Based on the findings in the version 1 mobile app, I made another version to mitigate news information overload:

Persist Online Information

• Because people don’t want to download yet another mobile app, especially for something they do not do very often, web apps are more accessible than mobile apps
  • Create a web app
    • Create a Next.js app from the Node.js backend in version 1
• By saving links to online content in the cloud
  • Manually add links to the web app
    • Copy URL from browser > add link
• By manually creating insights as facts I want to back up with evidence and share
  • Create a blank one from a new name
    • Prompt for new insight name -> add to insights

Improve Understanding

• By combining several content links into insights (because people are still overloaded by several news articles published every day)
  • Select existing links to put into an insight
    • Click Add Evidence -> Select links from a list in a dialog to put them into an insight
  • Enable publishing of insights to the public
    • Select insight from list -> click Publish
• By improving the UX for adding links to existing insights
  • Add new link to an insight from the list of insights
    • Click Save Link button -> select insight(s) to add it to
  • Add existing links inside an insight
    • Click Add Evidence button -> select links from dialog -> submit
  • Add cited links to other insights
    • Select citation(s) from an insight -> click Add to Other Insight(s) -> select insights and submit
• By enabling discovering new insights from links
  • Select links in an existing insight to add to a new insight
    • Checkboxes in insight evidence items / Create Insight button
• By commenting on content links that bubble-up to insights
  • Comment on what the linked content is actually about
    • Click Comments (n) -> type in comment -> submit
• By tagging insights themselves & content links that bubble-up to insights
  • Tag top-level insight comments
    • Create tag by highlighting comment text
  • Tag comments on insight citations / content links
    • Create tag by highlighting comment text

The resulting web application at https://inspect.datagotchi.net is pictured here:

After publishing this web app and creating some example insights that cite news articles and technical blog posts, I learned a few things:

• My initial approach of saving news articles as they appear online to later be put into insights is a ton of work.
• Although I have created some insights as examples, I have a hard time communicating things that are important and surprising to people.
• Comments and tags are useful for explaining what insights are about, what to do about them, and how articles/other online information inform them, but it’s a lot of text that overloads users.
• The list of insights and comments/tags inside them has helped me understand the example ones I created, but it does not show how they are related or why anyone should care.