UReader

Design Problem: Create an RSS feed reader that allows for transparent navigation, and preserves the connection between feed content and website context.

Teammates: Emily Allen, Lula Albar, Drew McKinney

Concept: the UReader allows for consistent navigation and function across possible viewing options, keeping content and context connected in the user's experience.

We began by identifying potential core strategies for uniting context with content. In the end we chose the playlist because it gives the user the ability to maintain an organization of the "mental context" of feeds even while browsing websites beyond the typical feed reader interface, as well as making all the RSS reader functionality available during normal browsing. After several rounds of sketching and a low-fidelity flash prototype, we created paper prototypes to conduct usability evaluations. We conducted three think-aloud studies, using a the "wizard-of-oz" technique with our paper prototype to simulate using the UReader on a computer, and took the results into account as we created our final wireframes.

The UReader is am RSS reader Firefox plug-in that allows seamless integration between web-browsing and feed-reading, capturing contextual information and reading history that is normally lost in the process of switching from one to another. Central to the design is the "playlist," which lets users organize their RSS feeds into groups that they tend to read together. In "reader view" the user can choose a playlist from the navigation menu on the left side of the screen, and all the posts will show up in the reader. The playlist menu at the bottom of the window displays the titles of all new posts in the chosen playlist, letting the user scan quickly through titles and read only the interesting ones.

The web view shows the user the original web page of a post from the feed, without the UReader's extra information. What remains consistent is the playlist menu, which can be resized to fit the user's preferences. The playlist lets users continue to quickly scan post titles and move to those that interest them, while still looking at the original web context. The playlist menu also offers extra UReader functionality like recommending a post (by clicking on the thumbs-up icon) to other readers in their normal web browsing. A small colored bar at the side of screen provides a way for users to switch between reader and web view.

The recommended posts feature is a way for users to find new feeds on topics they like. The UReader compares the user's currently subscribed feeds and recommended posts to other users' subscription and recommendation habits, and displays posts that were recommended by similar users.