ABC Android app: aiming for the stars

CASE STUDYManaging customer feedback and aiming for the stars Manuela Davidson Mobile Executive Producer, ABC Innovation e: davidson.manuela@abc.net.au t: @manueladavo

The beginning Feb 09: 1st Android enabled device sold in Australia Mar 09: ABC launches mobile suite, including msite, iOS, BlackBerry, J2ME and Android apps HTC Dream Approach to Android: “Be first to market, experiment, watch and learn” v1.0 was well received despite of limited functionality (reader only)

The growth of Android April 2009 April 2012 Mobile visits to ABC Online: 253,152 Mobile visits to ABC Online: 6,349,012 1% 0% 4% 11% 3% 11% iOS iOS Android Android 28% 58% BlackBerry 84% BlackBerry Symbian Symbian Others Others 0%Source: Webtrends Analytics (monthly reports)

ABC Android app in numbers51.44%Froyo (2.2) and Gingerbread (2.3) 33.58% Ice Cream Sandwich (4) 10.97% Honeycomb (3) 4

User feedback mobilefeedback@your.abc.net.au - Bug reports - Enhancement suggestions - Thank you notes - Reactions to ABC stories - UGC; and of course... SPAM!Hi there,I use the App all the time since its major revision, and poor oldGoogle Currents doesn’t get a look in! For your revision list, canyou please investigate including active hyperlinks in the newsstories? There are often references to links, but they are plaintext. It would really improve user experience and help cementuser loyalty. I do understand that it mightn’t be straightforward,but would appreciate your brief advice on the feasibility andmerit of the suggestion.Cheers and regards,Brad Michael - June 29, 2012 - Version 2.0.2 Works well Finally an update.. lets just hope it isnt another 3 year wait for the next one. It would be good to add breaking news notifications, catch up 60 second news clips like the iOS app and also a user submit imaging feature for those who capture breaking news on their phones. The square icon also looks a little messy and too big. 5

ABC (Now) July 2012 3.1 stars What it does:  News reader  Live stream of ABC News 24  Live stream of 28 ABC radio stations  Share  Save app on SD card What users are saying:  Massive improvement. This app now usable, really impressed at how quick it now is. Well done Aunty, great work.  Finally the highest selling mobile operating system is getting the attention it deserves from the public broadcaster. Next some dedicated Android apps for your other content please.  First experience of this app and very impressed. Live News 24 is easy to access and works well even over 3G.  iView please ... and current news vodcasts please... Keep up great work!! 6

ABC (then) May 2011 2.5 stars What it did:  Basic news reader What users were saying:  Useless compared to what iphone users get  Sadly lacking customization that an app of its kind should have; very basic.  Stories out of date. Cant personalized in any way. Cant share.  News wont update without restarting phone! Hoping that an all update will fix that.  Limited. Cant email or share stories , agree that more work is required so its not the poor cousin app of iPhone 7

Planning the change:competitor review – May 2011 8

Al Jazeera May 2011 4.5 stars What it does:  24/7 news streaming (3G and WiFi)  Video news bulletins in English What users are saying:  Looks like it’s been all fixed up for streaming!  Needs install to SD card for more stars  Frequent stream interruption  UI could be better but app does what it says  Get the real news you miss on CNN/MSNBC/fox  How about a text based news feed and decent UI?  Would benefit from manual stream quality selection and optional closed-captioning/subtitles 9

BBC May 2011 4.5 stars What it does:  BBC headlines in a widget  Headlines and article viewer What users are saying:  Uses too much space, always running, drains battery. Uninstalling.  Please make SD supported, too big otherwise. Uninstalled.  Only good for reading headlines. Articles rarely ever load. Faster to go on the their mobile website.  this is a nice app, but I see absolutely no need for it... I have Pulse and can get BBC news and video there... sorry, uninstall 10

CBS News May 2011 4.0 stars What it does: Breaking news, videos and top stories  on demand video of every CBS News show  share content via Twitter  App + widget What users are saying:  "sorry, this video cannot be played" on Samsung Vibrant.  Needs move app to SD card support.  Its ok.. better than others, but widget shows same headlines and is sketchy, app is fair at best  Apps needs more enhancement, screen is small for my samsung tablet.  Everything works except videos. Droid 1.  needs to be renamed May... Cause it may or may not work, it still loads news thats two months old... Two stars because its free 11

CNN May 2011 4.0 stars What it does:  Latest news  Live video  iReport What users are saying:  Good news app, but the breaking news alerts come before the story is available to view. Very annoying  If it could be moved to SD card would be 5 star  Seems to force close from time to time. Other then that, great app. Comes with a widget too  The alerts are worthless, and they are the only reason to use the app. They link you to the app front page, not to a relevant summary. 12

Fox News May 2011 4.0 stars What it does: Top news stories (articles, videos, slideshows)  Favourites  Breaking news notifications – push notification What users are saying:  Like everyone else I sure wish it worked ? Its like I can get all the news from other places that I dont want  I see many negative comments but it works great on my nexus s. a widget and settings like update intervals would be nice. cnn app does look better.  Good app, but too often the breaking news alerts cant be read. The app opens and the breaking news article isnt there.  From my favorite news source comes my new favorite news app. The app has very up to date news and videos. I love it. Works everytime Droid X  Disgraceful. Refuses to open, force closes immediately upon opening and causes lag for a good minute. Samsung epic 13

France 24 May 2011 4.0 stars What it does:  breaking news, sport reports, weather updates  live stream and video on demand  news offering based on user location (Maps+GPS) What users are saying:  Its a wonderful program on Ipod touch but no video on Motorola global Droid 2. It tries to load the videos but it cant  Used to show video, but now only sound. Galaxy S 2.1. Please fix, otherwise great app. Thanks  Been waiting a year for this app! Please move to sd card - too big!  At last on Android!... But Live is not working. Where are the Breaking news? The popular app2sd feature is missing too  LOVE IT SO MUCH. NEWS IN BOTH LANGUAGES: FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 14

Huffington Post May 2011 4.0 stars What it does:  Latest news and opinion  Search, slide show, share  Works on portrait and landscape  Caching of data for offline reading What users are saying:  HTC EVO, videos don’t play, problem has existed for almost a year. Huffington techs are a bunch of lazy aholes. Fix it or go drink bleach.  The flashing ads are EXTREMELY DISTRACTING. This used to be a good app before the horrible ads ruined it  Freezes & force closes too often. Videos do not work w/ latest Youtube update. (Moto Droid 2 Global)  Comments are disorganized and you cant fan or fave. 15

MSNBC May 2011 4.5 stars What it does:  Breaking news: articles and video  Push notifications  Description communicates bugs and asks for patience. Video demo on Android Market What users are saying:  This is really informative and it works great. I love the quality of the app-its great overall  Always bugging me with non important news alert and now that osama is dead it didnt alert me! Uninstalling  Awesome app, especially after I figured out how to turn off notifications. My only minor grievance is that it asks me to rate it here.  Had to delete. Video kept freezing. It takes up to much space on the phone memory and cant be moved to the sd card. Bye bye 16

NPR May 2011 4.0 stars What it does:  Read, listen, or create a playlist of your favourite NPR stories and share with friends.  Hear live streams from hundreds of NPR stations: search by location (GPS) or zip code / call letters  Listen to podcasts What users are saying:  Runs continuously even after force closing. Freezes up. Not enough text content. App needs improvement.  This app is like my life line, set up my playlist in the morning and press play on my commute everyday  GPS shouldnt run continuously. Needs an option to disable it to save battery.  I stop the stream and then back out of the app. About 5 minutes later it turns back on and starts streaming again. Can be embarrassing 17

Onion News May 2011 4.5 stars What it does:  news video on demand  search online video archives  sort by show, popular and editor picks What users are saying:  Wish all news was like this  Stays true to The Onion Video News and works well on my Droid X. I would give five stars if there was the option to read recent or popular headlines.  Fun app for the first few days until you watch all the videos. Need to update more often  This app has made my commute waaaay better!  Not my thing. I like real news. Videos sluggish on anything but WiFi. Orientation forced to Portrait on video list, Landscape when playing video itself. 18

Pulse May 2011 4.5 stars 19

Pulse May 2011 4.5 starsWhat it does: Personalised news: users can select “packs” to populate the app in different categories, using feeds from many publishers around the world Organise news: five customisable pages to be populated with feeds (from publishers, social and from Google reader), using drag and drop Like, share and comment items in your FB newsfeed from Pulse Uses feeds from users accounts on FB, youTube, Vimeo, Digg, Reddit and Hacker News (like Flipboard, combination of social feeds) Share articles via FB, Twitter and email Offline reading (downloads stuff to your device when you are WiFi connected) Tap to refresh news sources (suggests no auto refresh on background) Widget and app modeWhat users are saying: Fantastic app so far. Seems to kill the battery a bit, but its acceptable. Excellent app, gets all the news I normally have to trawl websites for and puts them in an easy to navigate format This app is absolutely fantastic. My all-time favorite. But its no longer shortening links. used over 200MB data in one day even when set to manual refresh. Only reason I knew is because battery got very warm. Uninstalled Great layout. Would be nice if it pulled more data from australian news sites instead of sending me to their websites. Need easy way to delete multiple articles at once. Other than that perfect There should be an option to save cache on sd card as it tends to eat a lot of internal storage 20

The Guardian May 2011 4.5 stars What it does:  latest news  offline reading (“fetch the paper while you sleep”)  set wallpapers, widgets, personalization features. What users are saying:  Set to download overnight or just do it before you set off - ideal for a free read wherever you are with no need for a connection.  Scheduled downloads dont always happen  Great app, use daily on HTC desire. Would be 5, but when move to SD card, schedule download stops working?  Wish that Zoom worked with photos too.  Very nice app except it doesnt delete old articles and I had to delete manually. Nexus S 21

The New York Times May 2011 3.5 stars What it does:  Free Top Stories; subscription for rest of content  Paid version includes blogs, videos and slideshows  Offline reading and bookmarking  Portrait and landscape w/ adjustable font size  Share (email, SMS, FB, Twitter) and push notification What users are saying:  Needs some updating. As a paid home delivery subscriber I expected to see a search button to look for past archives.  What happened to the video? Im paying $35 a month and the Android app wont play videos since the recent upgrade.  Takes up too much space when it caches articles... Almost 20 mb for text only! Uninstalling, World Newspapers is much better  Content is superb. Performance of the app is horrible. Too slow with frequent freezes. Its a memory hog that cant be moved to the memory card, too 22

USA Today May 2011 4.5 stars What it does:  latest news, scores, weather and photos  Different versions for PHONE and TABLET  polls + share via FB, Twitter, email and SMS What users are saying:  easy to flip through news, no distractions. polls are an interesting feature.  Fantastic! This app has it all, sports. tech. finance. weather. local news. etc yet easy and simple to use. And no ads to distract your reading.  Switched over from NYT. Great app, although it is a bit more than i need. Weather, sports, and pics are things i wish i could remove.  This is my favorite news app - even without landscape mode. Would give 5 stars for move to SD card. 23

Apps’ core stuffApp Reader Podcast Streams Caching Customise Store - SD Notifications UGC ShareABC (v1.1) xABC (2.0) x x x x xAl Jazeera x xBBC x x x x xCBS x x xCNN x x x x xFox News x x x x xFrance 24 x x x xHuff Post x x x xMSNBC x x x x xNPR x x x x xOnion News x x xPulse x x x xThe Guardian x x x xNY Times x x x xUSA Today x x 24

Identifying opportunitiesWhat users want Translates into...Convenience + apps and companion widgets (nice to have) + offline reading + search + news alerts (notifications) + same app to scale well on smartphones and tabletsTheir personal touch + ability to tailor content offering to their preferences + sharing via email, twitter and facebook is a must + controlling frequency the app fetches updates (auto and manual settings) + scheduling download of content for offline consumption + controlling which stream quality they will consume (low-high) + being able to turn off news alerts (notifications)Great content + news and entertainment from a source they trust (always fresh) + ratings and ability to read comments from others or leave one are nice to have + instant translation to other languages desirable for global distributionQuality of Service + work on portrait and landscape, for smartphones and tablets + app needs to install on SD card without breaking user settings + audio and video (live and on demand) must work on WiFi and/or 3G + ability to control font size and zoom into images + app must not drain user’s battery or use data when on standby + app must shut down on exit 25

Implementing the change:dealing with fragmentation 26

Fragmentation Screen sizes and densities User Interface (controls) Streaming media (flash x HLS) 320 x 200 800 x 1280 27

Testing the change:learning to fail fast 28

Iterative process The team decides together Design Close collaboration Review Develop Formal QA Consulting GoogleUser feedback:25+ ABC alpha testers Test Distribute 29

Aiming for the stars...What users want What we are still consideringConvenience + widgets + offline reading + search + news alerts + proper support for tabletsTheir personal touch + favourites / bookmarks + scheduling download of content for offline consumption + controlling which stream quality they will consume (low-high) + being able to turn off news alerts (notifications)Great content + more local content + increase audio and video offering (live and on demand) + open external links from app (even if not optimised for mobile) + read and write comments + UGC contributionsQuality of Service + work on portrait and landscape, for smartphones and tablets + media availability over 3G and WiFi 30

Questions? (Yes. MoreABCappswillbesoon belaunchedforAndroid...iviewwillneedmoretime) (By the way, this preso will be available on the ABC Innovation tumblr page: abc-innovation.tumblr.com)Manuela DavidsonMobile Executive Producer, ABC Innovatione: davidson.manuela@abc.net.aut: @manueladavo 31

ABC Android app: aiming for the stars

by Manuela Davidson on Jul 04, 2012

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