Designing for Trust: How Online News Consumers View and Interpret Informational Transparency Boxes

Charlotte Varnum, Bartosz Wojdynski, Matt Binford (Ph.D. Candidate) & Jeff Duncan (Ph.D. Student) (Forthcoming). “Designing for Trust: How Online News Consumers View and Interpret Informational Transparency Boxes,” Digital Journalism.

Abstract: Amidst a global decline in the perceived credibility of news media organizations, the idea that providing greater transparency into journalistic decision-making may help increase consumer trust has gained popularity. A number of news organizations have integrated “transparency boxes” into the design of some article pages in order to provide readers with information about why and how the story was reported, particularly in cases of controversial stories. However, limited research to date suggests that these boxes are only sometimes effective, and that readers often do not notice them. The present study sought to examine the role that design of transparency boxes plays in both shaping readers’ attention to their contents and their perception of reporting ethics and credibility, in the context of local news reporting about suicide. In a two-article mixed-factorial eye-tracking experiment, (N=90) participants read two news articles containing a transparency box in which the design of the boxes varied in position, visual prominence, and shape. Results of the study show that both a “no-box” design and high-contrast box design drew readers’ attention to information boxes relative to other design treatments, and that attention to box content situationally affected perceptions of reporting ethics but did not significantly influence perceptions of the news organization’s credibility. Implications of the findings for the design of future journalistic transparency elements are discussed.