Creating a hierarchy of mobile audience needs

What are mobile audiences looking for in your mobile product?

After more than a year of studying our mobile web and app usage statistics, and comparing those to the metrics for tablet and desktop users, I built this chart of mobile user content needs. The idea is based on Maslow's chart. The needs are not really prioritized, but the bottom - in red - are the most common mobile needs and at the top - in blue - is the least common mobile need.

Hierarchyofneeds

What are these subjects?

Be alerted: The most common thing people expect from a news agency on mobile is to be alerted to the most relevant content to them - as close to immediately as possible.

Find answer: When a helicopter is flying overhead, or a park is crowded with people, or someone is talking about something they heard about happening in the city someone should be able to quickly find it in your mobile product. The key thing to remember is how people will query: they are unlikely to look for "One man dead in robbery" they look for "Shots fired in Santa Ana."

Check-in: People who read news are actively participating in the community by checking-in to see what is going on in the topics relevant to his or her personal communities. This leads people to browse your mobile website or app for the latest content in certain topics before moving on to the next task.

Participation: Mobile users didn't sign up for a limited experience. But they do want a simple experience. When reading a story on the state budget they might want to vote in a quick poll on what they would cut or keep in the budget. They might enjoy swiping through the photos taken at an event. They might want to listen to the 9-1-1 calls related to the crime story. Do not assume mobile users just want a headline and first paragraph. At the same time, don't bog down your mobile products like most desktop websites. Think about how simple, yet comprehensive, the experience is on an iPhone.

Create: Social network use booms on mobile phones because all smartphones contain a camera, sharing is fast and engagement is pushed to most users by notifications. Think about the small circle of information your organization can cover compared to how many people have smartphones in your community.

Research: Sure, most in-depth reading and discovering of related content is done on a tablet (not the desktop web, unless you are talking about unproductive workers who visit your site). But remember that a desktop computer is left at work or at home, and an iPad doesn't fit in most purses. Sometimes all someone has, or needs, is a smartphone and they'll want to not just spend 3 minutes with a story but instead 30 minutes. A very limited mobile product is what was built in the 90s when PDAs and Razors were on the scene. Today's phones are quite powerful and tomorrow's will be able to handle even more.

Does this chart help you think about your mobile audience? Do the priorities seem off or in the wrong order? What would you change? Do you think this is the same for most mobile audiences - or different for each community? What are your top priorities as a mobile content user?

Media organizations need to invest in building a mobile workforce

Now is the time for media companies to make up for their print>web problems by investing in mobile now.

Remember the whole print to web transition? How news organizations failed (along with other businesses) in early web attempts due, in part, to people making decisions without having personal web experience? The same thing could happen with mobile.

I do not just mean investing one or two people. Developing one mobile app does not count. Spending money on smartphones for top executives also does not count.

But how would smartphones help you might ask? Generally, journalists agree that smartphones help - but they don't really know how.

Here's how I think smartphones help journalists:

Be more efficient AND produce more quality and timely content AND improve engagement with and understanding of audiences.

Be a mobile consumer

Plain and simple the best way to understand something (as an objective observer) is to use it. How do you figure out what Twitter is all about? First step: join Twitter. Second step: use Twitter. The same thing holds true for journalists (or anyone) and smartphones. The first step is getting a phone (see the sidenotes at the end of this post about that topic). The second step is using the phone (actually using the phone every day and trying new things).

Getting and using smartphones as a person - not a journalist - will help journalists understand best what mobile audiences want and need in mobile news apps, websites and services.

Communication internally at work

  • Communicating with your boss, colleagues and employees
  • Mobile access to view, edit and organize your work calendar and e-mail and tasks
  • Maintaining and updating story budgets

Communication externally at work

  • Communicating with sources
  • Staying connected on and posting multimedia content to social networks
  • Being alerted to breaking news and information from your coverage area

Producing and editing content

  • Taking notes
  • Recording audio from interviews
  • Taking video
  • Taking photos
  • Edit or update content before or after publishing
  • Moderate comments from any location

Limitless possibilities

  • Driving directions
  • Using location-based social networks
  • Finding story ideas by using mobile apps
  • Reviewing mobile products for your audience
  • My list above is not comprehensive. What other ideas do you have? Please add those in comments!

Sidenote about investing in employees: I firmly believe it is your organization's responsibility to invest in its staff, with: competitive salaries aligned with your responsibilities and experience and future potential impact on the organization, the proper tools to communicate and report and edit and innovate (and that right now includes smartphones), flexibility in work hours (the mobile shift means you'll be spending more work time doing personal stuff and vice versa), overtime or time off (burnout is not good for the individual or the organization) and at least 10% of work time to be spent on whatever innovation the individual wants to pursue (Google Time, but perhaps 10% rather than Google's 20%).
Investing in yourself: Is your boss or organization unwilling to invest in a smartphone for you? Maybe the best solution is to buy yourself a smartphone. Think about how much you'll end up using the smartphone for your personal life. Think about how much more you will learn and how better your adaptability and experience will speak for you on your resume. I understand not all people can afford a smartphone, but many people spend the same cost as a monthly smartphone bill on unnecessary items. This is the time to invest in yourself.