Killer Digital Reading Experiences Paul Dawson Conchango

who am i?

Well, you already know… This is also the last session – so I want to keep it short!

so for now

i run user experience at Conchango

and for the last year we have been working with Microsoft’s advanced reading technologies and WPF for one of the world’s largest daily newspapers

and this is the first time I’ve been to Hungary! does anyone know a nice restaurant near Andrassy Hotel?

Today’s session  The Science  How do users behave with content on screen today?  What are some key problems?  What are the elements and principles driving a highly usable and effective content experience?  The Business  What are the key business considerations / challenges of an onscreen content experience?  What is the real-world results of the Times Reader beta and how does that relate to the Web and Print products?  What is needed to increase revenue for content and how do ads and subscriptions factor in?  The Art  How can designers target multiple resolutions and screen sizes and provide a great experience?  How can design balance differentiation with usability?

 Since Gutenberg, print has reigned  Long established ecosystem for creating and consuming content for print  But the current user experience took a few thousand years to evolve  Some principles are timeless  Some things willl be abandoned Scriptio Continua ALARGENUMBEROFUSARENOTAWAKEYETMAKINGITPARTICULARLYDIFFICULTTOREADTHIS.

Still early, user experience is in its infancy. New forms, models and workflows emerging Aggregated content / Mashups Integrated text, audio, video e.g. Textbook becomes “learning experience” Design adapted to screen New business models

 Workflow & Design  Publishing to the screen  May or may not have a print analog  Hardware  Higher resolution screens on the way  Handheld devices surf the Web, hold books, newspapers, magazines  Devices are getting smaller, lighter, faster, clearer, cheaper, hold more…  Internet/Intranet delivery system  Sometimes with rights protection for content  Software  Layout, Typography, Text, Media

 Users snacking on RSS, Search, News Portals  Low page views (3-5)  Short user sessions What is driving these stats?Can these be improved?

“I don’t know why I bother going full screen!”

“Why did I go for that display upgrade?”

not a good option

 Experience should hold up on small and large screens  Practically, can’t require completely new workflow and design for each screen  "Fluid Design“  So what do we get today?

So what should it be like?  First – the current experience  Second – what it should be like!  Third – in Japanese!

 Putting “Science” into Reading Ux  WPF was built with reading and rich content experiences in mind:  ClearType  Flow Layout  Templates  Typography  Dynamic Hyphenation, Optimal Paragraph  Figures, Floaters, Headers, Footers  Integration of UI, Media, Content

Advanced Layout  Pagination  Columns  Figures, floaters, drop caps, etc  Reflow Text  Optimal paragraph, Hyphenation, Justification  Typography and Display  New fonts  Sub-pixel clear type Reading Controls  Single Page Paginated, Two-Page (Book) Paginated, and Traditional Web (Bottomless), Fixed views  Zoom capability  Annotations support built in (highlight, sticky note, ink)

How do we reach users everywhere?  Synchronisation  Get content whilst online – read it offline, or online, it’s your choice  Why does this work well? 1.stable syncing method works in background 2.reaches commuting users (out of range) 3.allows asynchronous download of large rich media files 4.works well for non-broadband connections

 Great Content – of course!  Create a Delightful Experience  Leverage the Brand  Reach Users Wherever They Are  Personalise  Monetise  Keep Users Coming Back

 Effortless Navigation – Lean In and Lean Back  No visual discontinuities  Provide Context  Readability  Robust Connectivity

 User Control & Personalization  RSS integrationNotifications  Search and Data Visualization  Desktop Integration  Community

So let’s look at who’s doing this Daily Mail (UK) Circulation – 2.5 million daily New York Times (US) Circulation – 1.6 million daily

 ubiquity: all of our participants saved and shared encountered information; about 40% of the total examples we collected were about sharing.  content importance: personal saving was more likely to be information- centric than sharing was.  personal v. shared: for some, saving the material for themselves was more compelling; for some, sharing was.

number of unique visitors X frequency they visit you during a given period X the amount of pages viewed per visit X the rate per page

 Users can easily ignore most Web ads  Users dislike busy ads  User control is very important  Full-Page ads are easier to ignore, skip  Ads should say what they're about quickly  Animated ads should be "smart" on subsequent views  Interactive ads can be very effective (ads as content)

 Integrated as content  Unobtrusive  Perception of user control  Rich and high fidelity  Larger  Targeted  Online and offline

Let’s look at how they work… The Ad Viewer

what has Microsoft got to offer today?

The Commercial Publishing Software Development Kit (SDK)

What does that mean? Full sample & source for building rich content experiences

how do content feeds work? I got someone to draw me a picture (I do design, so this might be very short!)

<Border Width="400" BorderBrush="Green" BorderThickness="9"> Hello Formats: WMV, MPEG, Some AVIs Can be synchronized with animations Windows Media Foundation used to instantiate playback machinery into a DirectShow graph

How does Conchango see the future with WPF? “You” (it’s a magazine!)

thank you And follow ‘Daily Mail’ tags