Financial Times iPad Usability

Financial Times iPad App Screenshot

Client Quote

Project Summary

As one of the world's leading business news and information organisations, with an ever growing audience, the FT.com are keen to ensure a positive user experience, regardless of which format its readers accesses the information. Having worked together on a number of projects, FT.com asked Experience Solutions to help review the usability of the current FT.com iPad app.

To plan the test scripts we sat down and reviewed the questions that the FT wanted to answer in the test, which focused around, 'How intuitive is the app?' and 'What is the relationship users have between the newspaper and the app?'.

We agreed that we should test three groups of users, who would all have different levels of engagement with the FT and its iPad app. Twelve one to one usability tests took place over two days at the FT in London with representatives of the following user groups:

Existing FT newspaper readers who are in the market for an iPad
Prospective users who currently use competitor iPad apps
Existing FT iPad app users

The users were generally positive about the iPad app but we were still able to establish a number of issues they faced when interacting with the app. We reported a range of recommendations, which we prioritised for the FT, that will ensure users can interact with the iPad app successfully from the off.

The FT.com team were very positive about the project and our report and the recommendations are now being implemented. We are looking forward to seeing the results.

Usability testing is a great way to improve tablet applications and encourage a broader usage and positive user recommendations, and we really enjoy doing it too!