When you are designing eBooks for publication as PDF’s there are some classic design styles. The important thing to appreciate is what readers now want in terms of their User Interface (UI) or to be more specific these days their User eXperience (UX). User experience is a person’s emotions and attitudes towards the use of an eBook interface. Expectations have changed and they are still changing. Technology is changing the way users interact with these interfaces. One of the most significant changes has been the adoption of Gesture Controls (eg Scroll, Pinch, Tap, Hold etc) through touchscreen devices like the Smartphone, Tablet and PC’s with touchscreen. Social Media applications very quickly capitalised on these touchscreen Gesture Control capabilities and they set user expectations.
The scrolling through posts on Facebook with the
inclusion of multi-media with pictures, photographs, video and sound all within
a post or easily launched from a post established what has become a de facto
standard in terms of User Experience. (UX). It does not take much imagination
to appreciate that is how readers would now want their eBook content delivered.
Although you have to establish a boundary between fiction (total immersion) and
nonfiction (partial immersion). Fiction remains highly narrative and non-visual
with the reader just totally absorbed in consuming the text. Nonfiction
establishes different balances between the narrative and the visual images
really dependant on the genre and subject matter. Getting this balance between
narrative and imagery becomes critical to controlling the reader’s emotional
engagement. Some nonfiction maybe image lead with minimum narrative support
whilst in other cases the narrative it longer but supported by a relevant
image.
For the author planning and organising content to support
an excellent user experience becomes an important part of authorship which in fact
moves more towards the film or video editing style of creation. In many
nonfiction books the standardisation of the “posts”,being the book pages, defines the required consistency in meeting user expectations. The inclusion of an image in each of
these posts further reinforces user experience by meeting a consistently
defined expectation. It is difficult to put into words how the reader gets a
warm experience brought about by consistency. It is brought about by things
happening the way you, the reader, expected them to happen without any uncharted surprises.
You expect to see on each page the things you have expected from experience to see on a page.
You have been programmed or conditioned to expect things a certain way. When they
come out that way it ticks the “comfortable” box in the emotional part of your
brain.
Now moving from individual pages to the overall flow of
the eBook. You cannot beat chronological or geographical. In the history genre
the dates of events. In geographical the points along a route or river. The
establishment of a mind map in the consciousness of the reader. So the reader always knows where they are at and where they are going. Giving them a sense of direction.
Any branches off need to be clearly identified along with the later return to the
main thought path. Every effort has to be made to keep your reader on a logical
path of expectation.
Now I know you probably have no interest in the American
X-Vehicles but this PDF is presented to you below not so you learn about this content subject but so you get to appreciate an excellent PDF UX. Although as with everything the content may stimulate your though processes
in new ways. Its purpose is to get you to experience this particular style of PDF UX.
It communicates so much content in a structured and effective way. In this case
the Research Designation (X-1, X-2 etc) has been chronologically applied so it
reinforces the flow through the book. The concise tagged data (eg First Flight,
Last Flight etc) on each page gives you the reader consistency in terms of the
data provided on each page. The image which is normally a photograph really engages you with
the subject. Even the text tagged to the photograph is consistently concise but being presented in an italic font it differentiates itself from the larger narrative text. Finally the narrative is concise but gives you the reader the
right contextual background. It is a classic case where “precise text generates more effective comprehension”
in that the experience is never jaded by making you face too much narrative. The
skill of the authors lay in deciding what to leave out and to that end giving them
fixed data tags, a photograph, photo tagged text and narrative limited by word count constrained
them to a fixed structure and textural conciseness.
Now this post is not about this specific book on American
X-Vehicles. It is about how the PDF has formed a defined container for this
information. I call this a particular type of PDF Container. The container
creates the user experience (UX) and this could be applied to any content. So
this could be the bridges over the River Severn from source to sea adopting a geographical
flow through the book. It could be the Kings and Queens of England through
history. It could be the life of an English Village through the ages. It could
be the evolution of the research into the Domesday Book. It could be a feature (eg estuaries) within a geographical county presented in a clockwise orientation around the coast. It is about establishing in the reader a spatial mindset that they engage mentally as a backdrop to support their navigation the content. They know where they have been and where they are going in terms of spatial aweareness. So as a PDF Container it
can be applied to any subject matter.
The other important aspect about this type of PDF
Container is it creates a very different type of user experience (UX) to that
offered by a website. Importantly it could be described as “functionally poor”
as a website would be “functionally rich”. Now as a reader I believe being “functionally
poor” is a good thing. I am left to mentally immerse myself in the content
which can consume my consciousness without me having to stop and worry about “the
next step”. The other big advantage is it as a downloaded file it is divorced
from the inconsistencies of network dependencies. None of the frustrations of streamed
content. The user experience (UX) benefits from it offering me the reader a
consistent behaviour. It’s a predictable digital resource.
So now take a look at this PDF Container. Hopefully it
creates a good User Experience for you. In fact although published back in June
2003 it emulates exactly the current Social Media user experience (UX) paradigm.
Scroll, picture, text, scroll picture,
text and so forth. Currently the most popular accepted and effective way of
communicating information into your consciousness.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Khliht9xBHLu25H2ctZA6MhxPHY9sdNQ/view?usp=sharing
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