So what arguments do we (Generation X) come up with?

1. Paper books are easier on the eyes and you can read them easier.
2. Paper is less fragile than electronic formats. There is less to go wrong, for instance no need to power a paper book. Also if you drop a paper book into the bath it’s cheaply replaced, the same can’t be said about the eBook reader.
3. There is an emotional pleasure in simply seeing shelves of books. There is also an intrinsic value in a book that goes beyond the contents. It’s in the cover design and material, the binding, its weight and the tactile nature of a book.
4. There is a sense of ownership in having a physical book that just isn’t there in an electronic book. There is something more permanent about paper.
5.  A sketch on the back of a beer mat can record a world changing idea. It’s the freedom to sketch anything you like anywhere on the paper that makes a paper and pen a powerful user experience. Pickup a piece of paper and a pen and you can be sketching and writing with freedom in seconds (instant on!).
6. Some people read paper books as a way to take a break from the computer screen that rules their working life. We’re in front of a computer screen all day and when you relax you just want to have a different experience.
7.  Cuddly Toy! (hint.. Google the title…)

Ok, so looking back across all of the reasons I gave above I can see counter arguments from the virtual world and to be honest the arguments for paper do seem a bit generational.

A recent study by Habbo Hotel that asked 49,000 Digital Natives a.k.a. Generation Z (born 1990’s and 2000’s) to share their views on how the internet will shape the future. The following finding suggests they don’t have the same reticence about replacing paper:

“However, whilst the TV remains a relevant and important medium to this media-savvy generation, traditional print media (newspapers, magazines and books) won’t fair as well with 55 per cent of respondents saying that they will be extinct either very soon or some day in the future. Only 18 per cent feel that printed media will always have a place.”

Generation Z have grown up with the internet and mobile devices, and they are certainly comfortable and possibly even dependent on technology. To some extent they live their lives in the virtual world and don’t see a need to get away from it. They have access to a huge source of information and it doesn’t go stale like the information in printed books. They also have a green conscience that reverses the emotional context for a paper book.

Even if the feelings that Generation X has about paper and pens has some validity, it is obvious that Generation Z will eventually shut that door. The iPad and its descendents are the vehicle for this final move to the electronic world. It makes me wonder however what will replace books, DVDs and CDs under the Christmas tree in the next decade. In the meantime my sons will be getting a number of annuals and story books from this Generation X Santa.

Happy Holidays!

 gDoc Fusion is the simplest way to create and convert PDF documents as well as merge over 200 document formats into one final PDF document.   http://bit.ly/fsVfF3

Have a very Merry Christmas from the team at Global Graphics.

 Terms and conditions apply.

PDF/A – Archiving

The PDF/A committee reviewed all comments to the final ballot on ISO 19005-2 (PDF/A-2) and ratified the standard for publication. All of the meeting’s agreements will now get rolled into the text, which will then be forwarded to ISO Central Secretariat for final processing. It’s always hard to predict how long that will take, but I’m expecting publication some time in Q1 2011.

We also made some good progress on PDF/A-3, which differs from PDF/A-2 in only one respect: that any file can be embedded within it for a variety of reasons. This can be used to attach source documents (e.g. the Word file you made the PDF/A file from), measurement data used to create a graph, alternative representations etc. The embedded files don’t need to follow the same rules for being meaningfully readable at some distant point in the future as the main PDF/A content itself.

PDF/E – Engineering

The PDF/E committee agreed to start work on PDF/E-2 to enable the archiving of engineering documents. They are running into one of the most common challenges in standards work, however, in that there is widespread demand for the standard, but finding experts willing to invest time in developing it is proving difficult. Volunteers would be welcome!

PDF/UA – Universal Accessibility

The PDF/UA-1 standard is currently in what may be its final ballot before ratification, so wasn’t discussed in Ottawa. If all goes according to plan, that will be published in the second half of 2011, and may even become one leg of the next version of Section 508.

The committee started the work to develop a PDF/UA-2 standard, based on ISO 32000-2 (the next version of the ISO PDF standard itself, see below). That standard already includes a lot of work on accessibility that’s been done in preparation for its use in this way.

PDF itself

All of the comments to the last committee draft (CD) ballot on the next version of PDF (ISO 32000-2) were reviewed and resolved. Several more substantial proposals regarding topics such as what a PDF reader must do and the relationships between the various subset standards were discussed.

The committee decided that the standard is not yet solid enough to go to a ‘Draft International Standard’ (DIS) ballot, which could have been the final stage of the process. Instead it will be updated with the agreements from this meeting and then issued for another CD ballot. The results of that will be discussed in May next year, and may lead to a DIS ballot after then. If so then 32000-2 might be ratified at the end of 2011, and published in early 2012.

That’s it from the great wet North (for some reason the UK and Canada appeared to swap their early Winter weather last week).

Martin

The seminar will look in detail at:

• What is the PDF/A standard and how is it used?

• What are the benefits of PDF/A?

• Which documents can be archived into PDF/A?

• What do PDF/A, PDF / A – 1a, PDF/A – 1b, PDF 2 mean?

It’s being held on Nov 19, 2010 from 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM at:

Hubworking Centre
5 Wormwood Street
London, London EC2M 1RQ

For more details, or to book attendance, see the event web site.

See you there!

Martin

Over the summer, we completed a competition called Viral Summer which encouraged students within Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire to complete a short digital video which promotes the unique aspects of gDoc Fusion. 

The result is a funny and unique take on our product, gDoc Fusion, and we think you’ll enjoy it too. 

You can take a look for yourself : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alYq363S-fE

“To do high quality printing of HTML5, you need a high quality print subsystem. Internet Explorer 9 directly converts web content into XPS format when sending output to the printing system. XPS is a more modern print system with native support for features such as opacity and complex paths, which results in increased fidelity and quality when printing modern web content.” 

What is often overlooked is that XPS is not just an electronic document format like PDF. As part of the XPSDRV (the printing architecture of Windows Vista and Windows 7) it is also a spool format and a page description language. When an application uses the XPS Print Path rather than GDI, the new print path maintains the XPS format from application publication to the final processing in the print driver. This streamlined printing process is quicker and does not suffer from the degradation in quality that can be a feature of older print paths. Windows 7 also expands the range of applications that can take advantage of XPS printing.

So why do I care about this? The answer is that XPS plays an important role in our free PDF creation product. We switched from PostScript-based generation to one based on XPS in the last release. For most applications printing to our virtual driver, the switch is largely irrelevant, but some, including Microsoft Office 2007 / 2010, definitely benefit. The real advantage comes when an application uses XPS from the start to do its printing. A good example is Microsoft Publisher 2010 which uses XPS printing to guarantee print quality and colour fidelity, crucial factors in publishing.  With IE9 we are seeing a mainstream application taking this advantage, as in time more applications will do.

Back to work then looking at IE9, and I’ve just discovered this:  http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Performance/Helicopter/Default.xhtml. Simple but addictive!

Aiim has recommended that you take 3 simple steps:

1. .Conscientiously make a point to not PRINT
2.Investigate a business process or technology that can cut the paper waste in your office
3.Participate or Produce a local Paper Free Day event

Of course, there are many software tools out there that that claim to reduce our ever increasing dependency on printing documents, whether it’s emails, reports, office documents in fact almost everything.  

A simple flick view to literally flick through all of those documents on the screen, could stop you from printing that page.  I wonder where you could find that…..?

Just take one moment today and think before you print!  Or you could share it with us in our comment section below.

The prototype designs we were testing were based on real objects. The metaphors were therefore known to all users. During the test sessions they were consistently using terminology such as ‘intuitive’, ‘familiar’, ‘natural’, ‘instinctive’… to use.

These are terms you hope users might use when testing prototypes but you are grateful when they’re being validated by perfect strangers that have never seen the prototypes before.

However, there was one user who declared within the first minute of a one hour test that the prototype was, “Obviously an analogue real-world model – I hate tools like this”.

At this point I thought should I come up with an excuse to ask them to leave the lab, come back another time since I was feeling ill, any excuse… Then you remind yourself about the HCI principle all users are users, regardless of their preconceptions, so I needed to follow through the test and record all their comments, even if they might all be negative given their opening statement…

Aside from writing observation notes and filming the session, at the end I leave users to fill in a questionnaire following the same steps of the tasks we just went through, to express in their own words without me being in the room what they really think. To my surprise by the end of the session given their original statement, this is what they concluded: “I initially thought that the use of a real-world model would limit the interface, but it actually proved to be very intuitive.”

So what started with a user session that could have been entirely negative, turned out to be the best experience of that usability lab.

Priceless.

I then asked him about his support strategy for these consumer tools.  “Very simple”, he said, “self help unless it’s core network/ hardware/ infrastructure related – very little support is required because the products are intuitive and easy to use. There’s also a vast amount of assistance available online through knowledge bases and forums.  And, our users generally know their products better than IT.”

All of which got me thinking about software user interfaces again, and why it is that business software isn’t easier to use.  It was where we started with the development of the gDoc Fusion user interface.

If consumer stuff is so easy and fun to use, then why isn’t our day to day business software too?

(Re)- Introducing Back to the Fusion, the tense, gripping, comedy thriller now showing on Global Graphics TV at  http://bit.ly/d3sCEg

With his boss on his back, see how our hero, Marty, quickly merges PDF, PowerPoint and Excel files into a single file that he can easily edit and share.  And with Doc on hand it’s sure to be a ride to remember.

Let’s go back; Back to the Fusion…….