After reviewing the Pulse new aggregation app, I reviewed the New York Times’s 2012 Election app. The review was done on an Android device that ran Gingerbread 2.3.4. The device also had a qHD display (960×540).
What was interesting about this application is how the paywall was implemented. I would be curious to find out how many people subscribed (I eventually did) vs. casual users. Anyway, here’s the review that was done May of 2012.
I had a wonderful time reading the a New York Times Magazine article this weekend. It talks about how language usage among bloggers, and perhaps the internet, may have been inspired by David Foster Wallace. It also riffs on the sort of writing that promotes likability at the expense of un-popular specificity. For example:
Qualifications are necessary sometimes. Anticipating and defusing opposing arguments has been a vital rhetorical strategy since at least the days of Aristotle. Satire and ridicule, when done well, are high art. But the idea is to provoke and persuade, not to soothe. And the best way to make an argument is to make it, straightforwardly, honestly, passionately, without regard to whether people will like you afterward.
It’s called Another Thing to Sort of Pin on David Foster Wallace. Enjoy.
The good folks of Google’s Reader product recently released an experimental feature called Play. Play has a few nice features and the experience of using it is very different from any other app offered by Google. This feature seems like an application that was designed for the so-called Google tablet. Building on the tablet idea, one can easily add gesture/touch handlers, which would enhance the experience of using this feature.
There are some design designs that need to be revisited though. For instance, all of the text that appears below the content well is centered, which just doesn’t fee right. Also, the number of words on a singe line spans the entire page, which is not very usable. While I’m fine with the dark colors, it’s a little jarring because I normally associate Google with a very bright and colorful ascetic. Wonder what led to a departure from the consistent look and feel we’re used to. Anyway, give it a try.
As this story points out, the New York Times has decided to implement a subscription plan for the more devoted visitors of their website. There are obviously pros and cons associated with this plan, but, generally, I think it is a step in the right direction.
Consumers of news will have to make a direct investment into the content, it’s production and, most importantly, the role it plays our society. Practically speaking, the user interactions (e.g. posting comments) will now benefit from one’s motivation to invest. Leveraging this motivation, from an interaction design perspective, would be really interesting.
Google Labs partnered with the New York Times and the Washington Post to produce a new way of experiencing news. Their prototype is pretty interesting. A few of my professors have long talked about a similar method of representing news content. I suspect this will be a growing research area.
This is a cool project. There is a very strong grid that looks like a table and it almost feels as if you’re looking at a sleek newspaper (perhaps one designed for a tablet?). There is a good balance between the list structure and the news items. I’m a little torn about the navigation appearing on the right hand side of the page. It seems like a hold over from the current site, which has a massive left hand navigation. I really like the overall approach taken here.
