IPhone Users Frustrated With Mobile Portals of Popular News Sites

Keynote Systems has published the results of its first ever Keynote WebEffective for iPhone study of actual user satisfaction of mobile Web sites. Keynote WebEffective for iPhone is a brand new way of conducting online usability studies of iPhone customers interacting with mobile Web sites.

"The iPhone is a breakthrough mobile smart phone," said Dan Richards, senior product manager at Keynote, "but our Keynote WebEffective study shows that the user experience of surfing Web sites is not." Richards went on to say, "There are some areas of usability that need to be perfected for end users to be fully satisfied. Mobile Web designers are having to learn and adapt to a brand new world."

In the Keynote WebEffective for iPhone study, more than 75 participants were tasked with finding an entertainment news story, reading a news article, and searching for a story on a specific topic then sending it to a friend.

Highlights of the study include:

• Satisfaction rates were low for both Yahoo! (51%) and Fox News (64%) mobile Web sites and less than half of users found the sites to be appealing.
• Only four percent of users tapped into advertising; nearly a quarter noticed advertising but did not click through.
• While Fox News users were more likely to find the mobile experience to be better than a computer experience, Yahoo! users were more likely to find the mobile experience to be much worse than a computer experience.
• Significantly more Yahoo! users (60%) reported frustration with the site than Fox News users (33%).
• Expected user frustrations included site errors, cluttered pages, poor site speed as well as excessive scrolling. Path analysis reveals how users encountered and attempted to work around these issues.
• Unexpected findings included a lack of visual appeal and difficulties around the search feature.

Posted to the site on 9th October 2008