Drawar

Just as with native apps generally, people who read the Financial Times via the Web app from their smartphones and tablets are more engaged than users who visit the publication’s desktop website.

“They are consuming about three times as many pages through the app as they are through the desktop in an average visit,” Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com, told Reuters.

Financial Times Proves HTML5 Can Beat Native Mobile Apps

It was mere coincidence that I just got done with the first stages of implementing a one-column design here when I came across this article. Why would users viewing the same content differ in the amount of content they viewed based on the medium? My initial conclusion without even visiting the site on either medium was that the HTML5 experience had to be cleaner and less distracting. I can only imagine the desktop version being littered with ads and other tricks to get you to view more pages.

I couldn’t just guess though, I had to see it for myself.

The Homepage

Here is what I saw when I visited the desktop version (left) of the homepage along with the iPad version (right).

By most standards the Financial Times isn’t a bad looking news sites, but that is compared to the myriad of failed news sites on the web. However, when you contrast it against the iPad version you can start to see why people are more likely to explore.

On the HTML5 version you are guided down the content gently. They aren’t trying to force feed you 50 articles in one viewing. Instead you are allowed to explore the site at your leisure with only one ad in view. Even the navigation is hidden and you can get to it at your own choosing. I would be even more interested to see how a one column design would do, but it’s obvious that the two column design with less distractions performs better than the complex grid design of the desktop version.

On the desktop version you have ads, a complex navigation and cluttered grid structure. I think we see where this is going.

So the Financial Times has shown that when you provide quality content mixed with a design that gets out of the way of your users then they enjoy the experience more. How is this a novel concept in any shape or form? It should be noted that the website has been around forever so there is a lot of legacy they are working with, while the HTML5 edition had the luxury of starting from scratch. But even so, I have a feeling the desktop version will always fall under the same trap of trying to cram more and get more objects/things/crud in the eye of the viewer.

Premium News

A couple months ago Oliver Reichenstein wrote a great article about the online news experience. In it he posits that you can have a crappy, ad-ridden experience, but also a business class experience without the ads. The logic being that people will pay for a better experience.

The main currency of news sites is attention and not dollars and that I believe that it is his job, as a publisher, to turn that attention into money to keep the attention machine running.

Business Class: Freemium For News?

The HTML5 version of the Financial Times gets more attention than the desktop version. Why not charge an advertiser to be the only ad on a beautifully designed page, knowing that you have enough inventory (pageviews) to push a number of advertisers on? I wouldn’t be surprised if the CPM on the HTML5 version is more than the CPM on the desktop version.