Designing for Time-Shifted Reading
A recent article says that our reading patterns with digital information have been affected by mobile devices. More and more, we are time shifting our reading away from our PCs during the day and onto mobile devices during commute times, or later at night.
Widgets like Instapaper may be tiny but their effects are huge, and it makes me wonder: What does this mean for those of us who design reading experiences?
When I look at this graph I notice that the morning provides short, focused time for taking in information. This seems well suited to two tasks in particular: "shopping" for longer pieces to read and skimming diverse topics to get a lay of the land.
The periods in the evenings that last longer are for reading the "well" of magazines, features and op-ed pieces.
In designing reading experiences for tablets and handsets, designers can look to include this context in their UIs.
Thinking back to my previous post about interactive magazines, this data seems to support the idea that readers need help keeping focus while reading in their slices of time. Our challenge is to keep the social, engaging aspects of digital media without being overly distracting. Let's help people prioritize reading and focus, and make exploration and social functionality a secondary focus. While Flipboard and Twitter are exciting and useful, they aren't publications, and this data suggests that real-time flows of data are only part of what people value.
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Jonathan Korman I've certainly become a vigorous user of Instapaper, and will actually skip an article I would otherwise read if I cannot get a single-page version of it to Instapaperize. But I find that this deferred reading behavior also makes me forget how I found an article, so I don't reference that when I blog or tweet it ... and indeed, the break between the desktop where I blog and the iPad where I read reduces my tendency to blog about things I've read.
19 January, 2011 - 17:22
millsustwo RT @Punchcut: New post "Designing for Time-Shifted Reading." @gretared notes an interesting trend and opportunity. http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:03
Lars schwarz Read on iPad, marked "read later" on 10pm... guess that Graph is right
20 January, 2011 - 14:03
welcomebrand RT @Punchcut: New post "Designing for Time-Shifted Reading." @gretared notes an interesting trend and opportunity. http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:03
Candi Interesting post and very true. I use my Instapaper like crazy but during commute or when I get home, that's when I actually read rather than skim.
20 January, 2011 - 14:05
Victor Lombardi I would like some state, please. As in, transport me back to the mental state I was in when I was last reading this: bring me to the place in the document, refresh my memory of what I read hours before, tell me how much text/time is left in this document reading.
20 January, 2011 - 14:17
litherland “What does [time-shifted reading] mean for those of us who design reading experiences?” http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:18
juanito_jugo RT @Punchcut: New post "Designing for Time-Shifted Reading." @gretared notes an interesting trend and opportunity. http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:18
VictoriaMia RT @litherland: “What does [time-shifted reading] mean for those of us who design reading experiences?” http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:18
itschowmean via Twitter
RT @litherland: “What does [time-shifted reading] mean for those of us who design reading experiences?” http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:30
threefour via Twitter
RT @Punchcut: New post "Designing for Time-Shifted Reading." @gretared notes an interesting trend and opportunity. http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:31
uciencoy via Twitter
RT @Punchcut: New post "Designing for Time-Shifted Reading." @gretared notes an interesting trend and opportunity. http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:32
dnbjorn via Twitter
RT @Punchcut: New post "Designing for Time-Shifted Reading." @gretared notes an interesting trend and opportunity. http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
20 January, 2011 - 14:39
Joe Pemberton The timing in the graph reflects my own reading patterns pretty well. In the morning I'm looking for breaking news and things I had better not miss. My lean-back reading time happens at home or on my commute — wireless enabled tablets, for the win.
I don't like Instapaper. It's too much of a bottleneck for my reading and I had to disable it on my iPhone. I find myself reading Twitter in the morning straight from the Twitter firehose and then consuming news and articles via Flipboard when I have more lean-back time.
I find Flipboard's presentation of articles a much more compelling way to browse articles, review the first paragraph and go deeper from there. My only Flipboard feature request is to make better use of Twitter's misunderstood "favorite this tweet."
20 January, 2011 - 17:49
Gretchen Anderson @Victor: what a great idea! If Save for Later saved how you'd gotten to the article in the first place. @Jonathan Korman: that might help with what you mention.
21 January, 2011 - 12:04
anothercasebot via Twitter
Posted a photo: Designing for Time-Shifted Reading | Punchcut http://caseorganic.com/1zp [Flickr]
24 January, 2011 - 12:32
nic221 via Twitter
RT @Punchcut. Designing for Time-Shifted Reading. @gretared notes an interesting trend and opportunity. http://pnch.it/dVYHPT
24 January, 2011 - 12:36
Tobias Looks like Amazon notices those reading changes as well and tries to build new content for shorter reading times on digital devices: http://www.ted.com/pages/567 #TEDbooks #Kindle #KindleSingles
29 January, 2011 - 09:31
Joe Pemberton Thanks Tobias. I knew I had heard/read somewhere that Amazon was experimenting with short and medium form content. Now I have a link.
31 January, 2011 - 17:41
urb4no via Twitter
Designing for Time-Shifted Reading | http://t.co/5an4LpE via @punchcut
7 February, 2011 - 12:15
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