Comment by 0r3jq4a0j | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0r3jq4a0j | Hacker News Reader

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If it didn't improve their revenues, they wouldn't be doing it.

I can assure you that this is absolutely not the case. If you look at Plotz's comment, it's exactly what most editors will say:

Pages that run too long can irritate readers. We run stories of 2,000, 4,000, even 6,000 words, and to run that much text down a single page can daunt and depress a reader. So pagination can make pages seem more welcoming, more chewable.

They really believe this.

It's important to realize that despite all the buzz about A/B testing in the industry, editors pretty universally believe they don't need to validate their opinions through testing. Why not? Because though school and their careers they've been told that their opinions matter, and, in fact, that's all their job really is: voicing opinions and making judgements, because they believe they have special insight into what readers want.

Look no further than Poltz, a writer and editor with no software design or development experience, who somehow believes he's qualified to make that statement.

I'll ignore your general disdain for writers and editors, and point out that not all readers want the same thing. I've pushed for non-paginated articles at my publication, but I admit that I'm not always happy with the result, and we do hear reader complaints about not being able to orient themselves in an article like this: http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmolog...

(hopefully a wider content-well after an upcoming redesign will help)

I'm curious to hear what people think of a hybrid pagination system, like that currently used by Computing Now magazine. I like that it gives the user a sense of the article length without interrupting the flow of reading. http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/careers/cont...

your general disdain for writers and editors

It's completely justified. For example: show me where in Poltz's long career as a writer and editor that he secretly squeezed in the years of UX, design, and development experience that qualifies him to make a statement about designing user interfaces.

The problem is that editors simply don't believe there is special expertise here or that it requires anything beyond their insight.

I admit that I'm not always happy with the result ... http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmolog...

This design doesn't incorporate many of the base standards for displaying long-form web content. Font size is way too small (should be 16-18px, 14px absolute minimum), column is too wide ("ideal" is 66 characters, though there's a wide range). A good starter article: http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/ There are many, many more.

Until that page is completely redesigned and returned to a readable baseline, it's difficult to discuss or test anything.

Agree completely with font size and column-width critiques, both of which are addressed in an upcoming redesign. And, for that matter, I've always had issue with Slate's UX and design choices.

>The fact is that editors simply don't believe there is special expertise here.

I agree that UX and design are often neglected when traditional publishers work in digital mediums. But I find it odd that you can appreciate the experience that leads to good UX and design but not the editorial and reporting experience that leads to good copy.

not the editorial and reporting experience that leads to good copy

Writing, content strategy, curation, copywriting, etc are obviously all important skills. However, being an editor does not remotely qualify someone to run a multimillion dollar business, design software, dictate engineering decisions, etc. Unfortunately, the industry is structured such that they are doing exactly that.

Is it any surprise that slate's division is operating at a loss? It's the norm in a broken industry.

Not to be too off-topic, but with a slight modification:

> However, being an [insert pre-digital mgr/executive]* does not remotely qualify someone to run a multimillion dollar business, design software, dictate engineering decisions, etc. Unfortunately, the industry is structured such that they are doing exactly that.

This is everywhere, I think. I've experienced first-hand the same problems in non-publishing industries where companies who rely on the web to do business are staffed with people who hardly understand the web making technical and software decisions, overriding software engineers and programmers making suggestions that are in opposition to the random thoughts in their heads. This is where the trump card of being higher up the ladder is played, and typically with detrimental results of varying degrees.

It's a serious problem in any business when web & technology decisions are still being made by people who don't understand the web & technology, and can't build it themselves.

Outside of the software industry, most businesses I've run across think being able to open a web browser or being in a mgmt/exec-level position qualifies them to actually make good software decisions.

* By pre-digital I mean old businesses that have moved to the web for various things, but are staffed by people who don't build software making key software decisions [e.g., electrical engineers, marketing execs, etc. making decisions on platforms, languages, and implementations while ignoring the advice of actual developers].

>A good starter article: http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/

Somewhat ironically, I find that page a little hard to read because the background is so bright. I find reading text on HN much easier with a darker grey background.

Re: hybrid pagination, I like the idea - but that particular implementation was a little wonky for me. Since the reading area was taller than my browser window, so I scrolled down to read the whole "page" and then had to scroll back up to continue reading. And since it seems to scroll based on scroll events from the browser, I wound up scrolling back to the first "page" in the article while trying to do that and the whole thing winds up being kind of a bummer.

I think a potentially nice implementation of this idea would be more like reading on a Kindle - text is broken into screen-sized chunks, and then there are low friction ways to go forward and backward "chunks".

Pagination can in fact increase reading time. Most readers never finish an article. In fact, most readers drop out after the second paragraph. Not because the articles are shit, but because people have a short attention span.

By adding a 'next page' button, you create an incentive to keep reading. By spiking the curiosity of the reader to find out what's behind the bend, they linger instead of leaving.

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