Comments

1. Darrell | July 24, 2009 at 3:05 am

   I like the look of the typography and UI, but not using the mouse in areas where it’s obviously a better and faster navigation tool could get frustrating.

   The keys and touch (if available) are great, but for this demo the mouse was lacking – or maybe it’s just me.

   All in all… It’s a good start.

2. Irwin Chen | July 24, 2009 at 7:42 am

   Darrell,

   Thanks for the comments! Just to be clear, what mouse functionality did you find lacking and in what areas?

   We appreciate all the feedback we can get. Thanks!

   Irwin

3. Maha Chehlaoui | July 27, 2009 at 8:12 pm

   Irwin,
   What a beautiful redesign. I have some questions. Why is having to arrow inherently better than scrolling? Why is text loading sideways better than it scrolling vertically? I always have a hard tme trying new things when I am used to the old ones so I thought I would ask and keep playing instead of the usual knee jerk- esp since I really agreed with your slideshow. Nice work!

4. Irwin Chen | July 28, 2009 at 11:08 am

   I know we’ve gotten used to scrolling, but if you thinking about what it takes to scroll for a sec:

   * find the physical mouse
   * find the cursor
   * hold the place you were reading in your head
   * move the mouse to the scroll down button
   * aim and click
   * re-locate your place in the text
   * lather, rinse, repeat

   Or if you use the scroll wheel or trackpad scroll, it’s a bit simpler:

   * Read, then scroll the page down an arbitrary amount
   * find where you left off from before
   * adjust page if you overshot or undershot
   * repeat at random intervals

   Or if you use the space bar to page:

   * Read, then hit space bar
   * continue reading comfortably (unless the page is cutting off some text at the top)
   * Oh, and if you need to move back to review something, you need to use the scrollbar method (find the mouse, find the cursor, find the scrollback button and shuttle back)

   This is slightly better, but still somewhat irregular and interruptive.

   Using arrow keys to control the text is a more simple interaction because a) you know where the keys are at all times, and b) the reading of the text is absolutely continuous and not interrupted by having to break out of reading to deal with the interface.

   The easiest analogy is reading a text printed on paper pages.

   Keep playing with it and let me know your thoughts!

5. Darrell | July 30, 2009 at 8:46 pm

   Irwin,

   I think the issue I was having was with the limited amount of content in the demo.

   Therefore, If I remember correctly, I didn’t’ get a good feel for the utility of the UI while reading a document or article of the expected length.

   I was just looking for the demo to confirm this, but I can’t seem to find it.

   All the best,

   Darrell

6. Baris Y | September 8, 2009 at 7:01 am

   Great work,

   Just tried to demo. It did not support non-englich characters (Turkish etc). Sure this function will be added.

   Thats all for now, will try more.

   Best,

   Baris.

7. Jonathan Peterson | December 9, 2009 at 9:41 am

   readability is good and navigation fairly straightforeward. But I think you’re missing the boat by giving the articles themselves a pure text presentation. The REASON I still read paper magazines is the content design that merges photos, graphic design and writing.

   Take a look at http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-death-of-the-blog-post/ for great examples of the kind of things that we SHOULD be seeing in our on-line reading.

8. AO | December 10, 2009 at 8:11 am

   I think you tried to over-rationalize the interface. I /want/ to scroll around arbitrarily. People don’t rd evry singl letr to fnd meaning in words, nor do they read an entire article. they skim around and read a few sentences here and there, look at the illustrations, etc. The keyboard control is great, but I second Darrell’s desire for a better mousing interface.

   You’re mistaken that using the keyboard to step forward/backward in makes it a “continuous” experience akin to reading a printed page. It’s true that in a printed magazine you can’t see the page behind the one you’re looking at, but this is tolerable because most magazines can handle more than 200 odd words per page. (I’d like to be able to scale the text using my browser control, as well)

   As a user, I’d rather not be forced to click click push click/wait just to get to content nor do I enjoy motion blur effects on text (or Flash in general). Your critiques of the current online magazine format are valid, but I think it has a way to go yet.

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