Graduation Year
2019
Date of Submission
5-2019
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Award
Best Senior Thesis in Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Mathematics
Second Department
Computer Science
Reader 1
Mark Huber
Reader 2
Alexandra Papoutsaki
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2019 Ieva Burk
Abstract
With the shift to learn and consume information through our mobile devices, most academic research is still only presented in long-form text. The Stanford Scholar Initiative has explored the segment of content creation and consumption of academic research through video. However, there has been another popular shift in presenting information from various social media platforms and media outlets in the past few years. Snapchat and Instagram have introduced the concept of tappable “Stories” that have gained popularity in the realm of content consumption.
To accelerate the growth of the creation of these research talks, I propose an alternative to video: a tappable Snapchat-like interface. This style is achieved using AMP, Google’s open source project to optimize web experiences on mobile, and particularly the AMP Stories visual medium. My research seeks to explore how the process and quality of consuming the content of academic papers would change if instead of watching videos, users would consume content through Stories on mobile instead.
Since this form of content consumption is still largely unresearched in the academic context, I approached this research with a human-centered design process, going through a few iterations to test various prototypes before formulating research questions and designing an experiment. I tested various formats of research consumption through Stories with pilot users, and learned many lessons to iterate from along the way. I created a way to consume research papers in a Stories format, and designed a comparative study to measure the effectiveness of consuming research papers through the Stories medium and the video medium.
The results indicate that Stories are a quicker way to consume the same content, and improve the user’s pace of comprehension. Further, the Stories medium provides the user a self-paced method—both temporally and content-wise—to consume technical research topics, and is deemed as a less boring method to do so in comparison to video. While Stories gave the learner a chance to actively participate in consumption by tapping, the video experience is enjoyed because of its reduced effort and addition of an audio component. These findings suggest that the Stories medium may be a promising interface in educational contexts, for distributing scientific content and assisting with active learning.
Recommended Citation
Burk, Ieva, "Snap Scholar: The User Experience of Engaging with Academic Research Through a Tappable Stories Medium" (2019). CMC Senior Theses. 2156.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2156
Included in
Applied Statistics Commons, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Commons, Categorical Data Analysis Commons, Design of Experiments and Sample Surveys Commons, Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces Commons, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing Commons, Other Computer Sciences Commons, Probability Commons, Software Engineering Commons
