Redub Reader

Prototype, Redub LLC, 2009

Conceived a decade before web fonts, flexbox, and Instapaper even existed, the Redub Reader was created to address the Save-and-Read-Later use case. It failed for a number of reasons (it was built with Flash, copyright, the unforeseen invention of the iPad, the list goes on) but it was a proposed solution to a user experience problem that still hasn’t been completely solved even today.

# prototype
# UX/UI
# interaction
# typography
# data parsing

Problem
The user experience of reading long-form texts on screens is difficult and distracting.

Key Challenges

Webpage composition prioritizes advertising and interruption
Layout often not responsive to viewport dimensions and not optimized for legibility
Markup of HTML not always semantic
Copyright issues

Objectives

Create a screen-reading experience that doesn’t suck
Make it easier for people to save and read long-form articles

Solution
We built an HTML parser that scraped a webpage and tried to extract key elements (title, headings, main content, images) and flow them into a Flash/Flex app (multi-column layouts weren’t possible at this point in CSS).

Tutorial video for browser-based version of the app:

Proposed interface for the wide screen layout:

GOOD Magazine provided the assets for one issue on spec to see how it would look in the Redub Reader:

Annotation interface: