ABSTRACT The Post is an RSS reader that changes the way people consume syndicated content. Taking cues from newspa- pers and other printed media, The Post removes content from the context of an unread email and places it in the metaphor of a print- ed article. Designed specifically for easy on-screen reading, posts are formatted in a visually appealing way that allows the user to consume their content in a non-linear fashion - the same way you would read a newspaper. Just like that pair of bunny slippers you wear when you read the morning paper, The Post molds to fit you. Promote the stories and the subscriptions that matter to you and let the brains behind the app construct your morning RSS paper for you. Built with the powerful Google AJAX API the system runs quickly in a browser, is free, and requires no software download. Bryan Connor The Post - RSS Reader Overview

There has been a large departure from newspaper in to get an overview of the feed items delivered to terms of media consumption. This of course is par- them and select content worth reading from there. tially a result of the web. More and more people get Multiple column layouts, top stories, and quick looks their news from online sources and a growing chunk use screen real estate to deliver the most relevant of the population of the internet uses RSS to keep content to the user first and then filter down by track of the massive amounts of information that is related items. Based on the configuration of a user’s published on a daily basis. subscriptions, sections are created that separate content, much like a newspaper would, into different While the internet has done great things for the categories. spread of information, it hasn’t been kind to the reading habits of the populous. Skimming is the Other features allow users to choose from several reading method of the internet and in some cases layouts for their “front page,” view all posts from a RSS. This is partially a result of the design of the particular source, and view their items in their image current leading RSS readers and platforms. Length- content rather than text. ened reading is not encouraged or even desired. The interface is built for quick consumption in a highly All content is optimized for screen reading if the user linear way, in a significant departure from traditional chooses to read entire articles in The Post. By free- media sources. ing feed items from the construct of unread emails, reading them can be a pleasurable and leisurely The Post is built on the notion that the way popular activity rather than one fueled by a desire for “inbox feed readers are built is not the optimal method for zero.” consuming information on the web. Most feed read- ers cycle through all of your feeds in a general cat- Precedents egory, showing you the entirety of the article or just the headlines. All items are either read or unread and - As the second most popular feed progress in an order of when they were published. reader out there and the reader with which I have The Post attempts to bring RSS consumption back the most experience, there’s a lot to be learned from to the roots of newspapers and periodicals with em- it. Being able to scroll through all your items and phasis on browsing rather than marking-read. have them marked read as you go is a useful fea- ture. The ability to select individual feeds or groups It achieves this by implementing a novel organiza- helps further organize the massive column of text tion of individual items. Showing either titles, abbre- and images that can pile up over the course of a day. viated content, or full content, readers can choose The ability to star and share items has become a key feature of this system. Given the popularity of the out. The two main columns of the main site make for platform, these conventions are good ones to build a lot of news stories fitting on the screen at one time. upon. Some features of Google reader begin to move Users can edit individual sections to display more or different news. The main draw for this application is it’s method for customizing the setup of the page. A panel is displayed with an overview of the page’s sections which you can re-order, save, and modify. It is limited to a two column vertical layout but it does set good conventions for organization, color coding, and customization. Custom sections pull in news with specified keywords and can be placed anywhere Organization of subscriptions in google reader on the page. towards more of an overview of content by showing Bloglines - It is the current heavyweight of the brows- you recent posts from any groups of feeds you might have set up ( with current unread item counts for each ), short blurbs from each, recommended feeds, recently starred items, and tips for using the applica- Glimpse view in Bloglines showing multiple feeds tion. - This Google product move closer to er RSS reader applications. With a similar general layout and functionality to that of Google Reader, Bloglines moves in a different direction in terms of sharing and saving information. You can ‘’ feed items and ‘clip’ them for later. Feeds can be grouped in folders and also added to ‘playlists’ which seems

Two column layout with color coded sections to be another way of grouping things. Playlists can be viewed in ‘glimpse’ view showing you blocks The Post in terms of it’s relation to a newspaper and representing different subscriptions, individual items it’s more generalist layout. While it does not pipe in underneath with indications of how recent these all of your RSS feeds, it does deliver the news in a items are as well as the ability to view that feed only. different way, more closely tied to a newspaper lay- Like most of the other feed readers it has hot keys so you can scroll through all of your content without us- ing the mouse in the same ultra-linear fashion. Netvibes - This service is a strange conglomera- tion of other preexisting web applications. Acting somewhat like a desktop you can access anywhere, Netvibes pipes in content from a variety of user se- editing panel for customized page setup lected sources and arranges them in a dynamic and drag-able way. Users select sectors of information screen. they want to keep track of, creating tabs of content - In a twist on RSS consumption, Feedly is with unread items. All blocks can be dragged and an add-on for that organizes your subscrip- tions into a magazine-like start page. It has featured sources, multiple sections and feeds on a page, and categories of items so you can sort and separate

Netvibes method for changing layout your various sources. It smartly organizes content in an intuitive way for example sorting a large bank of columns can be widened or shortened by adjusting images into a nice grid for easy consumption. The a divider. While it’s not graphically the look and feel dashboard feature allows users to easily feature, un- of a newspaper exactly, it does group things into subscribe, and reorganize feeds. The dashboard also columns and individual blocks for easy consump- color codes things according to your use of them tion. The user customization options are influences in the past 30 days, allowing you to visualize which for the customization interface of The Digest. Drag- feeds are more important to you. ging and dropping works by having sets of areas that Fever - With the terrible bloat of information pouring blocks can snap to and then adjust to fit. This is all done using lots of Javascript effects but it’s a visually appealing way to organize and subsequently digest large quantities of information

multiple columns seperate nav from sort & content

out of all corners of the internet has begun to cause, as explained by their demo video, ‘second inbox syn- Pared down google reader skin: Helvetireader drome’ or ‘unread dread.’ Fever aims to combat this Helvetireader - Skinning a RSS reader has become a popular trend and the first skin that comes to mind is Helvetireader for Google reader. The purpose of this skin is to trim down all unnecessary information temperature of feed items are displayed prominently in an attempt to make things very readable and nice to look at. Besides being based in a very readable by highlighting the hot items based on discussion and legible typeface, Helvetireader also decreases and overall popularity. Based on the mechanic of the the contrast of the type versus the page to help optimal human body temperature, Fever measures compensate for the difficulty of reading on a backlit the must-see quality of items and delivers them to you. It has very innovative methods of sorting and filtering feeds and an interesting layout as well. It still very much a linear feed reader but it does nice things with the establish convention of the feed reader. Times Feed Reader - This desktop application takes

Typographic sample of The New Yorker homepage and you just don’t feel overwhelmed even though there is a wealth of information on the page. Of course being the web site for a magazine is shares some features of The Digest such as it’s general layout and concept for the site structure. Minimal colors and solid type keep the information from tak- multiple columns seperate nav from sort & content ing over. CNN.com (Old) - This celebrated redesign has some nice aspects that The Digest draws from. In some the idea of a newspaper analog very literally with page turn effects, a desk of sorts, and traditional newspaper sections. It is styled to the nines like a OSX application with a shiny icon to match. It fea- tures ‘show more’ buttons, various sections and layouts for content, editable configurations, and an excerpt type view for posts. A lot of attention is paid CNN’s division of media types and article views to the styling of each post. These elements are highly ways the site separates content by media type such controlled and they do a lot to help with the read- as in the ‘video’ section to the left. There are also ability of the page. The interface is reduced contrast, multiple ways to scan content with list views, article clear typeface and generally easy to read. This is a with blurbs and thumbnail images. CNN does a prime example of the direction of The Digest and a pretty good job of handling lots of information in a good source of conventions for the type of applica- readable way. The convention of the rounded cor- tion it embodies. ners on a darker color designating different sections The New Yorker Online - Like a lot of the online pres- is highly effective but not distracting at any point. ences for news sources, the homepage of The New These blocks act as little widgets, separating types Yorker houses a lot of information. Unlike a lot of of information and sections of the home page. The other sources, however, it seems readable and con- global navigation of the site is also split up like a taining a manageable amount of information. There newspaper would be traditionally. The site adheres are a lot of nice things going on with the typography to a strict grid which allows for a flexible two or three of the page. The whites pace is very well considered column layout easily. This grid carries well into the a default layout and category structure that their interior of the site and effectively divvies up informa- present feeds fall into. After adding these subscrip- tion. tions users can further configure the appearance The New York Times Reader - This application by organizing their feeds into custom sections and from the New York Times allows readers to get the promoting subscriptions that are consistently more interesting to them. Depending on how much of each post is shown ( based on a preference) us- ers can either read entire articles in the application, click to open items in a new window, or see all of the article from that particular source. Alternatively users can browse by title only or by the articles first image. The initial page is the front page but more sections can be customized and then visited to narrow down the scope of content shown. These sections can be The New York Times Reader Front Page populated with separate feeds and then viewed sepa- content of the web site on their desktop with some rately from the front page. The right hand column paid sections and features. It has a front page that in the default layout is designated for “Quick Look” is fluid width and adjusts to work with screen size. or the title and short description of a feed item, al- It updates periodical with the latest news items lowing a broad overview that is ordered by learned and has a variety of news story formats on the front preference and popularity. page. Articles are read in the application in a column The preferences panel allows users to select different layout that adjusts as you expand your window. The layout structures, changing the position and visual application controls completely the images, titles organization but retaining the predefined importance and captions for a news item, making predictable of certain items and subscriptions. All preferences but beautiful layouts. It does a lot of smart things are saved for the next viewing. Clickthroughs and with scrolling and columns, making reading above promotions raise the importance of feed items. and below the fold seamless. Aesthetically there is Users can also view all of the feed items for a par- a lot to take from this application. It is very simple ticular subscription on it’s own dynamically gener- and the user interface is clear and concise. It doesn’t ated page if they want to browse though a narrower exactly feel like a newspaper but the elements pres- selection of articles. ent do enough to make you feel comfortable with the A small tool bar on the right stays fixed on the screen format presented. allowing for access to the preferences pane at any- time as well as options to scroll to the top, change Scenario the length of each post, and switch to image mode. Instead of individually focusing on each item that Users import their feeds from previous readers with comes into their reader, the user casually scans the OPML file or add a new feed address into the pages for articles that interested them, removing the “add feed URL” field. They are then presented with need to check everything off and read or skim every word. Meant for casual reading and longer viewing periods, The Post allows for easy reading. Prototypes The design for the application, originally called The Digest, was simply constructed of article modules and Prototype 1 - The Dirty Prototype consisted entirely of had almost no “chrome” or other pieces of interface torn paper. The pieces simulated different navigational other than what was necessary to the newspaper. Look- elements of the application as well as modules of con- ing more like a desktop application, this iteration failed tent types. Some of these modules were closely related to address customization and served as a general idea to those of a traditional feed reader while the others for the organization of feed items. moved towards the newspaper model that The Post is meant for.

The different content types here are too great in num- ber and lead to a confused and busy quality even in paper. The right hand column as a short list item area is established and the need for visual hierarchy with a main story is clear. The idea that standard formatted posts would then follow underneath is dealt with at well. At this stage the idea that individual items would be organized by parent feeds on the front page was present but this later broke down in favor of sections and a more varied and interesting content layout. Prototype 2 - For the second prototype both the The design and aesthetics of the application devel- design and the functionality of The Post were further oped further with color choices for the background, explored. On the left was a working but ugly proto- more sophisticated and stripped down look and feel, type primarily used to begin to take RSS feeds and and more realistic expectations for the content. The format them in a way that made sense for this appli- amount of application chrome is again minimized to cation. At this stage is strips away more complex is- maintain the illusion of a set page of type rather than sues such as image sizing and full interactivity. This a “interface.” prototype was an exercise in controlling the post

The positioning for the elements of the design is content with CSS and Ajax and while it’s not the vi- more well considered and the ability to add feeds sual direction of the project it does begin to change is taken into consideration better. A later edit was the way RSS items are views by the average user of a the right hand fixed toolbar. This toolbar minimized more popular services such as Google Reader. the application interface and adds usability by being For prototype 2 the option was implemented to be accessible no matter where the user has scrolled on able to control the length of the posts to some de- the page. In this flat there are only 2 levels of hierar- gree. By unchecking a box at the top one could view chy and the page becomes predictable quickly. all of the feed items by title only. Available feeds are controlled by an external XML document which lists them in the correct structure and names them each. Editing this file allowed for custom feeds to be input in a very rough prototype. The idea is also proposed to include the favicon of the source in the meta data for each post and this is reflected in the design. Prototype 3 - This prototype beings to marry the special class of post that is the hero story and a design and the functionality of the . separate organization of list-style titles and short With clear intentions in mind the prototype begins descriptions. to read in feeds in a well laid out and controlled format and in a way which has proven readable and The design is significantly developed and for the legible. most part will reflect the final iteration. Not all functionality was included in this prototype but that functionality is evident in this design.

The window is fluid width up to a point to accom- modate 90% of browsers. Articles adjust with the width of the window and reconfigure to compose the best layout using a masonry script built on JQuery. All articles open in a new window and users have the Text is more carefully controlled and labeled, more ability to view entire posts or shorten them to titles newspaper analogs are added such as the current and publication dates for faster browsing. date and time in the upper right, the weather and In this iteration the feeds are separated by source colophon in the footer and typographic rules to con- trol white space.

The default front page is decided through user test- ing which is the front page that will be developed along with alternates that can be selected in a prefer- and serve as a prototype for the page of content gen- ences panel available from the small icons that are erated by a specific source. fixed on the left of the page. The front page is developed fully and requires a FINAL -The final incarnation of The Post is a long way from it’s humble beginnings as a few pieces of cut paper and a concept. It is much more fully fea- tured with more to come and is in essence a sample of what is to come. I look at this incarnation as a working prototype or ‘demo’ to be developed further in the future. It is very much a proof of concept and a new concept for an RSS reader. The final prototype features enhanced usability and functionality in the sidebar, separation of categories, prototype for smart search and preferences, and the ability to change the viewing mode from full post to title to images only. Most importantly, of course, users have the ability to add their own feed. The demo comes pre loaded with a series of feeds so that users can get a visual idea of how content is organized but they are encour- aged to customize as much as they’d like. Fixed utility areas allow the user to change their view- ing mode anywhere on the page. They can also add a new feed to a page and any point. Sections come preset to suggest a use for the RSS reader. There are traditional sections that you might see in a newspaper as well as a few that are clearly customization that are to be made by the end user. References http://www.helvetireader.com/

Bloglines Still Most Popular Web RSS Feed Reader, Rojo is Next - http://www.quickonlinetips.com/ar- chives/2007/01/bloglines-still-most-popular-web-- feed-reader-rojo-is-next/

Google Reader Slowly Closing on Bloglines - http:// weblogs.hitwise.com/us-heather-hopkins/2008/05/ google_reader_slowly_closing_o.html http://www.feedly.com/index.html

Google Reader API - http://www.niallkennedy.com/ blog/2005/12/google-reader-api.html

Times Feed Reader - http://www.acrylicapps.com/ times/ http://news.google.com/ http://reader.google.com/ http://www.newyorker.com/ http://www.cnn.com/ http://www.netvibes.com http://feedafever.com/ http://www.bloglines.com/

How many people use RSS anyway? - http://scoble- izer.com/2007/10/15/how-many-people-use-rss- anyway/