User experience with web browsing on small screens: Experimental investigations of mobile-page interface design and homepage design for news websites

The efficiency of web surfing with a smartphone depends heavily on how well a website is structured. With the goal of understanding the effects of mobile-page and homepage designs on small-screen devices, we conducted two experimental studies to examine how users evaluated interface designs that are widely used on mobile news websites. We found that the designs for mobile news pages and the structures for website homepages can have a significant impact on perceived ease of use, reading time, and the overall reading experience. Based on the evaluation results and the analysis of the current interface design for popular mobile news websites, we developed two important guidelines for mobile news websites: (1) the single-page design is favored over the multi-page and zooming designs for displaying text-based information, and (2) a homepage with a thumbnail design facilitates information processing better than the progressive and list-view designs. Our research provides valuable empirical evaluations that help interface designers understand the potential impact of various interface designs on user experience. We also identified several directions related to interface design for future investigation.