2012.03.14
Let’s talk mobile
Switching gears a little, today we want to get your thoughts on mobile news sites. Do you visit our mobile site, m.roanoke.com, from your smartphone? If you haven’t visited m.roanoke.com, check it out and see what you think. Beyond the latest news page which features the top headlines, click on the “topics” page to find much more content, including blogs, weather, movie times and reviews, and much more.
We’ve heard from many users that you’d like to be able to access the full site (roanoke.com) from our mobile site, and we’ve just made that option available. From m.roanoke.com, scroll to the bottom and you’ll see a link in the footer to “view full site”.
What other mobile news sites do you visit and what features on these sites do you like?
Do you use any news apps on your phone? Which ones?
I love the idea of an app. I use HuffPo, NYT, Slate and Politico almost constantly on my phone. I also use the full site here pretty regularly as its much easier to navigate than the mobile version.
Comment by Meg J — March 14, 2012 @ 11:06 am
Hey Meg J, thanks for the site names.
Can you share what functions you like on those apps? Or why you like them better than others?
Is it strictly a navigation thing, or is there a feature you really enjoy using?
Thanks!
– Kathy Lu, RefreshRT team
Comment by Kathy Lu — March 14, 2012 @ 12:34 pm
The current mobile page seems ok. Previously it was hard to get to things like blogs from there, but the current page has everything I’d probably want. And it has the most important feature: an easy link to the full site!
Comment by Mark — March 14, 2012 @ 3:55 pm
I prefer the full site version to the mobile RT version. I use the full site version of Yahoo and the News Republic Android app. I really like the News Republic app as I can customize the categories I want to appear, to an extent. I can then look at each category individually or all my topics. The app runs easily with very little delay when moving among articles.
Comment by Ernie — March 14, 2012 @ 4:04 pm
In terms of Politico’s App for iPhone, one of my favorite things is that they have the first screen full of the top stories, but in the top left corner there is one button for all of the other options. It is a very clean set of screens. Clutter is minimal, which is very nice. (Politico’s app is my favorite, by far).
HuffPo’s app (again for iPhone) is nice because the layout is somewhat similar to the full site. You’ve got the banner at the top with the leading story, and then several stories below. It’s easy to navigate if you ever use their main page, without any “learning curve” so to speak.
The others I mentioned follow much the same. I think the biggest problem with apps/mobile versions is that it’s too easy to get things cluttered. Navigation needs to be somewhat intuitive, whether it be by one button only leading you to the different sections, or keeping the basic idea the same as the main page… I hope I’m making sense?
Comment by Meg J — March 14, 2012 @ 9:00 pm
Thanks for all the examples. Pointing us to specific sites and apps is very helpful! Keep the suggestions coming.
– Karenna from the RefreshRT team.
Comment by karennag — March 15, 2012 @ 8:14 am
This is not connected to the mobile version, per say, but this is something you guys may want to consider. Prior to the big revamp on the Newsweek site, they went through and asked visitors of the site to explain how they used the site. I was searching for an article, and a survey popped up regarding whether or not I found what I needed, etc. A few weeks later, I got an email from a man at Newsweek asking to set up an appointment with me. He logged in via VPN and we walked through what browser I used, and how I used the site. He got to see first hand what I looked at, and how the site worked for me. He asked me to go to other sites and we did the same thing again. I believe I even used Roanoke.com for one of my examples…
Point is, they concerned themselves with how readers use the site. The new revamp is much easier to find things and is much easier to navigate than it was. The articles read cleaner as well. They took bits and pieces from loads of readers and made it into a very sleek site.
It’s just a thought. It may help to actually SEE how readers use your site, so you can see what’s generating hits and exploit it
Comment by Meg J — March 15, 2012 @ 8:24 am
The newest version of the mobile site is much easier to use on my BB than the previous one was. It’s a pain to try to use the full site on the phone, since it doesn’t have a touch screen where I can easily zoom and pan like on my wife’s Droid. I don’t use any news apps on my phone though, I just bookmark particular news sites in the browser and load them that way…like roanoke.com, cnn, etc.
Comment by Other John — March 15, 2012 @ 9:05 am
Thanks for the suggestion, Meg J. We’ll look into what Newsweek did and pass along to the navigation redesign team.
– Karenna, RefreshRT team
Comment by karennag — March 15, 2012 @ 9:06 am
For the most part, the news that I get on my phone or tablet comes from Twitter links. The only times that I’ve been to the mobile Roanoke.com site have been from a Twitter redirects. Personally, I find this to be the most efficient way for me to obtain information that I find pertinent and can go to one source for a variety of topics – local, national and international. At one point I had a number of news apps on my phone, but as I said I believe that Twitter is now the most efficient way. I follow @roanoketimes on Twitter, but find that the topics you guys post on there are either late (i.e. posting the articles for the day late in the afternoon after I’ve already read them on the full site) or are fluff type stories that don’t interest me enough to go to the mobile site to read.
Comment by RightWing — March 15, 2012 @ 2:59 pm
Thank you for making the “full site” available for mobile devices. Often, incorrectly, software guesses we want to see condensed or distilled versions of websites from phones. This may have been ok a year or two ago, but since the Smartphone revolution, and really the Tablet revolution we’re currently going through, there’s no need to dumb things down for mobile devices.
Sure, there’s a significant difference between a properly optimized iPad app for reading the news and going to the website through Safari for iPad, but giving the user the option is important.
Kudos!
Comment by scott — March 16, 2012 @ 10:02 am
Glad the full site option is working for you, scott. As you point out, people are accessing news from so many different devices that letting them choose between the mobile and full site seems to be preferred.
– Karenna, RefreshRT team
Comment by karennag — March 16, 2012 @ 12:06 pm
I’ll second Scott, I do not use the mobile app (YET!), but I know people who do and they like it. Roanoke.com has made very real efforts to please a wide range of users and I applaud you too.
If the only change we get is the “hide this poster” option, I’ll still be a happy camper!
Comment by Sandi Saunders — March 16, 2012 @ 5:35 pm
Allow link to Full roanoke.com site from mobile site or from any smartphone (currently unable to access full site w/ iPhone 4S).
Thank You
Comment by Gayle — March 26, 2012 @ 3:01 pm
Gayle, did you know that we have added a full-site option to m.roanoke.com? Look in the footer in the bottom left corner and you should see the link. Your cookies must be enabled for it to work. Tell us how you like the full site access.
– Karenna, RefreshRT team.
Comment by karennag — March 26, 2012 @ 3:40 pm
I’ve had a few times when I load the main RT page on my phone, I cannot get the mobile version to load…only the full page site loads, which is really annoying since I have a BB without a touch screen. It’s totally random when it happens, but when it does I won’t let the page load fully and I just look somewhere else. It’s not a problem on my wife’s Droid touch-screen phone though, the full site looks better on that platform.
Comment by Other John — March 27, 2012 @ 9:02 am
Other John,
I encountered the same problem when running an older operating system on a BlackBerry. I upgraded by contacting my mobile provider’s customer service center.
Have you tried to access the mobile site directly by typing m.roanoke.com in your browser?
Courtney Cutright, RefreshRT team member
Comment by Courtney Cutright — March 27, 2012 @ 11:56 am