3rd Iteration of Electronic News Reader Home Screen
This round focused on the further refinement of the visual language of a traditional newspaper and how we that visual language can be more integrated within the proposed digital space. This version also contains a more refined system, visually and functionally, for integrating the ‘widgets’ used to filter the presented content and the sources from which it is drawn. We also developed a visual system that utilizes the dots from the world map in order to identify how globally or locally a particularly story is being reported. The more dots associated with the story, the more broadly the story is being reported. As we were working on this phase, we also decided that the REader MIX was engaging enough that we should feature it more prominently within the design. To clarify, here are some descriptions for the features and functionality being proposed:
Location Filter
The “filter-matrix” developed for the eReader allows users to access stories based on a 2 dimensional sorting of where the story itself took place as well as the location of origin of person or agency reporting on the story. This would allow the user to gain a more broad perspective of location, national and global events. For example, one could view news of North America as reported from South Africa. Or read stories about the Middle East as reported from the Middle East. Adjusting the location of the source can demonstrate large disparities and prejudices in the reporting of an event. The location filter gives the reader the tools to broaden their understanding of the stories presented.
Source Type
This slider within the interface allows the user to determine the reputability and type of coverage that they are interested in reading. The “authority” scale gradates from International News Agencies through Opinion and Affiliated Organizations down to Blogs and social media. Using this tool gives the reader access to a more diverse set of information while still putting the priority for stories to be considered (as best as can be assumed by any large media outlet) actual, reported, edited, fact checked, responsible news at the forefront. Each story is then displayed along with the icon for its source so that the reader is constantly kept aware of the origination of the content being displayed. This system does not employ editors of its own. Instead, the system aggregates the content from a variety of sources and organizes for display as major home page stories as well as filterable content.
REader MIX
The REader MIX is an interactive module that exists in the majority of the layouts and contains a collection of words, phrases and sentances that have been added by all users of the GeoReader. When a user finds a particular word or phrase that they are interested in, they can press, hold and drag to highlight the phrase. A contextual link then appears asking them to add it to the REader MIX. Once added, the text becomes part of the dynamic, ever changing narrative presented to all users of the GeoReader. Each entry is color coded to match the section the reader who added it was viewing it in (since many stories will exist under multiple filters) and is a link back to the original story from which it was extracted. This offers users a new way of accessing and finding content they they may be interested in. Headlines don’t tell the whole story. Summaries don’t get to the heart of the story quickly enough. But if someone finds one particular phrase to be compelling, then someone else might too and follow that phrase to read a story they may not have found otherwise.
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