Future of reading PDFs — a design speculation
What is the future of reading PDFs? A few years ago, reading for pleasure moved away from printed matter to the Kindle, however reading PDFs is still stuck in the past where people prefer to read on large screens or take the print out of the pages.
What would be the next frontier? How would the reader know what a manual or a research report was about, and how would they find what they were interested in? This exercise was to visualize this new PDF and imagine what reading it on a phone could feel like.
PDF Origins
With a vision for paperless office, PDF was originally created in the context where the enterprises needed a universal way to communicate documents across a wide variety of machine configurations, operating systems and communication networks. These documents should be viewable on any display and should be printable on any printer.
PDF was designed to be reproducible, to the point where it could replace a printed document if the original paper was lost. Perhaps the most important role of the PDF in the modern day may be archival.
Some other benefits of the PDF format are security provisions with password protection and optional DRM support. Capability to combine all the information in one file, including graphics, audio, 3D graphics. Documents that can be magnified up to 1600%, without diminishing the quality.
Formats today
A PDF might be a single page invoice, a 40 page catalog, a 500 page annual report or a 5000 page building plan complete with oversize drawings. Given these varied possible use cases in mind, I have decided to restrict my observations to the context of reading in general.
Users nowadays read content either on web or proprietary format readers. On web barring the HTML files whose numbers Google reports is vastly greater (20–50 times) than the total of document files, PDF is the most prominantly used format. You are also welcome to smirk at the fact that this post is in HTML rather than PDF.
In case of e-book formats, users on a smartphone/tablet don’t want an exact replica of a printed document, which is what PDF delivers. Rather, they are looking for an experience that is optimized to the smaller screen size. Text should reflow to fit the size of the screen, and images should be repositioned or removed.
It is widely agreed by authors that fiction titles and non-fiction titles such as biographies, memoirs, historical titles, and business guides, are almost always reflowable formats. Illustrated children’s books, cookery books, photographic titles and coffee table books are usually produced using fixed-layout formats.
The two most common reflowable document formats are:
- AZW/KF8/KFX for Amazon Kindle
- ePUB for all the other major retail channels and devices including Apple’s iPad and iPhone, B&N’s Nook, Google Play and OverDrive.
Moving beyond formats
People know kindle, they don’t know what format kindle uses to show various content. The question therefore is why has PDF not been able to move beyond just a format?
- One thing that’s quite clear is the limitation of PDF when it comes to showing reflowable content, which is the main pedigree for majority of the readers on phone/tablet.
- Those who are buying the Kindle and using it instead of “real” books are doing so in favour of usability and convenience.
- Kindle ecosystem is a full-fledged service with a strong emphasis on creation and consumption. Unlike kindle create, Adobe acrobat is primarily an editing software. There is definitely a gap in term of the opportunities that Acrobat provides to discover new content.
User profile
I wanted to create a proto-persona to understand who our user is. I extrapolated from the known user details to create a psychographic profile of the user.
Needed features
With the help of above inferences we can explore some directions that can help us understand what the new pdf might be like.
Reflowable content mode
Having a functionality in acrobat that allows user to create content that can be viewed on smaller displays. This will improve usability for readers who want to create and consume content on different sized devices. It’s universal adoption coupled with reflowable content support can position PDF as the most suitable reading format in the market.
This feature needs to be looked at both from the reader and creator’s perspective. Let us look at some possible usecases.
Usecase 1: Amanda has been working on a short essay in her free time. She had created the file on Microsoft Office and exported the document in a PDF format. She is using her laptop as she finds her Laptop more convenient to work on. She opens the PDF in Adobe Acrobat to review and make some quick changes without going back to Microsoft Office. She also wants to make her essay reflowable for tablet and mobile. She has used this new feature of Abode Acrobat before.
The navigation is designed to be user friendly and familiar. The reflowable feature is nested under Edit PDF section. This was decided as many of the formatting options will be common with editing even in reflowable mode. To avoid user jumping between “Edit PDF” and “reflowable section” the existing IA is used.
Acrobat auto detects the nature of existing PDF. User can change the document type as required. Based on the document type the uderlying options will change. Once the document is optimized, the user can try out various templates in various device preview mode. The element styling options is available to quickly tweak formatting and create the desired look.
Usecase 2: Amanda sends this reflowable PDF to her friend David for his comments. David opens the document on his mobile phone. He is in a train when he gets the PDF. He has never seen a reflowable PDF Document before, but has used Acrobat.
A focussed tip helps David understand about this feature and gets him curious about it. He decides to explore it after he has reviewed Amanda’s PDF.
Try the prototype here
PDF Store: Discover and Explore
As a kindle user myself, I have spent considerable amount of time hounding various websites to search for the PDF version of a particular book. Eventually giving up and going back to kindle/amazon store out of inconvenience. There is a need for a space where open source/paid PDF content can be discovered. This might as well be the first step towards PDF breaking it’s image from a format to a service.
Usecase 3: Amanda likes to read old public domain books and frequently visits other websites to find such books. She likes to be surprised with new and related content.
Smart content awareness
A PDF document can be of 1 page, 100 pages, 500 pages or 5000 pages depending on the nature of it’s content and intended use. How does one then look for that specific book on “UX dark practices” in a heap of receipts, tickets and invoices? Can we identify all invoices based on the pattern that their size will be 1–2 pages and would contain the word “invoice” in the content. Can similar pattern based logic be applied to manuals, tickets and research papers?
It is possible to understand what a PDF document is about without even going through it? If a document has “UX Dark pattern” repeating 23 times in 500 page book. Can we identify that this document most probably is a book since it has 500 pages and is probably about “UX Dark pattern”. A smart content aware feature can help sort, catalogue documents and tag content for improving the overall usability.
What could I have done better
- Deep dive into each feature and elaborate on more scenarios.
- A better understanding of the business strategy for Acrobat DC.
- Talk to active authors and kindle users who are existing users of such platforms.
- Thorough understanding of existing Acrobat product features.
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Another piece that might interest you:
https://medium.com/@deba/meeting-calendar-for-travelling-salesperson-ux-design-challenge-df52cbc6a341
Thank you for reading. Do share your thoughts on these designs. Peace!
