Cullmann Design Blog

I like to learn something everyday. It needn’t be an epiphany or the secret to life, but I really like the idea that every evening comes to an end with some fact or bit of knowledge that I hadn’t had that morning. I have to admit that I get a tremendous amount of these daily facts or learning from the internet. Never has such a wide variety of subjects or shear amount of information been so easily accessible to so many and so easily.

Enter iTunes U

iTunes U is a hosted resource offered by apple through iTunes. It’s a basic and very cool framework for anyone to create a comprehensive course or online learning experience to be distributed via the iTunes network. Although I am leery of closed infrastructures like iTunes, the scale of audience you can reach and the dominance of Apple’s consumer media devices makes this a fantastic new playground for educators and organizations. Content creators can apply to enter the iTunes U store, upload and create a custom page for their institution. The content can be arranged (and once published searched) by subject, topic or institution. There is space for an institution summary, class syllabus and individual class description. Classes can be distributed as audio or video. Content creators can also control the distribution and allow access by parties via controlled or free distribution. The classes can be updated real-time like a regular semester class or cumulatively as a retrospective.

If you design or develop for any of the web, iPhone or iPad LiveView is a must-have app. Essentially a screencasting tool, it allows the user to place a “virtual” device on their host mac and share that marque view with an iPad or iPhone via WiFi. Great tool, genius idea. John Hicks has posted a video that does the product justice.

Quick demonstration of how LiveView works from Jon Hicks on Vimeo.

A recent study from Nielsen shows that more than half of television viewers are engaged in another media consumption activity while taking in their favorite programming. Nielsen’s study, The Three Screens Report, was created specifically to capture data about usage behavior in our living rooms. The report is a painting of how media is changing and how the adoption of our phones, computers and hybrid devices is changing the way that we interact with one another and media. Nielsen’s Three Screens Report goes back to 2009 and even this small period of time, it’s easy to see a shift in behavior.

Surprising is that the multi-channel consumption is not limited, or even led, by a particular demographic. Mobile video consumption for instance, is led by 25-34 year-olds. and that consumption drops 10-15% for users not-yet 20 years old. Also surprising is that although younger audiences consume more media (in time spent), a more mature demographic (24-35 year-olds) spend their time using many channels simulatiously. The Nielsen study does not go into specific details regarding the content of what is consumed, but should still be taken seriously by those who create content for prime-time viewing as well as content on-demand and web media.

From a media-professional perspective, understanding that your messaging and imagery is competing with several different stimuli at a given time. The tactics that you must employ are becoming more and more fragmented as well. Web content should be scannable, clean and broken out into digestible portions. Apps should be designed to keep your place within content and preserve the last “state” if the device goes dormant or is exited. Television content, especially commercials, should be fast and attention getting. Also, branding should not be visual alone as users may be looking away from the screen (especially during commercial breaks).

The Nielsen report is a fantastic benchmark for media producers. Not only does it provide support for what we all know-all-to-well to be typical behavior, but it also shows demographic information that is surprising. The report covers the first quarter of 2010 and the data, when compared with the previous year’s reflects the emergence of new devices and mobile network capabilities. The survey period ends before the release of the Apple’s iPad, which may further tilt the statistic towards multi-channel and mobile media consumption. The iPad, Google Android and several other consumer oriented mobile media devices are creating a new category of info-tainment that makes every minute, every commercial break and every morsel of downtime an opportunity to see a short-format video or catch a quick-laugh on YouTube. The trick is to become THAT content that captures user’s attention.

Apple’s iPad has been out for a few months and there is still quite a bit of excitement as publications begin to experiment with this new platform. Both Popular Mechanics and WIRED had been quick to release 2 very impressive “App” versions of their publication. Both of these pieces are very engaging and mirror content found in their print publication. The interactive versions include some dynamic enhancements including video content, interactive 3D models and social media integration. Of course, there are also video-based ads and dramatically animated advertisements. These pieces, and a number of other publications that have been released in the AppStore, are showcases for what can be implemented on these platforms.

Despite how impressive these applications are, they are not the future of publishing. In fact, these publications offer none of the benefits of what an “App” can offer at all. The WIRED application as well as PM and many other newly launched periodicals available in the AppStore are merely screenshots of the print publications they are replacing. There is interactivity and user engagement not found in the pulp-versions, but there is no evidence of what is really driving people to online media: Real-time, always on information. One of the most attractive qualities of the web is the ability to retrieve information as it becomes available: RSS, cross-linking, related posts, comments. These are all data-points flowing into one another as a real-time conversation. The “new publication” model utilizes few, if any of these differentiators.

What I am especially discouraged by is how closely the new “publication as app” model resembles the CD-ROM boom of the early 90′s. Very much like the iPad publication hype, CD-ROMs where supposed to change the way that media was distributed. CD-ROMs fell from popularity because they where proprietary, not easily shared, difficult to update and did little to further user engagement beyond what was already being offered in the market. I don’t want to come across as an Apple hater or someone who doesn’t think the iPad is a paradigm shift. My issue is with publishers who believe that porting their print materials to a screen and accompanying a few interactive elements is going to save or reinvent their industry.

Equally as offensive to the “interactive” arrangement of JPG and PNG files is the cost model that is being provided for subscribers. Although the cover price is similar to what is found on the traditional newsstand, the development costs don’t seem to warrant the $4.99 app costs that need to be paid every-month for an issue. One hope I had for the new publication model is that without the cost for printing and shipping, that the hyper-engaged advertising opportunity would provide a reduced subscription cost. Instead, users are downloading 400, 500 and even 600MB+ files into their devices to deliver advertising (a issue still pending is how metered bandwidth will affect this model as over-the-air download of these applications is not available via AT&T). Even with the proliferation of broadband, the “web” as a rule is still very lean and content can be provided over a range of bandwidths while maintaining a decent user experience.

The iPad offers so many opportunities for developers and content creators. The massive selection of useful applications is a testament to that. Taking the WIRED and PM samples to task, the solution that should have been implemented is one that provides a subscription “stub” on the device with a framework for the publisher to populate daily or over the course of the month as opposed to a traditional release cycle. This would provide a benefit beyond traditional content delivery and make user engagement more meaningful. This would also lessen the storage footprint and make the application more serviceable to those who have purchased devices with smaller amounts of memory. Advertising would be downloaded on a cycle so that the ad-model itself would apply as it does now. Interactive ads could pull “on-demand” with smaller portions of the ads cached and delivered under a “no-charge” bandwidth model-perhaps the Apple iAd service. I think an offering like this is more valuable and more inline with what the iPad’s benefit is to it’s users: Always-on content delivery that is up-to-the minute.

The MTA has recently redesigned the New York City Subway Map. Not a drastic change from the 2 previous designs, the new version features additional information about subways lines and expanded visual indications for express and local routes.

New York’s subways maps are a unique piece of history and a part of New York City’s “branding”. For visitor’s, the maps are an integral part of using public transit. For New Yorker’s it’s an embedded icon for navigating those far-reaching parts of the city not frequently visited. Beyond the utilitarian value of the maps, these design pieces are facing travelers coming, going and while on New York’s subterrainian city. Having grown up in New York, the maps represent places I’ve lived, where friends and family are and memories of good times and bad. All of those dots represent day trips, jobs and people I’ve interacted with.

As a kid riding the subway, I remember the Vignelli’s stylized subway map. At that time, it the stylized version of the city was long in the tooth and when I had seen it, usually looked yellow and tired. It still reminds me of an aesthetic that harbors a sense of adventure and newness.

I’m glad to see that the MTA is posting a new version of the map. I don’t feel any nostalgia for the current version. More so than anything else, I’m glad for the big analog infographic that shows a landscape of options to subway riders.

If you’re visiting New York or a have been living there all your life, you can download a PDF of the new MTA Subway Map here.

The MTA has recently redesigned the New York City Subway Map. Not a drastic change from the 2 previous designs, the new version features additional information about subways lines and expanded visual indications for express and local routes.

New York’s subways maps are a unique piece of history and a part of New York City’s “branding”. For visitor’s, the maps are an integral part of using public transit. For New Yorker’s it’s an embedded icon for navigating those far-reaching parts of the city not frequently visited. Beyond the utilitarian value of the maps, these design pieces are facing travelers coming, going and while on New York’s subterrainian city. Having grown up in New York, the maps represent places I’ve lived, where friends and family are and memories of good times and bad. All of those dots represent day trips, jobs and people I’ve interacted with.

As a kid riding the subway, I remember the Vignelli’s stylized subway map. At that time, it the stylized version of the city was long in the tooth and when I had seen it, usually looked yellow and tired. It still reminds me of an aesthetic that harbors a sense of adventure and newness.

I’m glad to see that the MTA is posting a new version of the map. I don’t feel any nostalgia for the current version. More so than anything else, I’m glad for the big analog infographic that shows a landscape of options to subway riders.

If you’re visiting New York or a have been living there all your life, you can download a PDF of the new MTA Subway Map here.