For our research, we utilized a combination of primary and secondary methods. Initially, we held certain assumptions about our app's user base. We speculated that users would need to possess a degree of awareness about media bias and have an open-minded perspective toward altering their views. Assuming these users comprised the primary demographic for our app, we conducted online secondary research to validate whether these were common user segments. Additionally, we conducted primary research through brief interviews with politically motivated individuals who aligned with the identified user archetypes. In these interviews, we aimed to learn more about their news consumption processes and how they evaluate the credibility of news articles.

Our first step to get more insight into user problems was to do research online about the prospective market for our app, focusing on understanding user perspectives and identifying barriers. In an American survey conducted by Gallup and Knight foundation:

74% of surveyors think misinformation online is the leading problem with news today
70% of surveyors think the owners of media companies are influencing coverage and pushing an agenda
83% of surveyors say the media is to blame for political division. However, 83% say that media can serve as a healing force.

This research validated that there is a large population of people that recognize the influence of media bias, and desire more transparency and credibility in the content that is pushed out. The results also indicated a yearning for systemic change within the media landscape, which is challenging due to the multitude of media companies each with their own ownership, editorial policies, and intrinsic biases. As a result, instead of advocating for top-down initiatives to enforce media releasing policies, we could build a tool that makes the process of discerning bias and misinformation in election content more accessible and efficient.

Next, we gathered research by looking at apps for popular news outlets and news apps that claimed to be curated to only show unbiased articles. Despite these claims, these apps lacked transparency regarding content censorship procedures and fell short in displaying critical indicators like fact-checking or other trust-related markers. Additionally, none of these applications offered educational support to enhance users' understanding of bias in news reporting.

We carefully selected three politically informed friends to gain deeper insights into their strategies for navigating bias and misinformation in news. All three actively engaged with articles on Apple News and consumed political content through social media. The key insights we gathered include:

To kickstart our ideation, Sabrina and I had a rapid brainstorming session to come up with potential features for our app. We set a timer for eight minutes to jot down as many ideas as we could think of and reconvened to discuss them. We then grouped these ideas into four separate categories in an affinity map.

We evaluated our ideas and selected the ones that would be the most feasible and provide the greatest value to the user. We mapped out these ideas on a high-level user flow. This flow captures the user's journey as the navigate the four tabs: Home, Top charts, For You, and Polls. More detailed descriptions of these screens and the features embedded within them can be found in the Prototype section below.

Next, we captured the user flow of key features in low-fidelity wireframes using Adobe XD.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo da Vinci

‍After receiving feedback from the judges on our project, I learned the importance of prioritizing simplicity and practicality over extravagant innovation.
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Chen, a Sr. product designer at The New York Times said: "I like the UI, I think it’s super clean, it’s very intuitive…I think it solves the problem well…it’s really just clear to me what this does."
Tulio, another Sr. product designer at the NYT, had similar remarks: "I think my favourite part about this is how simple it is. It really solves the trust and credibility problem in a simple way with that simple score."

With high praise from the judges for the simplicity and intuitiveness of our solution, I believe the practicality of CredElection played a large role in us winning 3rd place. This experience taught me that sometimes the best solutions are the simplest ones.
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Transparency is key

Beyond that, the general feedback the judges had for our product was that they wished it was more transparent with how the credibility scores were calculated.
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"I wonder if you could explain why an article with 95 percent is better than one with 86." Tulio commented. "Maybe just having an explanation at some point for the users, how you got that percentage."

I agree that enhancing our app's transparency on how credibility ratings are calculated is crucial. In our future development, incorporating an initial onboarding flow to explain these calculations and guide users through other app features could be beneficial. This experience underscored the significance of transparency in building credibility. As a crucial next step, conducting user testing with our prototype will help unveil additional issues and identify potential pain points within the app.
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