My teampartner (Martin Zerr) and I were discussing (due to current events) the problem of political resignation. After researching the current landscape of political news offers and the reasons for political paralysis, we decided to pick up this topic for our next university project.
The main epicenters of all problems is firstly the overloading of citizens with information, requiring them to sift through 50+ articles on a newspapers landing page alone. Secondly, the lack of participation options – citizens struggle to feel heard and take active part in a political manner. We decided to tackle these two problems and solve them in a minimalistic, straight-forward news app that includes curated articles and participation offers.
Concept & Wireframes
In order to dive deeper into what the app needs to accomplish, we decided to create a user journey map. This way we could explore possible hurdles, thoughts and pain points of citizens we might have missed.
The journey showcased multiple »knots« where citizens would need to spend time and energy to overcome hurdles, e.g. searching through news offers for relevant topics, complimentary research about law/politicians while reading, searching for participation options like demonstrations.
It showed that being up to date on politics requires self-motivated, consistent interest and time investment.
We defined our goals for our app as follows: offering a news app that shows a handful of articles per day in order to make a »everything was read«-empty state actually achievable; it can be customised to personal interests, give perspective to take part in political actions (specifically regional, as we see the most personal impact there).
Onboarding
When the app is used for the first time, users are asked to enter the federal state in which they live in order to determine the source of the information for local news.
Then interests must be entered. The second screen shows a status with interests already selected by the user in our three predefined categories (topics, politicians, laws). The selected interests can be edited at any point in the profile tab.
News Feed
News articles are displayed in a minimalistic manner, e.g. by leaving out thumbnails, to prevent an overwhelming and bloated-looking feed. The article curation is based on the previously selected interests. The respective label is displayed above each article so that users can see exactly why this article is being matched to them. Each article can be saved directly to read or refer back to at a later point.
The interests can be selected and deselected in the filter if there is currently less interest in a topic.
Article View
A selected article can be seen on the left-hand side. The names of politicians and laws are highlighted in each article. If users tap on the respective text-link, a sheet pops up showing the politician's profile. In the case of laws, a sheet opens with a brief explanation of the law.
Participation
In order to facillitate participation it has been given its own tab so as not to be lost in the feed. Here users can find e.g. consultation hours with politicians, petitions or demonstrations. If registration is required for an event, the app will point this out and forward users to the source.
Politician information
The politicians tab consists of two sections. At first glance, under »Folge ich« (Following), users can see all the politicians they follow. Users can search for other politicians under »Alle« (All). Further politicians are suggested based on the selected areas of interest e.g. politicians that are especially active for climate change.
To get a more detailed overview, the profile of each person can be displayed. In addition to the party and area of responsibility, users can also see what the person is committed to. An introductory text supports this information. There is also an overview of what was voted for at which meeting, so users can see exactly whether the person is really pursuing the interests they claim.
