3-5 words per line, just to make it look like paper? No NYT, this is NOT how it's done

I just saw mattnolker’s comment. I haven’t been able to use the FT app much, because it requires a subscription, but from what I’ve seen, I think they get a lot right.

@iA:

Enjoyed the discussion a lot.

Likewise.

I don't understand why holding the iPad with one hand (unusual, way too heavy) is seen as a critical form of interacting with the iPad

One case where I often need to interact with the iPad with one hand is when I'm reading in bed, before going to sleep. Finding a comfortable position sometimes means that only one hand can easily reach the iPad. Another situation is when I read for a longer time. As you point out, the iPad can become a bit heavy, so I tend to hold it with both hands, which means I can only use my thumbs to easily interact with it. This makes the more sweeping gestures required for scrolling a bit harder.

I want to add one final point: When deciding between scrolling and pagination, it's pretty easy to create simple prototypes, and do some basic usability tests with them. Even somewhat larger A/B tests could be done without much investment. So if you have the choice between the two, instead of going with anyone's opinion on this, I would recommend that people implement prototypes of their apps, do some tests, and see what works better for their particular situation.

@Oliver

If you ever do, do us screen designers a favor and don't tell them some baloney about how 500MB PNG slideshows "make a lot of sense" when designing for different (semimobile!) platforms. It never makes sense. That's just plain bullshit.

If your objective was to achieve precise design parity for a digital magazine, across multiple devices, what other implementation technology would you have chosen, than static slides?

I don't see the interacting with one hand situation (bed) [no pun intended :) ] as a particular problem for scrolling. In contrary. We are all particularly used to scrolling with one hand.

The problem occurs when you are holding the device upright with the one hand you have available, at which point you're forced to scroll with your nose :)

@Oliver

With the exception of your opinion on page vs scroll navigation (I think paging is just fine when you know the precise dimensions of the window), I'm otherwise in agreement with you on the *consequences* of WIRED's approach. The app is less readable than it otherwise could be. Its less accessible. In over-stretching for interactivity, they've introduced some UI confusion here and there. For the most part, these are self-evident to those of us working in this industry.

What sits wrongly with me, is with your authoritative assertion that WIRED are simply *wrong*; that their approach is "total bullshit". Such an absolutist view, to me, reflects a lack of appreciation (or awareness) that products are produced within a process of trade-offs, that must consider both objectives and constraints.

Having experience with the technologies involved, I can certainly understand the rationale behind WIRED's approach — especially as a first step into these waters. It is time and cost effective. It allows them to relatively easily achieve design parity across platforms (which is important to them). The user experience is lacking in areas, but if you survey the popular reviews, it's by no means a failure.

All that said, and, again, as somebody also operating a business in this industry and preparing products for the iPad/iPhone, I certainly share the feeling of disappointment experiencing the WIRED app, when imagining what products like this could be.

@Oliver,

I didn't mean for my comments to sound like a personal attack, and I hope they weren't interpreted that way.

Having followed your work and looking at some of the personal choices you've made, I'm pretty sure there's a tremendous amount of overlap in what we both care about — including doing good work, and having fun!

I don't really get your argument against InDesign (more so in your blog post than here, but I'm not going to reply to that on Twitter!), besides that they're exporting PNGs instead PDFs or HTML from it. It has everything any other tool would have for laying out text and images. It is no less designed for making iPad magazines than Photoshop was for making websites (arguments for using Fireworks or ImageReady aside...).

Your illustrations on how things look in InDesign vs the iPad are assuming that the designer is looking at things on one zoom level and not accurately trying to predict how it'll really look on the final device. Just like you were able to eyeball the final iPad result in your blog post, someone can do the same thing by zooming out, printing things out, previewing their designs on an iPad, making adjustments, previewing on the iPad again.

This is a problem print designers deal with all the time (predicting how a high-res image will look on a small piece of paper) and the same for web designers (predicting how things will look on smaller monitors or a mobile site on an iPhone, at different resolutions). No tool is perfect for making these predictions, but as long as the designer is aware of what will happen when transferring from one device to the other, and makes those adjustments, then they'll be able to use these tools to make the right product.

(Note: I'm a web developer/designer, side with Apple on the Flash on iPhone argument, but feel compelled to come to Adobe's defense here.)

I should have mentioned that the Financial Times app is currently free until (I think) July 31st if anyone is curious.

@iA: As always, you raise some good points.

1. I don't understand why holding the iPad with one hand (unusual, way too heavy) is seen as a critical form of interacting with the iPad. Do you use it while driving? ;-)

Bicycling, of course :-) Actually, as mentioned, I'm forced to use it one-handed while on the train daily. However, more to the point... I'm imagining delivery truck drivers (UPS here in the states) who frequently juggle parcels in one hand and a tablet in another. Or medical staff, who might enter information on a tablet while holding instruments or paper charts in the other. I have don't doubt that one handed interaction represents a minority of iPad use. However, based on past projects I suspect it will be quite common for the users of at least some applications.

2. I disagree that swiping is easier than scrolling. It requires you to look at where you put your finger, it is a more complex form of interaction: Observing people usng the iPad again and again you see them struggling with the swipe. Especially if you have two swipe axis as you easily get the wrong axis.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. I concede that swiping might be harder to discover than scrolling. But not by much. I haven't seen user struggle with the swipe yet, but perhaps I will. I do see your point about the problems with swipe in multiple axis. It's a much more irrevocable act than a small scroll. However, that same characteristic (small swipe yields a large movement of content) also make swiping a more efficient movement. I agree this has it's drawbacks, and you've mentioned several. However, I'm limiting my point to one-handed operation. In this situation, efficiency of movement becomes a more significant concern. Perhaps paramount, although I am far from confident of that.

a) It creates typographic problems with shorter texts within modular automated designs (as inevitable with digital newspapers).
b) You can't tell the author to write to the page; some people need bigger font sizes and the device turns which trashes every layout. Of course you don't have that problem if you use flat files, but very few think that this is real screen design.

Having designed a bespoke web publishing system for a very large U.S. newspaper chain, I can assure you these problems also exist when using a scroll-based layout.

c) Complex, dense, slow texts, as in Philosophical texts, benefit from having seamless movement: If you read the Critique of the Pure Reason with the necessary sluggish tempo, it is helpful to have the surrounding text of the sentence you read always in sight.

I'd never considered this before, but think it's a very compelling point that extends to any complex and dense material where context is vital to understanding. I've been struggling recently to simplify some highly complex and confusing financial forms. Although I hadn't articulated it this way, my users are facing a very similar issue.

Your technicals points are correct, of course. At least for the web, which I know better than Cocoa. Prior to html5, dynamic multi-column layouts required JavaScript and were quite fragile and expensive to build. Now it's trivial, so long as supporting all browsers is not a goal. And that problem will fade too. Which brings me to a question: is your objection to column layouts on the iPad due to the limitations in their current implementation (e.g. no hyphenation) or a quarrel with column layouts in general? Someday (perhaps soon) robust multi-column support will arrive. Do you think that will change your mind in any significant way?

Lots of thoughtful discussions of theory here (so I won't repeat that). I'll instead focus on something else:

I read the NY Times Editors Choice app almost every day. I find it easy and comfortable to read. I can scan articles quickly thanks to those short line lengths, yet they're perfectly comfortable for reading slowly and thoughtfully as well. It does this while retaining the classic feel of the New York Times -- in other words, while maintaining the brand and expressing it well in a new medium.

Regardless of whether the NYT Editor's Choice app breaks someone's favorite rules, the fact is that for many users it is delivering an excellent user experience.

Finally, regarding legibility, don't forget to consider pixel density when you look at the Original Size view of this screenshot. The iPad has a 132 dpi display. On my desk is a 20" iMac 1680x1050, a mere 99dpi, and a Dell 23" 2048x1152 display, barely larger at 102dpi. The screenshot looks awful on these screens, but quite reasonable on my iPad.

Just some food for thought. Cheers!

One usability issue I've been experiencing, which hopefully developers of content apps for the iPad — like WIRED and Kindle — will begin to address, is a more obvious navigation to the home screen.

When these apps remove *all* navigation controls from the UI while reading, I often find myself accidentally clicking the *iPad's* home button, when my intention is to go to the *app's* home screen.

"One usability issue I've been experiencing, which hopefully developers of content apps for the iPad — like WIRED and Kindle — will begin to address, is a more obvious navigation to the home screen."

The FT app handles that very well too. They have a big button all along the left side (Fitt’s Law!) that takes you back to the home screen.

I’ve been playing with it more since reading this discussion, and all in all, I would describe the FT app as the best reading experience on the iPad today. I think it would be useful if future versions of this conversation started with the FT app as the target to be improved by criticism. The main things that come to mind for me are better web integration (how do I share excerpts from these articles on my blog?) and the splash screen is silly.

Noe that "home" on the iPad works differently from "home" on the computer screen.

What do you mean by "home" on the computer screen?

When I refer to "home" on the iPad, I'm referring to the screen that contains my applications, and where I land when I click the iPad's home button. When I refer to "home" *within an application on the iPad* -- like WIRED or Kindle — I'm referring to the app's home screen. In the case of the Kindle, it's the screen where my books are displayed.

The usability issue I referred to is that since apps like WIRED and Kindle remove all navigation controls while the user is in read-mode. And in that mode, when I want to return to the *app's* home screen, I keep instinctively hitting the *iPad's* home screen, and leaving the application altogether.

These apps require you to tap somewhere on the screen in order to reveal the navigation controls. But this is problematic, since the user isn't *really* sure *where* to tap. This is especially the case in the Kindle app, since clicking sort of in the right place, but not quite, will move you off to the next *reading* screen (the page-tap navigation).

And this becomes particularly thorny when conventions aren't established — Kindle may want you to click in the middle of the screen to reveal the controls, while iBooks wants you to click at the top.