"Magazine Experience": The Evolution Beyond Flipbooks

A magazine experience can mean many things. But most times, clients asking me for a "magazine experience" are looking for an interface resembling print, with a print-like layout, spreads, and the familiar feel of flipping pages—like a digital PDF or a flipbook. In other words, "magazine-experience" really means "print-experience".

In this article, I'll discuss why sticking to a print experience on digital is most likely a mistake in today's digital landscape. And, I'll say it like I see it, so you might not like what you are about to read. But with a couple of decades of experience in publishing in print and digital, I feel I earned the right to say the unpleasant truth on occasion.

While flipbooks provide an easy way to display print-like pages online, they were never destined or never should have been to be a long-term digital publishing solution.

Putting PDFs or flipbooks online was a convenient solution when the demand for digital content surged. But as digital engagement and accessibility expectations have evolved, it's essential to consider whether flipbooks still provide the best experience for your readers.

Flipbooks were built in the day with desktop reading habits in mind - and readers deemed it ok then.

I should be transparent: I also work for a flipbook technology vendor. And after selling flipbooks for many years, I know flipbooks can be tremendously helpful in some cases. But they should not be your digital presence or your way forward to publishing your publication.

I'll dig a bit deeper:

The case for flipbooks:

Reason 1: I agree with you - flipbooks can be beautiful.

I worked in print for a good while, and I certainly can appreciate and value an excellent print layout.

But - when you think about it, that is precisely what flipbooks do - they give you a view of your print edition.

One thing I realized is that because of my print background (pre-press), I was likely biased. Other people (maybe possibly a bit younger - just a bit) did not necessarily see an excellent print layout - they just saw "print-on-a-screen."

Reason 2: Flipbooks are easy to publish

You usually upload your PDF file as-is, and your flipbook vendor delivers an online version. Done.

Reason 3: Flipbooks can give you an argument with advertisers.

"Your ad is also in our digital edition." It sounds good, no?

The last ten years

In the previous ten years, we have seen two trends continuously growing:

• mobile reading has become ever so important
• tolerance of readers for non-optimized content has declined

Bear in mind that companies like Issuu started in 2006. That was a while ago. Habits have changed. To put things in perspective, in 2006, Instagram did not exist.

Facebook had just started two years prior. So, in 'internet' terms, that was a long time ago.

So, let's look at the other side of the coin:

The case against flipbooks:

These are the most commonly quoted arguments against flipbooks:

• readers do not like them
• flipbooks don't read well on mobile
• flipbooks are not accessible (screen readers, ...)

Do readers like flipbooks?

So - let's do some "journalistic" research and see how users like or don't like flipbooks.

A quick question for you. Would you believe the self-written statement of a vendor saying that readers love the experience as fact - or would you classify that as a marketing spiel?

The answers are heartwarmingly positive if you do a Google search on how users like flipbooks. Super positive. Almost marketing brochure-positive.

And well, that is normal because,...the answer is based on publicly available information, and these search engines and AI bots dish up summaries of public documents they find (the blog posts of flipbook vendors).

A summary of a marketing pitch gives you...a shorter marketing pitch, indeed.

As a good journalist, I decided to put these marketing brochures aside and dig deeper.

Comments on Reddit

Let's see. We can find some comments on Reddit. It is not 100% reliable, but it is probably more so than the person trying to sell me the tool.

Here is what readers and magazine designers say about flipbooks on Reddit:

Ok, so a lot of negative feedback out there:

I also found comments that summed up a lot of problems:

Usability Experts

We are continuing our research! Here is what the NN/g group has to say on the topic. For reference, the NN group's founders, Dr. Jakob Nielsen and Dr. Don Norman, created the term "user experience."

Here is what they say:

Your internal expert  

So - Reddit and the usability experts would indicate a 'nope' here. Now, the thing is, working with clients, so often, a very vocal team member would always speak up and say things like:

"I spoke with these and these readers, and they like it."

"Our readers like it."

"We know our readers like the 'magazine-experience."

The question you have to ask yourself, though, is: "Do you really know?"

No, seriously, how reliable is that research? Because you might be betting on the future of your publication.

If your feedback is based on a couple of random conversations you had with readers in person, you should raise the red flag. That is not reliable feedback on which to build your business.

One of the best places to look for feedback is with people who no longer read your publication. Why did they stop?

Accessibility

Let's look at the second argument 'against' flipbooks a bit more: accessibility.

This is where we were in 2013:

PDFs (the files - not the flipbook implementation) can be accessible. Two main areas are semantic tagging (headings, lists, images, etc, appropriately tagged) and reading order.

But flipbooks are facing challenges:

Conversations on the accessibility website Webaim.org (WebAIm is one of the institutions defining accessibility norms) say this:

A discussion from 2021 on WebAIM:

What do users on Reddit say?

What do the experts say?

This article from Andreea Demirgian, a journalist researching accessibility, says it all.

https://www.isitaccessible.ca/the-issue-with-issuu-a-full-screen-reader-is-not-a-screen-reader/ 

 The mobile experience

And finally, let's look at the mobile experience.

Or why don't you take a second and look at your phone for yourself?

Would young readers like this mobile experience?

You already know young, Instagram-educated readers prefer to avoid this print-on-web type of experience.

Would older readers like this experience?

So do older people like it? When you look at your publication on your mobile devices, imagine you are a tad older—and maybe getting a bit near-sighted. How much fun would you be having reading this content?

AI search will give you a summary of how flipbook vendors position their approach to mobile:

In other words - you will get a single page that you cannot read well (unless you placed almost no content on the page) - which requires you to start zooming in.

But like they would say on Sharktank: "Wait, there's more!"

Who uses flipbooks?

Here is some food for thought: flipbooks are declining.

Looking at some data from BuiltWith - a company tracking technology usage.

Issuu Usage Statistics

Flipsnack Usage Statistics

Joomla Usage Statistics

Conclusion

You may think by now that I'm not too fond of flipbooks. Well, you would be wrong. Like I said at the beginning of my article, I appreciate a nice print layout. Having spent years in prepress, I still appreciate a nice print layout, even on a digital device.

But, given my prepress background, someone other than me may be the most objective person. I am likely positively biased towards the print version.

BUT. Yes, there it is. Despite my affinity for liking print, flipbooks should not be the digital version of your publication.

Sure, for all the above reasons, but much more for the effect those reasons will have on your publication. Whether you are a business or a non-profit, you want to see

• engagement
• people reading your content and interacting with it
• a solid response to your ads and promotions

Just think about it. Who is doing well online these days?

Sure - the New York Times. See any flipbooks there?

Or let's look at a 'magazine" magazine. National Geographic. Do you like their print layouts? Well, so do I. But on digital, they use responsive layouts, not flipbooks.

There is a perfect use case for flipbooks - adding life to your existing archives.

Like Vanity Fair does. It helps readers get more out of your archives. Ok, less than transforming all entire archive to a responsive format, but who can afford to do so?

If not, well - I have one more thing to say. Make sure this is not you.