web project

The modern reading experience

web

Mobile

Interaction

Project

Client

Chinachem Group

Team

Visual designer, PM, FE and BE developers, and corporate brand manager

project website

https://www.chinachemgroup.com/news/lifeplus-magazine/magazine-issue-list/magazine-issue-05/magazine-highlights

Chinachem Group has launched its new magazine - LIFE+, intended to stimulate ideas and provoke discussion about bringing positivity and impacts to citizens. The reader was created to support a seamless digital reading experience for the Group’s audience.


It aims for sense of consistency and continuity while reading without too much distraction. The primary focus was on the content and the context of the reading material while making it as aesthetically pleasing and interactive as possible.

My responsibilities include ...

Wireframes

High-fidelity mock-ups

Interactive prototypes

Interaction design

Usability testing

process

Mobile screen flows

From the start, it is clear that the primary audience of the magazine was most active on mobile and held the most opportunity for reading interaction. With each page, layout, and component created, we optimized for this mobile experience.

Designing a reading experience

Similar to any design, the craft of designing a book can be divided into two main goals: function and emotion. Function means how legible the text is and how its design encourages you to read on; Emotion refers to how a book's design evokes a feeling or sentiment. And like many design fields, book design developed simultaneously with printing technologies. Thus, the online reading experience should taken user’s behaviours and expectations with technology in consideration.

Touch device friendly

To replicate the traditional magazine experience, swiping is encouraged as the action to turn pages, hinting the users with an initial brief tutorial.

Handle (slider) designed for enabling the real-world gesture of sliding to turn multiple pages at once.

Clear navigation

Secondary navigation (breadcrumbs) supports primary navigation by providing context-relevant options. User of magazine reader have clear sense of which issue and article they are currently browsing.

Contextual navigation (2-layer table of content) supports content by providing specific options. Readers can choose from the categorised content throughout the magazine.

One-click sharing

Easy share function (later developed after usability test), for users to quickly copy the article’s URL.

delivery

Responsive design

Adapting to the most commonly used devices: laptop, tablet and mobile.

Outcomes

The design is now the default solution across multiple clients magazine issues after three months of iteration and development. Available to million of Hong Kong citizen.

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