Sky News Arabia
Usability Audit of Region’s Leading News Portal
Analysing Skynews Arabia
Regional news portal – Skynews Arabia were in operation with a successful launch of their TV channel as well as their news portal and mobile applications. That is when the brand decided to rope in RBBi to conduct a full Usability Study of all their digital touch points including their portal, smart phone and tablet app.
The right Usability Testing method
RBBi has exclusive access to Tobii Eye-Tracking
devices and a dedicated usability lab. However,
before we fired-up our Tobii T-60 and get the
participants in for the study, selection and
validation of the most appropriate testing method
was always a primary task.
After understanding the objectives and expected
results, we decided to do run Heuristic Usability
Review of all digital properties of Skynews Arabia
done by 3 Certified Usability Analysts
independently and Eye-tracking studies on key
tasks for the news portal followed by one-on-one
user studies.
Test Protocol & Review Parameters
We then rolled our sleeves, gathered around the table to put our thoughts together for a test protocol. It included
everything from tasks that we were going to request participants to perform, questions we wanted to ask and
observations we wanted to note down. Moderators were also briefed in on the protocol and the overall research
parameters.
Since the heuristic review was going to be carried out by 3 experts, we wanted to have a common ground to get
an average score based on independent reviews. Thus we prepared parameter sheet for these experts to use as
their scoring matrix.
Final Report
The final report was prepared to include all findings from the heuristic reviews, eye-tracking research, one-on-one
interviews with insights, observations and finally the recommendations. Unlike most other usability agencies, our team’s
unique blend of usability knowledge and visual design expertise also added another dimension to the findings.
The Participants
Participants for this study were carefully selected to
resemble the actual users of the portal in the same
proportion to its gender, age and nationality ratio.
