Linköping University | Department of Science and Technology (ITN) Master’s thesis, 120 credits| Design Spring 2020| LiU-ITN-TEK-A--20/015--SE
Designing for
Trustworthiness in Public
Service Media
–
What kind of design guidelines can be set to improve
credibility for news working with public service?
Julia Skönvall
Supervisor: Mattias Arvola Examiner: Jonas Löwgren
External supervisior: Annika Hövik
Linköping University SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden +46 013 28 10 00, www.liu.se
The digital technology is growing, which challenges the traditional media of printed newspapers. As more people consume news online, technology has transitioned to the digital platform. One of the challenges with moving to a digital platform is that it is hard for the reader to interpret the credibility of news.
In this “Research Through Design” project, the aim is to understand how to design for better credibility in public service news for young adults. The external client of this thesis is SVT Interaktiv and achieving high credibility for public service is important since the news agencies have a responsibility of maintaining high credibility in the public interest. Sustaining a positive user experience in these services is essential for maintaining the customer's trust.
A data collection of remote co-design workshops and questionnaire was made with eight participants. This data was later clustered into six themes and articulated into design guidelines that could be used to improve credibility for news services. These seven design guidelines act as recommendations for developers and designers working within the news industry to increase credibility in their services and products.
Keywords: credibility, trustworthiness, trust, public service media, news, user experience, co-design
First, I would like to thank SVT Interaktiv, the external client for this thesis that I have been working with during this spring. Thank you for all the knowledge you given me through exciting and helpful meetings, lectures and workshops and and for opening your office and welcoming me with open arms! Thank you, Kristina Halling and Hans Andersson, for bringing me in. I would mainly want to thank my external supervisor and mentor at SVT Interaktiv, Annika Hövik. Her guidance and useful advice as an experienced UX-designer and Art Director helped me a lot during this journey!
Second, I would like to thank my supervisor Mattias Arvola and my examiner Jonas Löwgren at Linköping University for the constructive and useful feedback and knowledge in UX-design, visual media and design research methodology they gave me through this thesis and these years. It was a pleasure to combine my knowledge in cognitive science with the approach of design!
Finally, I would like to thank all my friends and family that have supported and helped me through this master thesis. A big thanks to Sofia Rönnberg, she has been my sounding board (bollplank) through this thesis and all these years together!
1.1 Background and motivation ... 1
1.2 Research question ... 3
1.3 Scope of research ... 4
1.4 Outline ... 5
2 Theoretical framework ... 7
2.1 User Experience Design ... 7
2.2 Definition of trust ... 8
3 Method ... 14
3.1 Research through Design ... 14
3.2 Co-design workshops ... 15 3.3 Thematic analysis ... 15 3.4 Questionnaire ... 16 3.5 Workshop structure ... 16 3.6 Research ethics ... 19 4 Execution ... 20 4.1 Concept design ... 20 4.2 Prototypes ... 23 4.3 Themes ... 31
4.4 The result from the questionnaires ... 36
4.5 What design guidelines can be set to improve credibility? ... 38
5 Discussion and conclusion ... 48
5.1 Discussion ... 48
5.2 Conclusion ... 53
Appendix 1 ... 58
Appendix 2 ... 59
Appendix 3 ... 60
Appendix 4 ... 61
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This chapter introduces this master thesis, presenting the general area and motivation for this project, followed by the research questions and ends with the outline of this chapter. Subchapter 1.1 will provide an introduction and motivation of the problem being discussed and investigated in this thesis. Subchapter 1.2 describes the research questions throughout this explorative process. Subchapter 1.3 introduces the scope of the research clarifying what is inside and outside in this project. This chapter ends with Subchapter 1.4 with a reader’s guide giving an overview of the rest of the text.
The access to news has never been this extensive, and the growth of news broadcasting business and services has increased. Paper magazines are decreasing in sales and production, and the digital platform gets a more central role in the Swedish people’s news habits. Results from an independent opinion survey in 2017 showed that four out of five individuals in Sweden use social media to read the news at least three times a week (Andersson, 2018). Many news agencies around the world have stopped printing physical newspapers and magazines and have instead transitioned into online dissemination. Online news is facing many new challenges in adapting to their new digital audience. Most of the online news circulations had to create a free content digital display model to make their audience take part in advertisements on the websites for the company to survive economically. This business model lead to high traffic, often through social media, which lead to a large amount of advertising. To increase revenue, many news agencies could be tempted into creating content of lower tabloid quality by publishing sensationalist news (Spillane, Hoe, Brady, Wade, & Lawless, 2020).
Research concerning source criticism indicates that it is hard to interpret news, regardless of the reader’s age or occupation. It is difficult determining the credibility of news since online media stimulates fast and superficial management of information through short text or jarring headlines (Nygren, o.a., 2020) and in order to restore a functional society, citizens need to trust the social and cultural system. With the increased growth of technological development, the user receives information online from various sources where credibility and trust become central to the digital world. News is vital since it informs the public about current events that
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could affect them in many ways. That is why it is of great value that the user can trust and rely on the news they consume.
Public service in Europe aims to deliver news of high quality, making the news available on every device and reach all audiences. Media technology puts pressure on the different traditions that public service media have, which creates a discussion on how public service is delivered to the audience (Sehl, Cornia, & Kleis Nielsen, 2016). Sveriges Television AB (SVT) is the Swedish national public television broadcaster that is funded by the public service tax. The public service should be characterised by a strong identity and hold independent material relative to the government and other political and economic interests. SVT needs to deliver news to the citizens that create a debate and discussion of various societal and cultural issues. The news needs to be transparent, impartial, and tackle different geographical and social perspectives (Adelsohn Liljeroth & Persson, 2013).
SVT Nyheter is a news service and part of SVT that wants the audience to perceive their service as credible by doing proper research and present the material in a balanced tone. SVT needs to deliver positive aspects as well as problematic issues to its customers (Sveriges Television AB, 2020).
The impression and experience of an interface can be crucial when the designer wants to explore what features are considered trustworthy or not. Trust takes time to build, and it can quickly decline, and therefore it is crucial to understand the reasons behind it. Credibility and trust are a significant principal value for public service and essential for the success of news since public policies depend on behavioural responses from their audience. Public service has the laborious task of designing for everybody, called accessible design or inclusive design, regardless of ability, disability, age or ethnicity. In other words, the designer needs to understand the needs of various users, and that is the reason why design is important when one wants to improve credibility and trust.
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This master thesis is done in collaboration with the external client SVT Interaktiv, which is the interactive part of SVT. In this thesis, an investigation of credibility in public service will be made, taking the news service “SVT Nyheter” as an example. Since SVT works with public service, they keep a promise to their customers to deliver trustworthy news. Credibility is one of the most important key values that SVT relies upon and is a central business goal and that is why credibility is such a fundamental component in this thesis.
The purpose of this “Research through Design” (RtD) study is to understand how to design better credibility in public service news for young adults (20-30 years old). The research question presents the main question together with two sub-questions.
How might we design credible public service news for young adults in Sweden?
• What design guidelines can be set to improve credibility? • What can be done in design to achieve these design guidelines?
In a design process, design guidelines are a set of recommendations towards a good design practice, designing for better credibility. These guidelines intend to give designers and developers within the news industry advice or recommendations on how they could work towards designing for better credibility in their news services.
An objective tree (see Figure 1) is problem tree that is transformed into a set of future solution to a certain problem. Objective tree analysis is rational method in design aiming to bring clarity to the design objectives and describes the relationship between the objectives and sub-objectives, understanding how to solve the problems in the design process. The design objectives are a mixture of abstract and tangible goals that the design needs to achieve (Cross, 2008). The objective tree is divided into three layers and the first level to the left describes the main values that the design needs to achieve (Arvola, 2014). In this project the main needs or value is the importance of credibility for public service news. Since public service news relies on keeping their service and news as credibility as possible this was chosen to be the main value in this research and in this objective tree. The qualitative driver is trust and credibility. In this thesis trust and credibility are parted due to their separate meaning and are connected to
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different guidelines. The difference between credibility and trust will be discussed in the next chapter (see Subchapter 2.2). The specifications are the main qualitive criteria to achieve the values of trust and credibility in public service news. The column to the right describes the main features, in this case in the form of design guidelines, that needs to be articulate to meet the needs and values (credibility for public service news).
The scope of this project has been narrowed down, and the main target group was selected with an external supervisor and manager at SVT Interaktiv. From their statistics, the age group 20-30 do not use the application SVT Nyheter to the same extent as other age groups. The age group 20-30 years is interesting to focus on since they have grown up with traditional media (e.g. physical newspapers and television) and social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter and other various news applications). This target group is exposed to dishonest news and a hysterical
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media environment, which can affect how this target group experiences the credibility on news. This idea sparked the main topic of this master thesis; how to design for better credibility for public service news media for young adults. This project aims to understand how one could design for better credibility in public service news and what design guidelines could be set to increase trust. The format of the data collection is focused on how to improve the design for public service using SVT as an example. SVT is the external client of this project, but the outcomes are meant to be applied to other news services, working with public service, that want to achieve higher credibility. The scope of this research focuses on the content and the layout but do not reach a more profound level (e.g. how a text is written in detail). This research is focused on how to design for better credibility for a specific target group (20-30 years) and do not consider any other group besides that.
The thesis starts by introducing the theoretical framework and the central concept in this thesis in chapter two. Main definitions such as User Experience (UX), trust in numerous forms and public service are described to give the reader a deeper understanding of the main contents in the projects. This chapter aims to introduce the reader to the general concepts, summarising what is already known in the scientific literature, used in this research. This knowledge could be used to inspire developers and designers working within the news industry.
In chapter three (method), the methods used in this research are described. This chapter defined the methods used for answering the research questions. The reader is introduced to the primary approach Research Through Design (RtD). The chapter is followed by the procedure and preparations made for answering the research questions and ends with the research ethics.
The fourth chapter (execution) describes the design process, what has been done, and the final designs, guidelines and results. The execution chapter explains the coherent chain of reasoning from the research questions to the answers provided, focusing on the various design decisions and rationale taken throughout the process. It begins with the first idea, followed by an explanation of the collected data, the prototypes and the results from the data collection. This chapter ends by presenting the design guidelines that could be an inspiration and
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recommendation for the news industry to follow for creating higher credibility. The research question is being answered here.
The fifth and final chapter (discussion and conclusion) describes the main conclusions, the discussion around the methodological choices and the findings of this research answering the research question. A conclusion summarising this research ends this thesis.
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This chapter introduces the theoretical framework. Some central concepts are described and defined, such as ‘User Experience’ (UX), social trust, trust in news media and guidelines for designing for trustworthiness. News in this thesis is defined as the information on current events and activities occurring where the primary purpose is informing the citizens. Researching the importance of consuming news is considered essential since the public service needs to deliver credible news to their audience.
‘User Experience’ (UX) is described as the process of creating products or services that gives a useful and meaningful experience to the user. It is a concept proliferating within the field of human-computer interaction and interaction design. As technology is growing, the demand for useful and usable interactive products are increasing. User Experience is based on three prominent perspectives; the user’s internal state (previous knowledge, expectation, desires, goals and mood), the structure of the visual design of the product (complexity, purpose and usability) and the content where the interactions occur (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006). In this master thesis, UX design will be used to understand how to design better credibility for public service. Achieving high credibility for public service is very important as the companies working within public service have a responsibility of maintaining high credibility of the services. Sustaining a positive user experience in these services is essential for maintaining the customer's trust.
Websites and social media are the leading platforms when users want to access news and useful information. Since news is growing online, the interactive products need to promote positive user experience making the customer stay and enjoy these platforms. Since the experience of reading the news on a physical paper differs from a digital device, this raises editorial and technical issues in the design (Aranyi & van Schaik, 2015). Many approaches exist for evaluating interactive systems but not conditions such as fun, content, or visual design. Focusing on the user experience in the design process can grow a loyal customer base and distinguish the company from other competitive companies (Väätäjä, Koponen, & Roto, 2009).
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This subchapter introduces different definitions of credibility and trust, such as social trust, fake news and the trust in news. Understanding these concepts is essential for understanding how to design for credibility and how one can create guidelines to contribute to a high credibility in products and services working with public service.
The concept of trust is defined as the expectation that the interaction with another individual is truthful or that the word of that individual is reliable (Tsfati, 2010). Trust is described as the confidence that another person is telling the truth and credibility as the reputation impacting the belief of others. Trust is the strong relationship between the receiver and the sender and could require more time to develop (Hedquist, 2002).
Credibility could be affected either negative or positive by the source of the message, values of the reader, how the topic is framed, the context and medium which it is displayed (Stefanone, Vollmer, & Cover, 2019). Credibility could be judged of what we want to believe at first sight (e.g. a visually appealing website can become credible by the look of it). The credibility could lie in the source of information, the medium of the information received (Spillane, Hoe, Brady, Wade, & Lawless, 2020). Apart from trust, credibility is what properties we decide to attribute to the source of the sender.
The focus in this thesis will be on the credibility of news services, which is the participants first impression of the visual layout and content within a news service. An objective tree (see Figure 1. in Subchapter 1.2) has been created to distinguish these concepts apart since trust requires more time and effort to build upon than credibility.
Trust and credibility in this thesis are defined as followed:
• Trust: the relationship of trust or believability between two individuals and requires time to establish or need to be earned by either part
• Credibility: the credibility could be judged at first glance, for example, a website looking professional and easy to use could be judged as credible
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The concept of social trust is multidimensional and could be defined as the underlying trust among individuals. Society is built on individuals and has its own structure, institutions and organisations. Social trust is a primary key to maintaining social and economic development as well as human welfare. Within a society, an interpersonal trust (trust among individuals) is essential but also the institutional trust in organisations and institutions (e.g. in the government, police and business) (Kwon, 2019). Social trust is a concept on a belief in the honesty, integrity and reliability of other people (Taylor, Funk, & Clark, 2007).
One of the primary critical drivers in the research of online news services (ONS) is trust. When ONS has a strong commitment to its audience with a positive and progressive culture, it will result to create good content, updating the primary services and increase and cherish the trust relationship with their users. Concepts such as “commitment,” “reputation,” and “sense of social responsibility” will create credibility towards the providers of ONS, which builds a trustworthy relationship between the users and the ONS (Chen & Corkindale, 2008).
Newsgathering and independent journalism are facing new challenges when the physical newspaper is falling in numbers, and people consume their news through online media sources. This change had led to an economic downfall for physical news in their advertising revenues. Access to online news media is easy, fast, and cheap, which challenges the physical newspapers. The news services need to innovate and redesign their strategy to keep their users (OECD, 2010).
Satisfaction is a concept to enrich the value of high-level design goals. Satisfaction is defined as the expectation of the interaction with a specific artefact or product. To create a satisfying interaction, the user expects to find relevant information on a particular topic. The concept of satisfaction makes the user more loyal to the news site, where a higher level of trust connects to higher levels of satisfaction. The navigation and the information architecture of the website are necessary to improve the user experiences of the usability of a news site and to avoid disorientation (Aranyi & van Schaik, 2015).
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It is a challenging task to determine the credibility of online news. In social media, mainstream and non-mainstream news are blended and shared, which makes it hard for the reader to judge the credibility. Social media uses search engines that may support “filter bubbles” which is an algorithm created for personalising, based on data, the content shown to the reader (Nygren, Brounéus & Svensson 2019).
Trust in online media can have several meanings. Trust can be described as the relationship between a trustee, the side that trusts and receive the information, and the trustor, the side that creates the trust or delivers information. The interaction between these sides should lead to advantages rather than a disadvantage for the trustor. Since trusting a source of information could be difficult, the credibility is the central core when evaluating the information. Trust can also be defined as the expectation of trustworthy, reliable information being delivered to the receiver. Trust is an essential part of social life and a key to understanding human behaviour (Tsfati, 2010).
Even though information on the Internet is considered unreliable, many readers become biased and believe the information to still be credible. The structure and the editorial process differs in Internet-based sources from other types of media (e.g., books and newspaper). On the Internet, the information is free where anyone could be an author, which leads to potential errors. Books, television, and newspaper are verified factually in an analysis of content and editorial reviews. (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000). In a study with Fogg (2003) over 2500 participants, researchers evaluated the credibility of two different web sites. In the research, the participant's thoughts and insights were codes to a category of comment. The most prominent issue when people evaluated the credibility was the look of the design, such as the layout, visual design, typography, whitespace, colours, and images. The second category was how the information was structured or how well or poorly, the information did fit together. The sites that were considered the most credible was the easiest to navigate. The next category focused on the information on the website where another important subject was the motive of the company, name, and recognition but also the usefulness and accuracy of the data (Fogg, o.a., 2003).
Digital media has transformed mass media to enable users to create and share information with others. Unluckily, the information shared in digital media is not always unbiased or based on
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facts. The definition “fake news” is widely known as the dissemination of false information, aiming to be a valid source written in a journalistic standard. The spread of fake news in mass communication challenges the news consumers source criticism reporting incorrect information in a misleading, framing way. To understand what is true or not, individuals need to determine the credibility of their consumed news. Numerous news sources that want to be considered trustworthy have designed their interpretation of how to differentiate themselves from fake news. Fake news could be identified through heuristic processing. In a fake news article, new information is not presented and more about conforming to an ideology or belief. Other features that could affect the source of the message are the trustworthiness, accuracy, expertise, topic, and how the information is presented (Stefanone, Vollmer, & Cover, 2019).
The relationship the audience has with news media can influence trust. The online platform has another way of presenting news apart from traditional media since they offer more varied news items and control over the news flow. On the Internet, the audience can interact in other ways where they can browse, respond, and comment on the news. Previous research has shown that mainstream media scepticism correlates with the use of non-main-stream websites, and when the audience mistrust the media, they use non-mainstream sources (Tsfati, 2010). When the audience consumes the information, they try to identify the genre of the medium and embed their previous knowledge to that genre (mainstream or non-mainstream media). For instance, the reader is likely to distinguish between the New York Post and the New York Times based on the reader's expectation about credibility, objectivity, and overstatements of the company (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000). Different dimension often used in research concerning evaluating credibility were trustworthiness, believability, professionalism and expertise. These dimensions contributed to a mean score of credibility (Spillane, Hoe, Brady, Wade, & Lawless, 2020).
One of the problems of competing for online news sites is that many more stories can be posted more rapidly. To be able to post news first, where big stories can lead to errors and incorrect information, which can affect credibility. Less effort has been put into validating these new stories by online editors (Cassidy, 2007). To evaluate the credibility demands an extensive heuristic process. Users on the Internet tend not to validate the source but rather base the credibility on practice than theory. When users come across new sources of the same type that they find on the Internet, they have already established a baseline of trust. Users consider
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‘Internet’ as a medium, meaning that they refer this to the source of information instead of talking about a specific website. Why trust in online environments is so important is because they do not have previous experience with the companies that produce the information (Lucassen & Maarten Schraagen, 2012).
To build a relationship of trust for companies to their customers entails time and effort. Trust relies on the customer experience, where the company’s actual behaviour is central. Some guidelines for building trust are treating the customers with honesty by producing good content where the content does not try to fraud or lure the customers. How users use technology plays a significant role in the user-perceived trust where the user should not encounter any technical difficulties. Regarding the design quality, the website needs to look professional and have clear navigation (Nielsen, 1999).
Below some guidelines for Web Credibility from Stanford (Tseng, o.a., 2004) are presented:
• Show confidence in the material, making it easy to verify the accuracy of the information
• There is a legitimate organisation behind the website
• Highlight the expertise in the content and service that is being provided • Honest and trustworthy people stand behind the web site
• Having clear contact information
• Professional visual design appropriate for the purpose (layout, typography, and images) • Easy to use and useful
• Recently updated or reviewed the website • Restraint regarding promotional content
• Avoiding errors of all types (misspelling, broken links)
User experience design is the process where the designer provides and create meaningful experiences in products and services by understanding the user’s needs and behaviours. In this research, UX is used to provide and understand how to design for better credibility for public service news and what possible needs that could contribute to a higher credibility. Positive user experience could help to maintain the customer’s trust (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006) (Aranyi & van Schaik, 2015). Credibility is important in UX since it relates to the ability that the user trust the product or service that is being provided to them. Besides not encounter any
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technical issues the user also believes that the information provided should be accurate, believable, and fit for its purpose. Delivering a positive user experience is impossible if the user thinks that the company behind the service is lying or have bad intentions.
To understand how we might design for better credibility and how we could create and set various design guidelines to achieve the definition of trust needs to be determined. Trust could have various meanings, but trust is the belief in the reliability or truth to someone or something. Social trust is the societies trust towards organisations, institutions and government. Trust in the government leads to an efficient market making the society work, whereas a mistrust in the government could cause fraction and conflicts (Kwon, 2019). Why trust in news is important to investigate in this research and in the field of the design is because trusting news impacts what people pay attention to in the media landscape and how the audience engages with news they consume. The content and how it is presented in a news service have an impact on credibility, such as spelling errors or jarring headlines. However, the aesthetic of the newspaper plays an essential role and can also impact credibility.
When people evaluate the credibility of the design on a website, they look at the whitespace, typography, images and colours (Fogg, o.a., 2003). The relationship between the news agency and the audience also has an impact on credibility. Guidelines for maintaining a good relationship could be producing content that does not mislead or fraud the audience or highlight their expertise (Nielsen, 1999) (Tseng, o.a., 2004).
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This chapter introduces the methodological background for this design research. The research approach “Research through Design” and its influence is described together with the methodological choices for this project. Subchapter 3.2 describes the primary data collection, co-design workshops, used for this project to collect the user’s experience, thoughts, and attitudes of credibility in the news. Subchapter 3.3 introduces the thematic analysis used for finding themes from the data collection. Subchapter 3.4 presents the questionnaire also used in the data collection to see what emotional responses of various newspapers. Subchapter 3.5 describes the workshops structure, the participants, and the preparation. The chapter ends with Subchapter 3.6 with research ethics.
In this thesis, the approach Research Through (RtD) was used. Using RtD in design research involves the making of a design artefact or prototype, which is the central part of the research development. In RtD the design activities play a determinative role in the knowledge contribution to the designer's research. The designer needs to use their professional skills to gain an understanding of the problem and how to iteratively create prototypes that address this problem (Stappers & Giaccardi, 2017).
The design activity in the form of workshops is used in this research. These co-design workshops are intensive collaborated sessions where stakeholders solve problems through idea generation and reach the desired outcome and final goal. The aim of the workshop is that the stakeholders can reflect on credibility through a public service perspective through different scenarios. In the workshops, the participants or stakeholders developed design improvements (prototypes). Through the creation of various prototypes and the evaluation from it, the knowledge contribution was made regarding the question of how to design for better credibility for public service in form of guidelines.
The design artefacts and concepts explored in this project aimed to be an inspiration in future research on how to increase the credibility for news media. Through the discussions, prototypes and questionnaires produced in the workshops, knowledge contribution could be made regarding the goal of how to design for better credibility in public service.
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In the process of user-centred design, the focus is on the thing that is being designed (e.g. the artefact, interface, and service) and looking for ways to meet the user needs. When we combine the three perspectives of what people will do, say and make the designer can understand and establish empathy with the people using the service and product systems. In creative workshops, the user jointly explores and articulate the needs by “making” solutions and organise joint creativity (Sanders, 2002). Co-design is an activity shared by more than two people, making it a joint exercise. Co-design is essential in service design since different perspectives are needed to understand user behaviour and need to improve services and products (Steen, Manschot, & De Koning, 2011).
By using co-design creative workshops, the designer invites the stakeholders to be a part of the creative process and the making of concepts. Why co-design is a central part of this research is because it is a creative collaboration of users, which brings different perspectives that innovate the design in a fun, meaningful way.
For this thesis, creative co-design workshops will be held to gain a deeper understanding of the user's experience and thoughts about the credibility of public service (e.g. SVT Nyheter). Sketching during the workshop serves as the foundation for the participants thinking about trust of news. The aim is not to make the prototypes, the sketches, pretty but instead focus on learning about the user’s motivation of what features could be considered credible or not. Using joint exploration through co-design workshops could help the user easier articulate their thoughts and needs.
To analyse the qualitative data from the workshops, thematic analysis has been chosen as the method for examining the data to identify common themes. Thematic analysis is described as a method used for analysing, identifying and to find various themes within the collected data. It organises the data in detail and interprets different aspects of the research material. A theme captures the essential details of the data concerning the research question. The themes are coded by identifying the things the researcher is interested in and are tagged with a coding label (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In this thesis, thematic analysis is used to find themes to identify what could
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be done in design to increase credibility. This method is used to explore the user’s desirable experiences, emotions, and attitudes of a credible public service news service which leads to a set of design guidelines to improve credibility.
The most common method for gathering quantitative data is through questionnaires. In the form, the researcher wants to measure the various attitudes from the user and gather information from the respondents (Goodwin, 2009). A questionnaire is a useful tool for getting information about the user experience of a product or service. The questions need to be as specific as possible to obtain quantitative data and numbers on the design goals and find out if these goals are fulfilled. The aim is to find the critical values that one can compare to the own researcher’s design (Arvola, 2014). A form was sent to the participants during the beginning of the workshop where they answered on their thought of the layout and content of six different Swedish news applications (Aftonbladet, Expressen, SVT Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Dagens Nyheter and OMNI).
Since the participants could interpret the words differently, a discussion was held after they have filled in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was inspired by bipolar emotional responses that the BBC used for the redesign of their homepage in 2002. These responses measure the participants subjective experience of the visual layout and content in various news websites. This was done to collect reactions from several news websites (personal, ITV, AOL, The Guardian, MSN, Yahoo and BBCi) on the visual design to aid the design process. Why the BBC has inspired the designer is because they are a public service broadcaster established by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom. Since they have similar goals and missions of acting in the public interest, it seemed relevant to get inspiration from them (BBC, 2002).
Collecting user’s feedback and understanding the users is a key value in a user-centred design process. In this research, this knowledge has been collected through workshops and questionnaires.
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The purpose of the co-design workshops is to gain insights about the user’s experiences, emotions and attitudes about credibility in public service news media. The insights from the workshop derive in what kind of design guidelines could be set to design for better credibility in SVT Nyheter and public service in general. The workshops included sketching on three different scenarios with an iteration after each scenario. Sketching was used as a tool to help the user articulate their problems, and the collaboration between them could give them further inspiration for developing their prototypes.
Participants needed to be recruited to collect user’s insights and behaviours. Since the workshop was executed remotely and not in-person, a maximum of five participants per group was required to avoid disturbance from each other. Eight individuals participated in the workshop. Three individuals, females, in the first workshop and five, three males and two females, individuals in the other workshop. The participants were students at a Swedish university and aged 20-30 years. The participants were native in Swedish.
Firstly, the participants received a mail containing information about the study (see Appendix 1). Since the workshop was done online, the participants could not sign the consent form physically to participate in the workshop. The consent form (see Appendix 2) was sent out in advance, and at the beginning of the workshop the facilitator sent out a poll where the participant could say “yes” or “no”, consenting to the workshop or not. The workshop was recorded and saved at the facilitator’s computer. Every participant gave their consent to the research. The facilitator requested that the participant need to look up six various news applications, either through the website or on the phone before the workshop started. This was done to reduce time focusing on capturing the participants thoughts and insights. The participant could in advance have a representation of each newspaper’s layout, style, and approach.
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Here, an outline of the workshop procedure is presented from the pilot testing towards to final workshop with users.
Before the workshop, a pilot testing with one person from the target group was made to avoid misleading or unclear instructions, tasks and questions. Some changes were made to give a more consistentlydescription of the scenarios, clearer heading for the questionnaire and a larger time frame for the sketching and the workshop itself. The participant thought that some words were hard to understand in the questionnaire, such as warm versus cold, and tabloid versus broadsheet. To avoid this confusion, the designer described the meaning behind these words in the workshop.
Two workshops were done digitally through Zoom and lasted two hours each. Zoom, the tool used in the workshops, is a video communicator for video and audio conferencing. This was a useful tool for meeting the participants where the facilitator could both hear and see them. This meant that the participants needed to have a microphone and a web camera installed on their computer to participate.
There was no requirement of previous sketching; being able to sketch was not the primary purpose. However, five participants in the workshop were familiar with sketching interfaces. The main purpose was for the sketches to be served as a foundation for their thinking about several problems. This was brought up in the introduction of the workshops. The facilitator sent out a template of how different elements of an interface could look like (see Appendix 3), served as an inspiration and prepared the participants before the workshop. A picture of all the six news agencies (see Appendix 4) was sent so that the participant could look at them while doing the questionnaire.
The workshop started where the facilitator talked about the schedule, followed by filling in a questionnaire in Google Forms. When every participant had filled in the form, an ice-breaker activity was held since the participants did not know each other and the task introduced them to sketching. The participants were then introduced to three scenarios (which are further explained in Chapter 4). They sketched on each scenario for one and a half minute, followed by a discussion the group and later refined in a second iteration again. Each participant was
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asked to verbalize their status in turns which ensures that every participant has a voice and an opportunity to talk about their opinions and thoughts. The participant could choose to continue sketching on his or her idea or take inspiration from the other participants.
Individuals participating in research have the legal capacity to give consent. The participants are informed about anonymity and that their participation is optional where they can cancel anytime. The participants have enough knowledge of the elements involved in the study, such as the duration, purpose and structure. Without the participants understanding of the study or their permission to participate in research can lead to distrust, could harm the individual and the validity of the research findings (Loue, 2002). In the consent form, it needs the clarity of the user’s anonymity of the study (e.g. removing personal information). Making participants anonymous in research is, however, preferable. The participants need to be aware of risks of their involvement and informed of what the designer does with the collected data and the result (Arvola, 2014). In this research, the participant was acquired voluntarily where they were aware of their anonymity, where their name, face or voice could not be detected or showed. This research followed the research ethics described above and their participation was confirmed through a digital consent in form of a poll. The participants were explained the purpose of this research and what their roles would be, that they have the right to cancel at any time during the workshop.
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In this chapter, the design process is described from the first idea to the final design guidelines. Thematic analysis, as described in the method chapter, is the method used for finding themes in the collected data. This chapter starts with the concept design and the initial drafts and ideas for this thesis and a description of the three scenarios, followed by Subchapter 4.2, where the prototypes made by the participant is shown. Subchapter 4.3 describes the different themes that were found from the co-design workshops. Subchapter 4.4 presents the result of the questionnaire. This chapter ends with Subchapter 4.5 by answering the research question by presenting the design guidelines and the rationale behind it.
Initially, the project was framed by a brief description of the purpose and why it is essential that this project is implemented and what one wants to achieve. The concept development phase is the process of developing ideas to solve a specific design problem, in this case, design for credibility in public service news. Three ideas were discussed with the external client:
• Public service and trust:
What do SVT's customers think about the credibility found in SVT's various news applications? Is there any difference to other types of news (evening newspapers, for example)? How do customers approach public service, and what values are needed to achieve this?
• The experience of the interface
What features in the interface attracts a user to click on an item (title, image, text)? What patterns are there, and how do users navigate the SVT News application? What attracts the user? What does not attract the user?
• Digitalisation:
How do different age groups experience news (young vs old) news? What types of applications do the different target groups use, e.g. that children make much use of SVT Play and older people of SVT News? How have these target groups been affected by digitalisation?
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A combination of these three ideas was merged into an idea firmly based on the first idea presented above, public service and trust. When the brief was finalized, me as the designer, together with the manager and external client, started to define the main target group. Young adults (20-30 years) was decided to be the representative group to focus on to learn how to improve the credibility for SVT Nyheter with their insights, thoughts and ideas. Their voice is essential since they use SVT Nyheter less than other target groups such as 30-60 years and consuming news through social media platforms
After deciding the main target group, the designer saw beyond the problem and how to collect data in a meaningful way. Workshops were chosen as the main data collection since it is a collaborative process, bringing different perspectives where stakeholders are involved in the design process. Originally the workshop was meant to be in-person, where the designer could meet the participants face-to-face. The initial thought was that a group of three participants would discuss different questions concerning credibility. The main thing about co-design workshops is that the stakeholders are going to design something together.
The limitation in this project is that the user can feel uncomfortable with sketching an interface. The initial thought was that the different parts of the real interface would be cut out in paper (title of news, body text, video, images) where the users could drag and drop the pieces together like a puzzle. In that what they could create or design an interface without having to draw or sketch on paper. The essential was not to make the design pretty but rather hearing the user’s motivation of why this set-up (interface) is being more credible.
A workshop consisted of three scenarios was created. Scenarios incorporated in the workshops put the user into a context and gives them a narrative description of the task. Visualising a scenario makes it easier for the user to understand how to solve a specific problem. Three scenarios are presented below covering different areas of the news service, and each of them serves a specific purpose:
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1. First page (“löpet”1): the first thing the user sees when he or she enters the news application. On this scrollable page, the user can see various topics and articles the news application offers and serves as a landing page.
2. Breaking news article: an article with an unexpected event that has just happened. 3. Politics article: an article describes a topic about Swedish politics (e.g. election results). Investigating how the user perceives the first page of a news application is essential to make the user stay and find exciting news to read. The first page gives the initial impression of the service and the agency behind the news, which is essential for credibility. An unappealing layout or structure could affect the user’s perception of the news provider. The first impression could have a significant influence on how the user perceives the credibility of the features to avoid like a chaotic structure, occurring errors, misleading pictures, or exaggerating headlines.
A breaking news article contains information or event that has just been received that affects the society (e.g. tornado, a fire, a shooting, or another significant event). Breaking news can contain incomplete information, errors and poor editing due to the rush of publication, which affects credibility. Investigation of what features affect trust is essential since breaking news is chaotic and hard to cover. Other media often reports on the same event, which leads to a competition to be first to publish the story. News tends to spread fast across different platforms and media where false news can create confusion, frustration and uncertainty.
Writing a perceived unbiased politic article that not considered angled is a difficult task. Readers of such article can accuse politicians of being dishonest, untrustworthy and relentlessly propagandistic, but public service still needs to deliver news considered trustworthy and transparent. The article needs to be objective and show politics from different perspectives. The journalist should not take a stand towards either side.
A questionnaire was added to the workshop to introduce the participants to various fundamental values for describing the visual layout of six different news services. The main purpose of the questionnaire was for the user to reflect on how they perceived and feel about different news applications. Answers were on emotional responses (see Figure 2) on a scale from one to five (e.g. bright or dull). The inspiration of the questionnaire came from by BBCi redesign of their
1 “Löpet” or “ingångssida” is a Swedish word describing the start page or home page in a web browser or in an
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homepage. BBCi aimed to go beyond function and create a more engaging user experience beyond visual aesthetics and the type of news website (BBC, 2002).
When the structure of the workshop was set, participants needed to be recruited for the data collection. A total of eight participants aged 20-30 years old were recruited. The participants were put into two groups to avoid disturbance from each other since the workshop was done online.
In this subchapter, the sketches of the participants are presented in random order. The participants were asked to photograph their sketches and send them to the facilitator after the workshops. The outcomes of the workshops will be explained in more in-depth in the subchapter “themes”.
Below the sketches from the first scenario of the two workshops are presented. In this scenario, the participant was going to draw the first page of the news application.
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Many participants would like to filter what they would like to see. Some participants wanted the banner to vanish when they scrolled, and some wanted it to be static. The latest news, or the most essential one, should be on the top of the page. It was important for the interface to feel light and structured. Most of the participants drew the logo and banner on the top and articles containing body text and a picture below it.
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The picture (e.g. a map showing where the event is, in this case) in the article would be informative and related to the topic of the breaking news. Some participant preferred an infographic since its present information quickly, which is essential in a breaking news article according to the participants. Another critical element is that the article is up to date, and it clearly shows when it was last edited and when it was published to achieve high credibility. Information containing what the reader could and should do in a specific situation (e.g. a fire) was also an important principle. As seen in the sketches, there were split opinions about the hierarchy, if image or text were to be displayed first or not.
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Below the sketches from the third scenario of a political article, the two workshops are presented.
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In a politic article, the participants find it crucial having an objective text without an exaggerating headline and that the reader could form their own opinion. It was essential showing all contemporary parties in Swedish despite their rivalry.
After the workshop, the designer went through the recorded session and wrote down the quotes (insights) on post-it notes related to the research questions. This involved grouping common themes and similar ideas together. Duplicates were removed, and each theme was given a title. A total of 78 quotes from the eight participants was collected. These were grouped into six themes which relate to the research question of how to design for better credibility for public service and what kind of design guidelines could be set to achieve better credibility. Since the workshop was held in Swedish, the insights are coded in Swedish and translated into English.
The name of themes where later translated from Swedish to English and giving them a new label differentiate from the original (see Figure 6. below). This was done to make the themes more significant and easier for the reader to get an overview of what the theme contained. Two of the themes (tankar and önskemål) originally made was instead merged into one theme (desirable experiences – visual identity and features).
30 Following themes were identified:
• Features leading to trust or mistrust • Visual layout of a credible news service • Validating the source and its importance • Reputation of the news agency
• Desirable experiences – visual identity and features • User’s attitudes towards credibility
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Thematic analysis is the method used in this subchapter to conceptualise the material into themes from the workshops. The themes are presented in a random order, where essential quotes from the workshop are displayed together with an explanation behind every theme.
In the workshops, the term “credibility” was brought up several times. Words such as clickbait, fake news and misleading headlines were something that the participant thought to lead to mistrust of the news. The articles need to be recently updated with the latest information to be perceived as highly credible.
How a company market its brand on social media or other platforms could have a significant impact on how the reader perceives the brand identity and credibility. Another participant said that news should not be sensational, which are formulated in a way targeting a high number of readers (e.g. exaggerative headline, misleading or false information). The participants said that the phrasing of the article has an impact on the credibility and marks the reader’s perception of that text.
When talking about how to write a politic article, it was necessary to represent all parties’ opinions instead of writing in a neutral style. It was essential to show every perspective on different questions from various parties. Some of the participants stated that it was hard to judge the credibility in a political article since it is already angled in some way.
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When discussing if trustworthy news is considered uninteresting, one participant stated that there is a specific limit of how “fun” official statements could be since they are meant to be unbiased and sophisticated. The participant said that they expect the text to be complicated, but it does not necessarily mean that complex text equals boring.
In the second scenario, a participant said this quote above. Facts need to stay up to date if the newspaper wants to maintain high credibility. If the newspaper claims different things, this can lead to uncertainty and a loss of trust from the reader’s side.
In this theme, the participants discussed and gave a rationale of how the layout of a trustworthy news application could look like (e.g. colours, pictures, and structure). For instance, one participant said that the imagery needs to have a correlation to the event and mediate a certain feeling. The picture should capture the reader's attention but does not necessarily have to be beautiful, but instead deliver the right information. When the imagery is cluttered and tries to catch the attention of the readers, the trust for that product decreases, described a participant. Another recurring comment explained the necessity with a minimalistic structure.
Another topic often discussed was the interface; it should be easy to understand and see where things are and what they do. Colours and accent colours in the interface should not be too
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outstanding slightly elegant and straightforward. A modest structure of the interface gives a professional look, one participant commented.
Apart from having an appealing layout, the site needs to look modern and updated. One participant said that when things are more accessible, purely graphical, the layout seems more trustworthy, and that every article should have its own focus.
Another common theme was source criticism. According to the participants, having sound sources and showing them is essential to improve the credibility of public service.
It needs to be apparent where the source of information comes from according to the participants. By showing there is a legitimate source from an authority or company in the article strengthened the credibility, one participant said. In a breaking news article, the participants preferred sources from reliable authorities like MSB (Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency) or statements from experts (e.g. Anders Tegnell a physician and civil servant, and the current state epidemiologist of Sweden making statements of the COVID-19 virus).
Validating the sources used in an article is contributing to a more trustworthy article. The participants had a discussion regarding having a footnote as a simple way of showing the sources. Even though the source itself need to be reliable and validated, the credibility could be strengthened by showing various sources, according to the participants. Participants argued of the placement of the sources, some preferred sources at the beginning and some thought it was better to have them at the end.
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The reputation of the news agency’s image and identity have a vital effect on the audience perceived credibility of the news. A participant said that one has a sense beforehand if the newspaper is impartial or not. Gossip or sensational news was something the participants did not want to see from public service news (e.g. SVT). Public service news should be “safe”, and reliable thought a participant stated that they had a relationship of trust towards SVT.
According to the participants, the importance of the relationship one has towards the news agency is essential and that bond can easily break if they show sensationalism (e.g. exaggerating a story to gain more readers).
During the workshop, the participants expressed different opinions on how they want trustworthy news to be. They stated the need for vibrant pictures, and the source of information should be clearly stated. One participant said that news must mediate quotes from authorities and government in an aesthetically appealing way.
Filtering on topics the user is interested in was a common request and the fact that the user can choose between various news. Some keywords discussed in this theme was “accessible”, “objectivity” and “equality” as a desirable experience to achieve higher credibility. If there is no equality (e.g. not showing various parties in election results) of the political party’s opinions, one participant said that she lost trust for that newspaper.
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As stated in the theme “source criticism”, the participants expressed the wish of knowing the credibility of the source in advance, knowing when the article has been edited and what changes have been made was crucial for containing high credibility in a news article.
The participants wanted objective rather than amusing news and that it depends on what topic an article contains. The quote above stated that a sports article could be written in a more exciting style than a natural disaster, for example.
Various attitudes and opinions were debated during the workshops. The designer asked the participants if news from public service can be uninteresting. News organisations favour sensationalistic, exciting stories and cover eye-catching news, and that is not the purpose of public service. Journalism in public service achieves their societal function by prioritising and publish an issue that is most relevant and important. The way the article is written in could be in an “uninteresting” tone.
However, it still seems essential that the text is not considered too “dull” to make the reader stay. If the reader does not find the text exciting or entertaining, it could lead to less click and that the reader loses interesting in reading. Public service faces challenges since they are not targeting at entertaining their audience (e.g. publishing stories about celebrities), but still need to get the reader’s attention.
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A request was having world news in the beginning to get an overview of what has been happening in the world. Many participants said that they would like to get local news from their current location (e.g. Östergötland county or Stockholm city).
The result of the questionnaire is presented in charts (see Figure 8) in random order. These six newspapers were chosen together with a group manager at SVT Interaktiv. We chose these because these are the largest and most used news applications in Sweden. They differ in their approach, e.g. some are evening papers and more sensational, and some morning paper and less sensational. It is interesting to see how the newspapers differentials from each other.
Each colour of the charts represents one participant. The purpose of these charts is for the reader to gain an overview, graphically, of the various responses of different newspapers.
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The pattern of scores from the newspapers varied in their shape and curves. Some scores were thinner and straight, such as Svenska Dagbladet (SvD). The pattern indicates a strong reaction of consistency in the visual design among the participants. However, OMNI showed a more extreme and varied emotional response score. This score could indicate a strong reaction of inconsistent between the participants. Their views and the way they feel about the look diverged.
From the scores, the participants find newspapers like Expressen and Aftonbladet amateur, heavy, and dramatic compared to SVT and SvD that are considered professional, light and on point. It is also interesting seeing that Expressen and Aftonbladet are considered ugly compared to the other four newspapers.
Some responses like “warm versus cold” and “traditional versus contemporary” seemed to vary among all newspapers. These responses could indicate that is was hard to interpret these words or that the participant had different views of how they thought of the look of the visual design. The participants expressed that it was hard to interpret cold versus warm and dull versus bright. Understanding the meaning of the words in the questionnaire was pointed out in the pilot test, but it was hard to translate these words to something similar to the original English word. The facilitator explained the meaning of these two words in both the workshops, saying that evening paper refers to a less strict structure and more focused on selling content and a morning paper a harsher structure and less focus on selling content.
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One participant said that warm and bright could refer to the colours of the page (visually) or in what tone the news was presented. The participant said that it was hard to know if the words referred to the visual design or not. Many participants had difficulty in understanding the word tabloid2 and broadsheet3.
The result of the questionnaire could give an indication of what features that could contribute to high credibility purely visually. The design guidelines presented in the next subchapter focus on new features or recommendations of how to improve credibility and do not focus that much on the visual aesthetics. That is a reason why the result of the questionnaires is not directly connected to the guidelines presented below but could instead manifest how the visual design of the news service could look like (e.g. simple, professional, pretty and light).
In this subchapter, the design decisions and rationale will be made regarding how we might design for better credibility in public service news by articulating design guidelines. These design guidelines serve as recommendations to developers and designer for how to improve credibility for public service news. These guidelines are presented in random order.
From the findings in the data collection and the scientific literature, patterns, and themes are being articulated into design guidelines. These guidelines are set to improve the credibility of public service news agencies, with the target group were young adult (20-30 years).
These guidelines aim to bring additional value to various other design disciplines that work with credibility, such as human-centred design and within the news industry. A figure of an objective tree (see Figure 9) has been made to clarify the design objectives and the guidelines (specifications) relationship to the qualitative driver for this research (trust and credibility). There are two specifications or guidelines that are connected to the qualitative driver of trust and five guidelines related to credibility.
2 A translation of the english word “tabloid” would be “kvällstidning” in Swedish. 3 A translation of the english word “broadsheet” would be “morgontidning” in Swedish.
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A visual hierarchy organises the design elements logically by the level of importance and is a golden rule within layout design. Visual hierarchy is a structure pleasing to the eye aesthetically and attracts the right attention (e.g. find the recent article first). In the workshops, many participants described that the first page would feel more trustworthy with whitespace with an airily look looking calm and have a simple design. Many goldens rules within layout design, e.g. hierarchy, high contrast and readability are applied to various newspapers design since we know that most of the audience will find it pleasing. A visual appeal of a website is the overall balance of design, improving the first impression and tells the story about the company. The structure could be associated with order and harmony. In contrast, the opposite word chaos could be associated with unpredictability, confusion where elements do not have any relationship with each other (see Figure 10).
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As seen in the sketches of the first scenario, many participants, unaware of it, draw a hierarchy where they placed editorial element (e.g. headline, body text) in a specific order. The elements were placed vertically and never horizontally. The reason behind it is because they are used to see this pattern, and when they enter a news application, they expect the order to be in that way.
Previous research has shown that the structure and the aesthetic impact the credibility. The look of the design, such as the layout, visual design, typography, whitespace, colours, and images have an impact on credibility (Fogg, o.a., 2003). Guidelines for designing for credibility says that professional visual design should be appropriate for the purpose (Tseng, o.a., 2004). I believe that hierarchy and structure are one of the critical values for making the user interested, but it also gives the impression of professionalism. Professionalism is the news agency's public image and its reputation where they show their expertise and knowledge and from the result of the questionnaire the news services that were considered broadsheet than tabloid was described as professional, simple and understated. A broadsheet newspaper focuses on a more severe look at major news stories apart from tabloid focusing on celebrities and sensationalist stories. A possible conclusion would be that broadsheet news services are considered more credible and professional since the user finds them understated and straightforward, which could be features leading to credibility. One of the first steps of generating trust is to make the design legitimate and professional with well-organised content and appropriate colour scheme and imagery.
