The lab, working with the Guardian’s in-house app development team, will bring real time updates not just to the web or within an app, but to the lock screen for the first time, says the Guardian.
The updating alert will deliver instantaneous, up-to-the-minute results with the latest Associated Press election data, automatically loaded directly to lock screens for Guardian app users who sign up. Readers will receive the latest information within one continuously updated notification, which will be always visible without additional taps, searches, or further access to a mobile app.
Users will see the latest number of electoral votes won, how many states have been called, and the breakdown of the popular vote between the top two candidates. The notifications will then allow users to open the alert and access a live data visualization of the results and have the option to tap through to the live blog or the full results pages.
Sarah Schmalbach, product manager for the Guardian US mobile innovation lab, comments: “This will be the quickest and most convenient way to get live election night results on mobile. We’re the first to take advantage of this brand new mobile alert feature, that allows us to update the latest data straight on readers’ lock screens. No news app, or any other mobile app, has said they’ll be doing this on November 8th.”
The notifications for the presidential election build on the success of live data notifications tested as part of the mobile innovation lab’s experiment during the UK referendum on EU membership in June 2016.
Sasha Koren, editor of the lab says: “In adapting the technology the lab has built, and by applying the lessons we learned during the Brexit experiment, our goal is to bring live results notifications to a larger stage and to serve a wider audience during the biggest news event of the year. By adopting these notifications formats, the Guardian is taking the opportunity both to innovate within news delivery and to bring US election results to mobile users in the most accessible way possible.”
US app users will be prompted to sign up for live results notification via an opt-in screen starting November 4th and the alerts will be available globally through the Guardian’s app notification settings. To download the Guardian’s iPhone or Android apps, click here.
