# New free tech magazine



## Brian G Turner (Mar 20, 2012)

Something I've launched on another site which would be good to get feedback on here, not least as I'm trying to develop eMagazines for a few sites, and chrons is on that list. 

Here you go:
http://www.techwatch.co.uk/magazine/

It is only a first issue, but feedback is welcome.


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## Moonbat (Mar 20, 2012)

Hi Brian

I have just read TechWatch and thought I best give you some feedback.

Being a PC user I am not, and have never been, an Apple fan (the computer company not the fruit) and so to start with I felt a little overwhelmed with all the Apple gushing, though I must admit I am usually a bit like that  when I read about how amazing the company's products are. As I read on I let my anger subside and began to enjoy the magazine.

I felt that the News in brief section was very interesting but I'm not sure if it would have been better to be broken up among the entire mag or grouped/formatted better.

The main articles were all very interesting and I enjoyed reading them, although when we got the smart phone section I was a little put off by the formatting, some of the sections were not arranged as intuitively as I felt possible. The smart phone section was interesting but could have done with a summary table or paragraph after discussing each phone.

The facebook app scam was very enlightening, I must admit I haven't actually fallen for any of them, but I have seen many at work, and I have wished for a dislike button in recent months, but you've quashed all hope of that. I felt the writing got more comical as the scams went on, with ever more quips and amusing analogies.

Then we come to my main gripe, and I think it is a problem with publishing in PDF. I had been skipping past the adverts (as any reader is prone to do I expect) as soon as I realised they weren't offering anything I wanted. I then came to the add for classic telephones, as we are in the process of possibly getting a telephone for our hall and my GF wants a classic styled one I thought ok cool. Obviously I wanted to continue reading the magazine but I hoped I could open the link to the classic phone advert's website in another window, but the right click didn't give me that option, as I mentioned it might be a PDF problem, so I was then a situation of being torn between stopping reading to view the site or carrying on and navigating back to the ad's site later. Somehow I managed to navigate to the site (I had just decided to carry on reading and check it after) which was probably some over eager clicking on my behalf. Then using the back button to come back to the PDF unfortuately required the whole thing to load again and took me to the start. It wasn't too much of a problem, and I expect it isn't something that you can remedy (user stupidity) but that is my main issue.

Then we get onto the Ipad3 article. As much as I am loathe to admit it I almost want to buy one to try them out, having been a PC user all these years I should be open minded enough to at least try one and see how well they work, so if you intended to be a good advert for Apple Ipads then you've suceeded, although I may wait for the kindle fire-thingy. Another good article.

Then came the Zx Spectrum article, I used to have one it was my second ever computer and my brother and I wore out the Z&X the O&P and the N&M keys as we moved around the keyboard for those ever important sprints in Daley Thomson's decathlon. Again there was a link, but I had learned my lesson and decided not to try and follow it.

An interetsing eMagazine that I may (if time permits) read regularly. Hopfully my feedback is useful to you in some way (if only to make things more idiot proof, or put a warning on things) if you need me to go into further detail please let me know


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## J-Sun (Mar 20, 2012)

Moonbat said:


> Hi Brian
> 
> I have just read TechWatch and thought I best give you some feedback.
> 
> Being a PC user I am not, and have never been, an Apple fan (the computer company not the fruit) and so to start with I felt a little overwhelmed with all the Apple gushing, though I must admit I am usually a bit like that  when I read about how amazing the company's products are.



Similarly (but more so), I didn't get to the PDF as this month's features listed on the webpage were 1) the iPad, 3) smartphones, and 2) Facebook, none of which I have any interest in at all (I'm especially right there with Moonbat on PC/Apple). And 4) "retrotech: the Spectrum 48k" is too UK-specific for me (not that it's not historically important but that it doesn't personally connect to my lineage).

That said, I'm probably an atypical semi-techy person (Web 1.0, desktop PC, open source) who you would snag with articles on Linux and retrotech on Vic-20s or 5150s or something. And that means probably a very small readership. If you're targeting a probably much larger trendy UK market, it would likely grab them.

So that's my feedback, just on the webpage: it looks like it would appeal to some people, maybe a lot of people, so that's good. But it misses me completely and it might not be bad to diversify the iPad/Phone/Facebook clump (which, as different as they are, go together) and try to snag other readers without doing so much in that direction to turn off the iPad/Phone/Facebook folks in turn.


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## The Judge (Mar 20, 2012)

I'm a techno-nitwit, but my other half will take a look over the weekend as he's interested in these thingummies.  Meanwhile I've had a quick look, on the basis that although the information here is beyond me, you might keep the layout for the Chrons magazine.  

I found the use of the two columns a bit annoying, as it meant I had to scroll down to read the left hand side and then scroll back up to get to the top of the right hand side to read that.  I tried reducing the size so it all fitted on one screen to avoid the scrolling, but then it was too small to read comfortably.  I liked the layout of the feature on the phones, though, with the three columns but limited to one-third/half a page high. 

For the News in Brief section, I wonder if you had too many items and each one was too brief.  I also wonder whether there should be some indication of the source of the information in order to provide some legitimacy/authenticity (ie it's not just gossip).

Otherwise, a nice clean layout.  I like the typeface used and the colour scheme, though it perhaps wouldn't hurt to be a tad darker.  I hope it's a success!


NB  I didn't read many of the articles, but I noticed two errant apostrophes in one paragraph ("The massive range of *tablet's* now on offer..." and "*PC's*") and some dodgy punctuation elsewhere.


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## Dave (Mar 20, 2012)

Hi Brian

I also would like it a little darker. I read it on a laptop and I found the two columns hard to read. If they fit on a smartphone or ipad screen better then I understand why you've done that.

OT: You didn't say when Windows 8 will be available. My laptop is slowly dying (battery has gone and noisy hard drive) and is Vista. I was going to buy a new one with Windows 7, but it is pointless if Windows 8 is coming within a few months.


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## alchemist (Mar 20, 2012)

I see some of my comments are repeated above, but what the hey.

Negative:
It needed more colour (compare with the paper tech magazine in my dentist's waiting room)
News in brief took too long and I wanted sources for some of the info.
I wanted a link so I could scoot ahead to the Facebook article. 
Two columns means that I have to scroll up and down to view one page.

Positives:
The font is clear.
The text is easy to read and well-written.
It's pitched at a level the average reader will understand. 
Good name; kudos if you've cornered it.


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## Moonbat (Mar 20, 2012)

> I wanted a link so I could scoot ahead to the Facebook article.


 
I think the contents page would have allowed you to jump ahead. I didn't actually follow the link but the page numbers on the contents page were hyperlinked (I think).

And yes, Judge and Dave hit the nail on the head, 2 columns meant scrolling back up to the read the second one.


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## Brian G Turner (Mar 21, 2012)

Moonbat said:


> Being a PC user I am not, and have never been, an Apple fan



I know - a lot of people aren't into Apple, but the iPad had just been announced and launched, hence why that was a feature - ride the wave.



Moonbat said:


> I was a little put off by the formatting,



It's early days yet. 



Moonbat said:


> Then we come to my main gripe, and I think it is a problem with publishing in PDF. [links]



Yep, this is a bug in Adobe Indesign publishing suite that I'm hoping gets fixed soon. For some reason, links do not function properly in the latest version, which is a complete PITA, and a serious commercial problem to boot.




Moonbat said:


> An interetsing eMagazine that I may (if time permits) read regularly. Hopfully my feedback is useful to you in some way (if only to make things more idiot proof, or put a warning on things) if you need me to go into further detail please let me know



Cheers, and very much appreciated. 



J-Sun said:


> Similarly (but more so), I didn't get to the PDF as this month's features listed on the webpage were 1) the iPad, 3) smartphones, and 2) Facebook, none of which I have any interest in at all



Sounds like you're not in my target audience, but that's fine. 



The Judge said:


> I found the use of the two columns a bit annoying, as it meant I had to scroll down to read the left hand side and then scroll back up to get to the top of the right hand side to read that.



It's mainly formatted to read on tablet PC/iPad. On PC I have to reduce the format to 80% width, otherwise the text is too large and I have to scroll.



The Judge said:


> For the News in Brief section, I wonder if you had too many items and each one was too brief.  I also wonder whether there should be some indication of the source of the information in order to provide some legitimacy/authenticity (ie it's not just gossip).



They were round-ups of the news published to the front end of the site. 



The Judge said:


> Otherwise, a nice clean layout.  I like the typeface used and the colour scheme, though it perhaps wouldn't hurt to be a tad darker.  I hope it's a success!



Cheers!


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## Brian G Turner (Mar 21, 2012)

Dave said:


> Hi Brian
> 
> I also would like it a little darker. I read it on a laptop and I found  the two columns hard to read. If they fit on a smartphone or ipad screen  better then I understand why you've done that.
> 
> OT: You didn't say when Windows 8 will be available. My laptop is slowly  dying (battery has gone and noisy hard drive) and is Vista. I was going  to buy a new one with Windows 7, but it is pointless if Windows 8 is  coming within a few months.



Whatever MS say, I wouldn't expect the date to be fixed. Unless it's a huge fudge to meet a deadline. 



alchemist said:


> Negative:
> It needed more colour (compare with the paper tech magazine in my dentist's waiting room)
> News in brief took too long and I wanted sources for some of the info.
> I wanted a link so I could scoot ahead to the Facebook article.
> ...



Good feedback - sounds like the mag might benefit better from having  some form of bavigation built in on every page, so that if someone wants  to jump to a diff section, they can without scrolling.


Overall - this is all a learning process, so many thanks for the feedback everyone so far - very much appreciated.


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## Lenny (Mar 21, 2012)

I'm going to add comments as I read through it:

* The contents lists the editorial as being a run-down of the months features (which I assumed would be a brief look at the features listed further down in the contents), but turned out instead to be "Why the iPad matters".

* Page 11, 4th paragraph - "ARM" rather than "Arm".

* Page 13 made me go back and look at the ads, as it stood out as being low quality images (screenshots, mostly?) which look like they've been obviously resized. 

* The sudden jump from a two-column layout to single-column at the start of the Facebook article threw me.

* Would it not make a bit more sense to put the editorial about the iPad next to the article about tablets?

* Flick through the pages quickly, and look at the graphics at the top of each page (for example, the "News In Brief" graphic). You'll notice that they move a couple of pixels every now and then. I know it's a pretty minor thing that the vast majority of people won't notice, but consistency is key.

* The boxes around the labels at the top of the page also seem to be a pixel shorter than the square with the cogs. I'm not sure if it's been done on purpose, but it's noticeable.

* I don't mind the two-column layout as I have a large monitor, and the colour is also fine, but some of the formatting seems a bit off and inconsistent (for example, in the Facebook article, the space before sub-headings changes - sometimes it's a single line, other times it's two lines). I'd also be tempted to have everything justified, rather than left-aligned _(EDIT: looking at other things around the web, including digital magazines, left-aligned seems to be the norm. Personal preference, I guess; left-aligned always looks weird to me, but that may be because I'm used to reading journal articles and conference papers, which are all justified)_.

---

I realise that all of those are pretty negative (sorry!). Overall, however, the magazine does well at presenting things in a way that non-techies will understand. Most descriptions are given in English with as little jargon as possible, and the articles are quick to read through.

Some constructive criticism, if I may (to add to my consistency niggle):

* Whilst there is little jargon, there's still jargon (for example, Intel- and ARM-powered in the Windows 8 article. I know what that means, you know what that means, the authors know what the means, but many readers probably won't. The same goes for things in the smartphone section like "quad-core", "megapixel", "4G", "LTE", "NFC", "AMOLED"). I get that a lot of the terms are things that people are likely to have heard, but they only know them as something in that context, rather than what they actually are. Maybe a keywords section at the back, or at the end of the article, would be useful?

* With something like the smartphone lists, why not split it so that each phone has its own page, with a larger picture and a table of specs? It looks a bit crowded with three phones on one page.

* I had a look at some articles on the site, and saw that the design of the eMagazine is similar to that of the site. However, why stop at a stripped-down version? I quite like the sub-titles under the headlines on the site, and the box with the author details and picture.


If you haven't already, I'd recommend looking through some of the popular tech mags, such as Computer Active (which has an issue online to flick through) and using their layouts for inspiration.

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*Thoughts: *It's a good first attempt, with a lot of potential. There are a few things which I feel need addressing, but they're not deal-breakers, and the magazine is still perfectly readable.


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