The 1st *killer* WPF Application - New York Times
A lot of people have been talking about the New York Times reader, and I guess I'm kind of slow. Well, most people who know me know that! :) But I have been playing with it for a while now and I really like the app and think it demonstrates what can be done with WPF. An for once, it isn't over the top with whizzy animations and rolling videos:
My team mate Mike Taulty discussed a really interesting point about the pros and cons of content provision going one of two ways - one app being the central place for all information (aka an RSS aggregator) or separate applications like the NYT reader for content. I take Mike's point and agree on the platform and developer side in that they can create multiple versions of the content based on platform (ie HTML for the browser, WPF for the rich desktop experience, mobile scenarios). However, I feel for day-to-day type stuff I think the RSS aggregator has it for me. Many people in today's information overload (James' experiences are the norm around Microsoft) age struggle to cope and having multiple places to go for your daily fix of news, opinion or outright strangeness would be too much. So I think I will always be a River of News type of user.
But... This is where I think User Experience plays a major part in shaping people's usage patterns of software. I use FeedDemon all the time for my RSS-addiction but I have been happily firing up the NYT reader if I grab lunch at my desk or at those boring marketing meetings ;-) and casually reading news from the USA's finest. By creating such a great application that is both a pleasure to read and so intuitive (its like a real newspaper flicking from page to page), I actually enjoy reading it. Whereas, with FeedDemon it is a practical way of getting as much information into my head in as little time as possible.
When I tried to explain this to a friend I drew parallels between RSS readers being like my home town's local paper - black and white with interesting stuff which I want to know but not going to something I look forward to reading. Apps like the NYT reader are more like monthly glossy magazines which I indulge in and enjoy reading - there has been lots of effort put into the layout and art used to entice me into a particular bit of content. I will be very happy having a few regular 'magazine' type content providers on my Vista machine!
Technorati tags: wpf, new york times, user experience, rss
Comments
Anonymous
October 03, 2006
Further to my blog entry last night about the great New York Times reader, Pablo Fernicola has a greatAnonymous
October 30, 2006
If you don't think that WPF and Vista will enable a whole raft of new and visually appealing applicationsAnonymous
November 09, 2006
Yesterday, I travelled north to visit Birmingham Computer Science department to give a guest presentation