like to see (or not see) on the NewsCenter. We’ll start with a brief overview of our redesign work, but most of the session will be devoted to audience participation and feedback. And while we can’t guarantee that everyone’s ideas will make the final cut, we can promise that we’ll listen to each of them, and give them due consideration as we move toward the second generation of online campus news.

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Survey seeks ideas for improvement

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Steve McConnell

Today we launched a reader survey seeking feedback about the current NewsCenter and suggestions for the new version. Although many of the questions are similar to what we’ll be asking in the NewsCenter mini-polls over the coming week, collecting them all in a single survey will allow us to cross-tabulate the responses to get a better grasp of who our audience is and what their needs and desires are.

Of course, we had to balance that desire for depth with a need for brevity, lest we discourage people from finishing the survey because it was just too long. Hopefully, the 5-page, 14-question survey will strike that happy balance.

Take the survey now on SurveyGizmo.

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What’s under the hood?

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Steve McConnell

To accomplish many of the things we’d like the new NewsCenter to do — things like reader interaction, dynamic hierarchies, and posting content in multiple places — we need to get away from our current practice of building and maintaining every web page by hand. A content management system, or CMS, is how most publishers handle these duties in a largely automated fashion. But in the current budget climate, a web CMS isn’t likely to land in our stocking any time soon. (And yes, there are open-source CMSs that are quite robust and technically “free,” but they require considerable staff time and programming expertise, which also aren’t currently in oversupply in Public Affairs.)

Rather than walk away in dismay, I’m going to be exploring another content management solution that might fit both our needs and our wallet: WordPress. Though originally a blogging tool, WordPress and its vast pool of users have grown into a publishing platform that can handle everything from the Wall Street Journal Magazine and ZDNet to the Harvard Gazette and the Republican Governors Association. Quite a few universities rely on it to publish their news; here are a few linked examples.

We already have a fair amount of experience with WordPress via the Berkeley Blog. Thanks to our partnership with the good folks at the Graduate School of Journalism, we’ve learned a lot about what the tool can (and can’t) do in terms of content, layout and functionality, and we’re fairly confident that we have the skills and time needed to meet WP’s fairly limited administrative needs.

What we’ll be exploring over the next few weeks, in parallel with our research into content and design ideas, is whether there are good options for hosting a substantial WordPress-powered site on campus. Meetings with other WP admins from Berkeley, and with the IST TAM, are in the offing.

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