AOL and MSN Portals Lack Features Users Expect

San Diego, US – May 14, 2009 – The latest benchmark report from the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Lab, “US Mobile Portals: MSN and AOL Trail Operator Offerings for User Experience,” found that consumers preferred the mobile portals from US operators to offerings from AOL and MSN.
The Sprint, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile mobile portals all achieved high overall satisfaction ratings, were easy to navigate and had features which met users’ needs.  Since they do not offer music or game downloads, AOL and MSN portals scored low on ‘meeting user needs.’
 
Kevin Nolan, Vice President, User Experience Practice at Strategy Analytics commented, “Strategy Analytics found that users want portal homepages that are compact, and that provide direct and intuitive pathways to features that are of most interest and relevance to them.  Participants in this study considered the simple, clean look and feel of Sprint's 'On Demand' interface appealing, but some were concerned that the layout was too basic and had sacrificed too much information for the sake of a simple look.”

Christopher Dodge, User Experience Analyst at Strategy Analytics added, “Verizon Wireless appears to have made little progress in improving the discoverability of its mobile portal or services since Strategy Analytics’ previous US mobile portal evaluation in 2007.  However, once users have discovered the portal, they generally consider the layout and structure of Verizon Wireless offerings to be clear, consistent and engaging.”