Effects of Prior Experience on the User Experience of News Aggregation App’s Features—Evidence from a Behavioral Experiment

Abstract

News aggregator apps have become one of the major channels for acquiring information for the Chinese. The number of users is increasing but literature on the user experience (UX) of these apps from the perspective of human-computer interaction remains dearth. In study 1, a completely randomized between-participant experiment with prior experience of news aggregator apps (with prior experience vs. without prior experience) as the independent variable was conducted to investigate its effects on the UX of news aggregator app’s functions, including browsing news, searching news, watching short videos, interacting with news, personalized page setup and online shopping. UX was operationalized as perceived usefulness, ease of use, and satisfaction. Results indicated that the experienced users perceived lower levels of usefulness when they used the app to browse news, watch short videos, interact with news and set up the page than inexperienced users. Experienced users also perceived lower levels of ease of use when watching short videos. In addition, veteran users reported lower satisfaction levels when browsing the news. To explore the reason behind this phenomenon, a sentiment analysis (study 2) was conducted on the reports submitted by participants in the experienced group during the training sessions. It was found that the experienced group overall reported negative sentiment scores, and the results indicated positive trends of correlation between the sentiment score and the UX. The current research provides a more nuanced understanding of the effect of prior experience on the UX of news aggregator apps.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Siqi Cheng

Siqi Cheng is a post-doctoral fellow at the College of Psychology at Beijing Normal University. She received her Ph.D. degree from the Beijing Normal University in 2020. Her research interests lie in User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction, and Media Neuroscience Research.

Yingxi Yang

Yingxi Yang is Ph.D. candidate at School of Journalism and Communication, Renmin University of China. Her interest is centered on the interplay between media effects, social psychology, and online communicative behavior. She also conducts research on the impact of technological features on human-computer interaction.

Lichao Xiu

Lichao Xiu worked at the School of Journalism and Communication, Beijing Normal University. He uses a variety of cognitive neuroscience methods (EEG/ERPs, eye movement, polygraph, etc.) to solve communication problems. His main research areas are emotional assessment, the communication effect, and the cognitive neural mechanisms of communication.

Guoming Yu

Guoming Yu is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Beijing Normal University. His main research areas are media neuroscience, media economics, development communication.