This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, April 22.
TAKEAWAY: It is a conversation that should never be missing from media conferences, seminars, and college communication classes: how does reading on screens differ from reading on paper? A Scientific American article summarizes the issue and supports it with splendid research on this new topic. Read about it here as I touch upon the main themes of the piece. Part Four: In this last installment in the series: Telling stories is not just about text, or about one platform
This is a continuation of our conversation, started in this blog Tuesday, and inspired by a Scientific American article about the differences we experience reading on paper as opposed to on a screen surface.
Towards the end of the Scientific American piece, the writes states that:
…….text is not the only way to read.
Ironically, this is at the heart of what I believe is the core of any discussion of reading in print versus screen.
And, ironically, this is also not a new notion developed in the present, as we seek ways to accommodate reading patterns for more than one platform.
For decades, we have mentioned exactly that: text is not the only way to read. At The Poynter Institute and the American Press Institute seminars since the 1980s, we have admonished editors and designers to seek different ways to tell a story.
With the information graphics boom of the 1980s came a wave of visual storytelling via maps, charts, graphs, super graphics (remember the first Gulf War?). One major news event after another, from the Shuttle Explosion to various Olympic events, to the infamous 9-11 terrorist attack, we have seen artists, designers and journalists joining forces to tell stories with images, not just headlines and stories.
Of course, way before that we have been telling stories via photographs.
Today, with the media quartet in full bloom, growing, expanding and taking hold, we definitely know that text is not the only way to tell a story. We want to read, but we also want to see, we want to listen, we want to touch. We expect surprises and we are happy when we get them.
As a reader, I like that I can take to my New York Times tablet edition sitting in Prague, and I can easily see a short video clip of an opening scene from the new Nathan Lane Broadway show, The Nance. Print alone could not provide me with that experience. Not to mention the theater reporter’s interview with Mr. Lane, of of my favorite theater actors.
But print is all I need to get updated on the sad story of the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon. The horrific photos in that print edition suffice.
I am typical of your multi platform reader, enjoying each, not planning to give up any, and looking forward to the next yet to be invented platform, hoping that I am still around to discover it.
The importance of that reading experience
William Powers, author of Hamlet’s BlackBerry, with whom I exchange ideas often on this very fascinating topic, also read the Scientific American article that has inspired these blog posts and wrote me this note:
The Scientific American story gives a nice overview of the research about reading on screen versus paper. I’m amazed this question doesn’t figure more in the conversation about the future of media. You know that elusive business model journalists and book publishers are desperately searching for? The solution is tied directly to this question. We need to be more thoughtful about the reading experience. We should acknowledge that today’s digital readers are in many ways quite primitive compared to paper, and don’t serve all of our needs.
Toward the end of the piece, Scientific American seems to be inching toward the same conclusion I reached in the essay Hamlet’s Blackberry, that screens are striving to become paper, so the two media are experientially indistinguishable. I really think that’s where we are headed, and that we’ll eventually get there. Paper was a brilliant innovation and we still have a lot to learn from it.
The author looks at print versus screen
I am not just a reader. I am also an author, and a person who writes a daily blog in which I have to perform the duties of publisher, reporter, art director, photographer and sometimes videographer.
As I was writing my first digital book, iPad Design Lab: Storytelling in the Age of the Tablet, I knew that my “print only” mentality would not help me much as I prepared to take ideas from my head to the screen.
A digital only book had to appeal to the senses. I had to think audio. I had to come up with video ideas. I had to think pop up moments. These are all those things that one never had to worry about much when writing the traditional print books.
I have not received any reports from readers of my digital book stating that they are fatigued, overwhelmed or in any way unhappy.
There is no print edition of iPad Design Lab. At first I thought there should have been one.
However, the moment the book was published in September 2012, I knew that a printed version would have not done the material justice. I wrote iPad Design as a digital book, constantly reminding myself of that important fact, and seeking ways to enhance content beyond words.
Of course, my book does not include Garcia Marquez’ magical realism and its powerful narrative. It is a different kind of content, more in the “show and tell” mode. The screen is perfect for that. Print would have been a much lesser offer.
The beauty of it all is that, as an author, I had the choice of the two. Who knows? My next book may be all print. It might be all sound. It might be just to be read on a smartphone.
There are important breaking news that affect where we are at a given moment. For these, a mobile phone or a tablet that is at hand may be the best platform to convey the information.
Those choices were not there when my career began four decades ago.
That’s reason to celebrate. It is also a good argument for us practitioners asking the question: what is the best platform to tell the story? For users, the question should be: what platform will provide me the best experience for getting the information I seek?
Previous blog posts on this topic:
Print versus screen and the physicality of paper
http://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/print_versus_screen_and_the_physicality_of_paper
Paper versus screen: Fatigue is about graphic noise in the design process, not the platform itself
A conversation about differences of reading on screen versus paper
http://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/pa_conversation_about_differences_of_reading_on_screen_versus_paper_p
Hamlet’s Blackberry: The essay
Link to William Powers’ essay, Hamlet’s Blackberry:
http://www.williampowers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Hamlets_Blackberry_William_Powers.pdf
