I think this is a really interesting article and highlights the impact that new technology is having on the way we read. I particularly like the section 'The End of Frequency' as it brings to light questions like - what will the effect of new technology and the creation of such devices as the iPad have on the content of magazine articles?
Chris Brawn, from Sight and Sound magazine, was saying at the 'Sight & Sound. We made this' lecture, that their magazine is renowned for it's lengthy articles. With the immediacy of the web and the ability to update pages not just daily, but hourly or even by the minute, what affect will this have on the written content of articles? If there is less time to produce the content for an article will this reduce the length, and depth that an article might go into?
I mentioned in our meeting last week that the evident change in the way that we read has even been picked up on by Khoi Vinh (design director) and Andre Behrens (software developer) of The New York Times with the launch of the Times Skimmer.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/current-issue/skim-reading (Apologies this isn't the full article but gives you a basic synopsis of the article that I read the February issue of Creative Review, which is available in our library at uni).
The basic principles of the Skimmer is that it is a page presenting a selection of stories from each section of the paper in a simple grid layout, which the reader, or user (as the creators refer to it), can scan across to get a taste of the stories within the magazine.
I feel that this highlights one of the points made by Nicholas Carr in 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?', that the internet is 'chipping away' at our concentration, and the idea that 'the more we use the Web, the more [we] have to fight to stay focussed on long pieces of writing'.
The Times Skimmer, therefore, seems to address this by creating an alternate way of reading the paper online. This could be said to be a direct result of their understanding of the changing reading methods of the user, reflecting the way that they scan short passages of text.
Even the design of the page seems to address the users need for easy to digest information by providing all the stories in a simple grid layout. Andre Behrens states "It's why the grid is so regular: I wanted to have easy two dimensional scanning." So it would appear that the change in the way that we read is even affecting the way that we design.
1 comment:
I think this is a really interesting article and highlights the impact that new technology is having on the way we read. I particularly like the section 'The End of Frequency' as it brings to light questions like - what will the effect of new technology and the creation of such devices as the iPad have on the content of magazine articles?
Chris Brawn, from Sight and Sound magazine, was saying at the 'Sight & Sound. We made this' lecture, that their magazine is renowned for it's lengthy articles. With the immediacy of the web and the ability to update pages not just daily, but hourly or even by the minute, what affect will this have on the written content of articles? If there is less time to produce the content for an article will this reduce the length, and depth that an article might go into?
I mentioned in our meeting last week that the evident change in the way that we read has even been picked up on by Khoi Vinh (design director) and Andre Behrens (software developer) of The New York Times with the launch of the Times Skimmer.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/current-issue/skim-reading
(Apologies this isn't the full article but gives you a basic synopsis of the article that I read the February issue of Creative Review, which is available in our library at uni).
The basic principles of the Skimmer is that it is a page presenting a selection of stories from each section of the paper in a simple grid layout, which the reader, or user (as the creators refer to it), can scan across to get a taste of the stories within the magazine.
I feel that this highlights one of the points made by Nicholas Carr in 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?', that the internet is 'chipping away' at our concentration, and the idea that 'the more we use the Web, the more [we] have to fight to stay focussed on long pieces of writing'.
The Times Skimmer, therefore, seems to address this by creating an alternate way of reading the paper online. This could be said to be a direct result of their understanding of the changing reading methods of the user, reflecting the way that they scan short passages of text.
Even the design of the page seems to address the users need for easy to digest information by providing all the stories in a simple grid layout. Andre Behrens states "It's why the grid is so regular: I wanted to have easy two dimensional scanning." So it would appear that the change in the way that we read is even affecting the way that we design.
Post a Comment