The Dallas Morning News is one of the nation’s top newspapers, but the Dallas Morning News iPhone app falls short when it comes to design and interactivity.
The main page of the app includes the newspaper’s masthead, and then one single long scrolling column of news categories and stories. It starts with top news, and then is followed by several categories of sports, and then business, lifestyle, opinion, etc.
You can bypass the long scrolling interface by using a feature that allows you to jump straight from category to category, which is definitely more efficient.
There is some content in the app that is cause for excitement. The Dallas Morning News has delivered world-class coverage on the ongoing drug war in Mexico, for example. The problem is the design does nothing to draw users’ eyes to the good stuff.
If you do see something that interests you, the app includes a feature that allows you to “star” a story, and then file it in a special folder to read later.
Probably the biggest disappointment of the app is the lack of multimedia content and interactivity. There are some decent photo galleries, but they are heavy on the sports, and hidden at the bottom of the list of categories. Ditto for the videos.
The app does include an entire section of Super Bowl related stories, which will be hosted in Dallas on Feb. 6. It is kind of cool to read about the nitty gritty behind-the-scenes preparations that go into the big day.
