If the finger is going to be fully engaged, then it must reveal the surprising “pop-up” moments, when the tablet becomes playful and the story more engaging.
When I first started designing apps, I could not get an image out of my head: those pop-up books that I read once to my children and now to my grandchildren. Those books where every time you turn the page, something pops up, much to the delight of the child. It beats reading Cinderella in a flat, line by line book, although those put the children to sleep faster. There is the energy of the pop-up book, a surprise at every turn. Very visual. Energizing.
At its best, a tablet’s interactive elements have the same qualities, which is why I call them “pop-ups.” Pop-ups are features well suited or, ideally, unique to the tablet and have two key characteristics: touch and surprise. The finger needs to be engaged in a tablet app, with tapping, swiping and all the other actions that are now available. You should be able to interact with a great pop-up intuitively, evoking an almost magical sense of engagement with the narrative.
This is where surprise comes in, too. In these first years of tablet storytelling, pop-ups remain unexpected. But when I say “surprise” I don’t mean that they should shock or scare you. I refer to the surprise of a great visual experience that presents you with something you have not seen before. Talented designers still create surprise in printed newspapers and magazines today, centuries after the print format’s birth.
Pop-ups are a necessary part of storytelling in the tablet: a requirement. They are so important that I have devoted a chapter entirely to them. Without them, a tablet experience is flat and lifeless. They need not appear in every story, of course. But a pop-up coming naturally in the narrative is tablet storytelling at its best.
Pop-ups can be divided into various categories, but all are effective in satisfying the impatient finger and providing fun.
One of the great advantages of storytelling on the tablet is that it allows editors and designers to give stories longer legs—to enhance the storytelling experience. Not to take advantage of the many possibilities available is, in a sense, to cheat the user out of a richer experience when reading stories on the tablet.
As such, I am grateful when The New York Times iPad edition shows me a clip of the play that the theater critic is reviewing, allowing me, too, to become a critic, even with only one short clip of the play to review. The Daily, the first daily newspaper created first for the iPad, is becoming more pop-up driven—notable progress from its early days when it was mostly a turn-the-pages type of tablet edition. The editors seem to be looking for pop-up potential in stories and then developing them.
Everyone planning the iPad edition of the day at a newspaper or magazine needs to ask the question: What will be our pop-ups today?
Perhaps only a single pop-up is realistic, so that is the minimum. One cannot have a true iPad edition that is linear and flat from start to finish. I want to see some action. A door that opens. A photo that turns into a video clip. A photo that suddenly speaks to me. Those are the pop-ups that give longer legs to the storytelling process. They can be serious and informative, such as showing you a 360-degree view of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring. All of these pop-ups surprise us. They make us happy that we are consuming information on this new and revolutionary tablet, the new platform of choice for so many.
For the storyteller in all of us, pop-ups are an extension of that story. Pop-ups give the story a voice, a bit of animation, an extension that allows us to penetrate where words may not take us.