Digital reader software on the computer suffers from the same ailment that cripples flash-based web sites: it invariably creates a bad user experience. Plain, quick-loading text and images is the native format online, and I think that publications vary from that at their own peril.
I had frankly hoped that The New Yorker’s digital edition was essentially a souped up version of their current web site, with full content and additional features hidden behind a paid subscription wall.
Put shortly, I think that Times Select would work rather well for a magazine.
In my mind, here are the big hurdles that the New Yorker faces in making its digital addition an attractive alternative to their paper product, or even an improvement over their existing web interface:
Speed
In my humble opinion, this might be the most important factor in a web site. Not how many colors it has, not how stylish the font is, not how many images are on the home page, but how fast it loads. Can’t get much faster than Craigslist, can you?
Try powering on a modern day video game console: the Wii, the Xbox 360, or the PlayStation 3. You’ll notice a logo on the screen almost immediately.
The reason that logo is there is because studies showed that it makes the user feel better to see something on the screen immediately, regardless of whether or not the console is any closer to being completely “on.”
People like responsiveness, and it’s going to be hard to beat a basic HTML/PHP/CSS structure on sheer speediness.
Navigation
Once again, the web has a native navigation system: if it’s part of the same article, you scroll down. If it’s a different article, you click.
Having to zoom in on a page to make the text a readable size and then having to drag the page around on the screen in order to keep reading is cumbersome and annoying.
The New Yorker reader system does link to articles in the table of contents, which is quite nice (no flipping through digital pages to get there), but that does little to make up for the inconveniences of actually reading.
It might work better if the program would “auto-scroll” to the next point on the page when scrolling on the mouse wheel, or some similar mechanism.
Lean-Back
The latest issue of the New Yorker features an article by Malcolm Gladwell about, roughly, Goldman Sachs. That’s as much as I know so far because I didn’t have the patience to page through the article while sitting (lean-forward) at my computer.
One of the key distinctions between newspaper content and magazine content, and I think one of the main reasons magazines have escaped the brunt of the change the internet creates, is that magazine content is lean-back content.
People like to read longer-form pieces that derive their value not from timeliness but from quality of thought, depth, or literature while sitting comfortably away from their desks.
I think a magazine could better spend their time and money finding a good way to deliver their content to compatible hardware like the Kindle or the new Sony Reader than trying to make the computer screen act more like paper (it’s not going to—it’s a computer screen).
All that said, I do like the complete visual presentation, I love that as a subscriber you have access to the complete New Yorker archives, and the print function is absolutely Killer.
I had fun reading the opening statement of the very first issue of the New Yorker (I think) in 1925: “The New Yorker starts with a declaration of serious purpose but with a concomitant declaration that is will not be too serious in executing it. It hopes to reflect metropolitan life, to keep up with events and affairs of the day, to be gay, humorous, satirical but to be more than a jester.”
These things, rather than the reading experience, are real the features of this service.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Jason,
Good review on the digital edition of the New Yorker… I work for a different digital magazine service company, so feel free to take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
One of the things we’ve learned in the past few years is that the digital magazine reader is different than the website reader… You’re right in that website readers want info. quick and simply. From the more than one million digital magazine readers we get each month, we’ve learned they’re looking for a brand experience. They tend to stay inside the digital magazine much longer and stay for many more pages than those inside the websites of our clients. Not because it’s a better experience, but because it’s how that particular group wants to interact with the content.
For publishers – this same format publishing allows them to count digital subscribers the same as their print. While it’s a very valid argument that circulation metrics are suspect, nevertheless they are a reality in today’s world and digital magazines help meet this requirement while saving publishers money.
RE: Navigation. One of the things we’ve found is that if you give readers lots of nav. choices, they’ll often find one that works for them and when they do, they think your nav. is great. The solution the New Yorker chose has fewer options, so I’d expect fewer readers to like it.
In general, I was surprised that the New Yorker picked this particular solution. The leading companies today index content for search engines (even if the display’s in Flash), offer RSS feeds so readers don’t miss new issues and deliver text-based experiences for readers using mobile devices, Kindles, etc…. so that the reader can self-select – to an extent – how they wish to consume the content. It’s a shame the New Yorker didn’t choose a product that does any of that.
The new breed of digital magazine readers were I believe designed primarily so that the reader would also see the advertisements as they appeared in the print version, and so could be counted in audited circulation figures and sustain ad rates.
At first I was 100% against them — just ever-so-slightly easier to navigate that a bulky PDF file — not much of a benefit.
And then I heard about readers of serious journals and business publications, particularly overseas, for whom it was a great advantage to get access to the periodical rather than waiting a month or more (in some cases) for it to appear in the mail. And they wanted to see it exactly as the print version would appear, for citations, etc. I could begin to see a similar advantage even for a consumer magazine like The New Yorker, inasmuch as some of its content is timely.
Yet at the same time I’m perfectly happy with the present online design of The New Yorker and while a longer thoughtful piece is not well-suited to reading on the screen, I believe that’s why god gave us both inexpensive laser printers and the opportunity to subscribe to the publications we enjoy.
Marcus – Those are good points. I’m not really familiar with the way most of these readers work, and I hadn’t really thought about it being a product aimed at a different market set.
As to why the New Yorker went with a limited feature set, I think it might have something to do with Keep It Simple (Stupid). There’s a lot of value in that, especially with new technology.
Thad – “that’s why god gave us both inexpensive laser printers and the opportunity to subscribe to the publications we enjoy”
yep!
Although I do think there’s value to having the option to print a New Yorker article in the way it was laid out on the actual magazine page. Sadly, what looks good on a web page rarely looks as impressive on an 8×10 piece of printer paper.
Certainly agreed that these digital mags which involve scrolling and zooming are not very usable. Worth checking out http://www.idiomag.com for a more up-to-date digital mag – all created automatically, with social media integration.