snowblizz:
Like zobo1942 I think the text may be a tad large.
Thommy H:
Yeah, it’s not going to be that size in the end, is it? Because you might want to call it “Learn To Read With Hashut” or something if so.
Nicodemus:
It was rather large. I’m not sure we need to worry about readability for the whole thing on portable devices that much (if that’s the intent here). By and large, most of them have good scrolling and zooming functions anyway, and some parts of WoH, like rules and hobby articles, would have much lower word counts unless we significantly increased the page count.
Thommy H:
The content I submitted is certainly based on 12-point text anyway, and by its nature it’s kind of fixed.
Hashut’s Blessing:
Thinking about it, the text is actually quite a bit too large, but the zoom on the page is certainly welcomed. Try dropping it to size 12, if it’s too small, 14 should be fine.
Xander:
I am trying to find a happy medium where you can read the magazine without zooming or scrolling. You shouldn’t have to squint or hunch forward in your chair to read the magazine.
In my submission, WoH, up until now, has been very difficult to read without a lot of extraneous zooming, scrolling and squinting.
I’ll definitely try some more font sizes.
Some food for thought:
16 Pixels Font Size: For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake — Smashing Magazine
snowblizz:
Please don’t try to monitor our monitors… Ha!
Point being there is no way you can eliminate zooming and scrolling. We all have so different screens, resolutions etc. Can’t make everyone happy.
Xander:
You can always eliminate zooming. Also, I am not talking about zooming to “fit” the screen, I am talking about zooming within a single page to make the text easier to read.
1024x768 is an easy standard to expect. Most monitors could do that as a two page spread for 2048x768. 1024x768 is also the iPad resolution.
Thommy H:
Size 12 is comfortable to view if the width of the page is visible - if you’re looking at the whole page it won’t be, but why would anyone be viewing it like that?
Here’s the thing: the more we get into web usability debates, the more we have to ask why we even bother with a faux-magazine format! Where do you draw the line between “this looks best on a monitor” and “this isn’t a webzine any more”? There is a prestige in making something look like a physical publication though, and if we sacrifice that in the name of usability then we might as well just have quarterly content compilations on the main site.
Not that that would be a bad thing, necessarily, it would just be a different way of doing things.
Xander:
I agree with that perspective to some extent. I have flirted with the idea of some kind of web-format instead of PDFs, but I don’t think we’re quite ready for that. The line I am trying to toe is the “new media” tablet/magazine style and the old style faux-magazine format.
I definitely want to up the font size to something a lot more readable. But perhaps I will see how I can balance that with a 2 column format. I am still experimenting. That’s why I have started a few threads on this topic.
Thanks for all the feedback.
Thommy H:
One of the things I really like about the 'zine format as opposed to web-optimised content is the way that it lends itself to the inclusion of pictures and other graphical content. I’ve spent quite some time poring over previous WoHs to get hold of all the awesome artwork and I think we’d lose that if we went to a different format. And, as I say, there’s prestige in producing something that looks like a real thing.
I don’t want to get too far into web-optimisation philosophy, but it’s very silly how wedded we still are to facsimiles of print formats - a webpage gives you an infinite canvas to play with, so restricting yourself to an nominal A4 “sheet of paper” is absurd. But, and this is especially true with Warhammer, the standard form is print, so if you want it to look “real” that’s what you have to mimic! One of my submissions for this issue is indelibly wedded to the format, for example, because of the way GW chose to do their Scrolls of Binding in SoM.
zobo1942:
You’re right when you talk about restricting the layout to be set up like a traditional print-based magazine being kind of crazy - especially since the results of the poll above clearly show that ‘on-screen’ is the way the vast majority of readers enjoy the magazine.
I tried looking at print-like content once a smartphone, and it was a disaster. I can’t understand why anyone would want to format something optimized to that format. Regardless of resolution, the screen is just too damn small to make it enjoyable. An iPad has easy zoom and pan around features, so any would be ‘page size’ could work in that format. I have an android pad with a 7" screen, and even that can be difficult to enjoy reading something on - my wife’s iPad2 makes it look like a clock radio I purchased from a vending machine.
Creating the magazine to be ‘new media’ friendly - like an ebook format, or similar - would be cool, but honestly, would be a pain in the butt to do properly… and honestly, seems like more trouble than it would be worth, given the results of the poll.
Interesting ideas, although I still think a pdf with a ‘page size’ which scales proportionally to fit a widescreen (or standard, even) monitor would be the most ‘reader friendly layout’ - as it could still print well (for those that print it), and would maximize the viewable page area on most screens or devices.
EDIT: spelling
Nicodemus:
What about a test version just to see how it goes? Wait until issue #11 is done and published to CDO, then strip out everything but the bare essentials, some rules, a few images of artwork, but not the full content… just teasers for everything. Call it WoH Lite or similar, and play up the fact that its smaller file size and format are optimized for portable devices. Then again, I’d be inclined to just get the full thing anyway, even if I was stuck with just my iPod for 24 hrs or something.
zobo1942:
I was messing around with InDesign a bit earlier today. This is kind of the idea I mean as far as single landscape pages… kind of faux-spreads which could be scaled to the viewer’s monitor size. It should open full screen, but if it doesn’t just hit a 
Anyhoo - just a thought.
zobo1942:
You know, one thing that InDesign 5(.5?) can do is export to flash, in which you could add lots of eye candy. However, that would leave the iPad users unable to enjoy it.
I thought that a pdf with internal links and page actions might be an interesting solution (cross platform, easy to create, etc…), but I can’t seem to find a pdf reader for the ipad which will recognize links which you define (ie. so you could ‘tap’ on a Table of contents section and jump to that part of the ‘ezine’, etc…)
By the way - has there been any progress on the next issue?
EDIT: links don’t even work in the official ‘Acrobat Reader’ for iOS. Silly!