I really like the iPhone app of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad (iTunes Link). Makes it easy to download and read your daily e-paper, even if you have not subscribed to the paper-version.
The user interface in general is a bit clunky and could use some polish. Navigating the daily paper’s sections takes too many clicks. Fortunately there also are some very nice touches: When you rotate the iPhone while in the reading screen a little lock appears. Tapping it locks the screen’s orientation. Good for reading in bed.
The reading screen is probably the place where you’ll spend most of your time while using this app and it’s there that the bad design decisions are most obvious.
Article view of the NRC iPhone app
110 of 480 pixels of screen height are obscured by user interface chrome. Doesn’t sound like much, but it is quite obtrusive when you have to look at it for a longer time.
The menu above the text is a breadcrumb that takes you back to the section overview. The lower menu lets you in- and decrease the text size and takes you to the next and previous articles of a section. This lower menu is completely redundant: the app also lets you resize the text by using the pinching gesture and you can flip to the previous and next articles by using the swiping gesture.
So let’s get rid of it:
Sans redundant lower menu
The upper menu is pretty “in your face”. I know that I am reading “NRC Handelsblad”, I do not need to be reminded all the time. Why not make the upper bar a bit transparent?
Transparent upper menu bar.
And why not have the upper bar disappear completely when the user double-taps the reading pane?
Chrome-less reading pane.
Voilá: A chrome-less reader, nothing to distract you from the content. Need the menu back? Just double-tap again.
Next wish on my list: tilt scrolling á la Instapaper.
Hi, my name is Florian Schroiff, I live and work in the beautiful city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. This website is mostly a collection of the various flotsam and jetsam I encounter on my travels through the web.