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- They frequently access their information sources using mobile devices. For example all of our interviewees mention using either their phones or tablets to read information.
- They like reading information from sources that often produce high volumes of updates. For example, Twitter and/or Facebook are used by all the people we interviewed, and they all had complaints about the high volumes of updates. Reddit and RSS feeds from Google reader were also examples we found through our interviews.
- They tend to read their information in a wide range of environments and time limits. Interviewee 3 reads his information everywhere except the shower, and mentions that he likes to use his time reading information as break from work. Interviewee 4 reads her information at home and on the go. Interviewee 2 reads her information at home and at work. We observed through our interviews that our user population tends to fill their pockets of "free time" with reading information. For example, as taking short/long breaks at work or reading information on the go. As an observation separate from our interviews, we also frequently see potential users checking their smart phones during the following events: waiting for/standing in the elevator; before meetings/lectures; while on the train/plane/bus/etc. All of these events characterize a broad range in environment/time constraints for our users.
- They do a considerable amount of their filtering through information manually (note that this does not imply a considerable portion of their time, though this may be the case for some users as well). For example, interviewees 1 and 4 describe how they don't trust automatic filtering/suggesting, and feel that they are their own the best judge of what is important information. All interviewees mention having to skim titles/tweets/Facebook updates/etc. to figure out what they want to read in-depth. Though we don't aim to eliminate these issues, we seek to make this filtering process smoother and more automated when possible.
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