John Travers

In a spot of recklessness a few months ago I subscribed to Technology Review, an apparently good quality US magazine. They had an article that looked very impressive on the one laptop per child initiative. The attraction of the magazine was not just its content, but that I could subscribe for a year for only $24US and get an exact copy online via the Zinio reader software.

Well, the content is very impressive, well over my head in terms of science, but beautifully presented and a great way, to keep up to date with innovation in technology across the broad range of science and technology.

But what about the facsimile experience? Zinio reader is very polished and presents the magazine in its exact paper format, down to the little subscription insert between pages. Navigation is either by mouse or cursor keys. The standard view is the two page spread [see image] where headlines and the general content can be read, and with one click, it zooms into wherever you click to the readable format. The trouble is that the magazine is in columns, and so you read the top of the left column , then jump down to see the lower part of the column, then jump up to see the top of column two, and so on. It is all a bit silly. A format that works well in a magazine or newspaper, where you eye readily does the ‘jumping’, is not effective on a computer screen – unless of course you can turn your laptop sideways and view the page in its ‘natural’ portrait format.

So I visited the Technology Review website, and lo and behold, the entire magazine content is there in regular web format, and I must say, I find it much easier to use. While the web format magazine lacks the cleanness and full screen display of the Zinio edition, it is a lot more ‘natural’ to the experienced web user. Navigation is simple, bookmarking is easy, and it connects naturally, that word again, to other web tools.

So my conclusion from this experience and from a short experiment with reading the New York Times in its print layout on a computer is that it is futile for web publishing to mimic print display. Each medium should stick to its own advantages.