What about digital lifestyle magazines?

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Permalink Reply by Marcus on April 16, 2009 at 5:06pm

Hi Chris,

The Flash animation is done very well, in my opinion. It's elegant and guides the reader. I also think the font styles and sizes are great, too. In short, much of the design is excellent.

Interface-wise, though - there are some things I think could be done better:

1) You have four sponsors in the Basics edition, but their logos don't show up until the back cover. They could've appeared earlier in the animation or even in the screen around the magazine.
2) Because my cursor changes when hovering above the logos, I knew they were hot linked, but some readers might not, particularly because there are no other website links earlier in the book.
3) The URL doesn't change when I turn the page of the magazine and there's no other way to share specific content, so there's very little social media "hooks" in the piece.
4) The music is cute, but does it serve a purpose? Also, you tell people to turn it off when they click on the video so in addition to not really serving a purpose, it gets in the way of that.
5) I don't know if the content is indexed by Google, but it should be.
6) Also not sure what type of metrics you can provide to your advertisers. For instance, you've got specific product lines in here -- can they tell what people were interested in reading about?
7) The video loaded slow for me. Is it streaming? It should be.
8) There's only 1 call to subscribe to the magazine and - like the logos - it's only on the back cover. There's a high reliance on readers to get to the back cover of this and I'd think about ways I can put key call to actions earlier in the content or - ideally - around the content.

I think the form of the pieces are great. Most of my comments are about the function.

Marcus Grimm
Marketing Director
Nxtbook Media

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Permalink Reply by Joe Arcuri on April 17, 2009 at 8:40am

I agree with Marcus on the points below, from a design perspective, I am curious to what you used to create it? I have been struggling with a few products that don't render flash very well. I love the simplicity and elegance of it.

I would recommend some sort of contact form, a way for your readers to offer feedback.

nice job.

Joe Arcuri
Managing Art Director
McMurry, Inc.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Bosher on May 12, 2009 at 8:38pm

Hi Chris:

Love the concepts, especially as a female!!
Just some thoughts for you:

From an internet marketing perspective, I have found that Flash can actually inhibit interactivity and is not as easy to track user clickthrough as a html website. It really depends on what you are trying to achieve with these publications.

I second the comments about the music - I find it distracting; plus as many people use their computer to play music or watch videos, it is very annoying when all of a sudden music starts playing and then you have to scramble to find the button to turn it off.

The basics of the site are intuitive and clear, which is good; but if the content is free, why not offer sections as printable or a downloadable pdf? You could use it in many ways to benefit the publishing side of the business.

Would be very intrigued to find out more about the thought process behind the decision to launch as digital magazines vs an actual website...

Sandra Bosher
Bespoke Caribbean Ltd

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