Design for Screen - UI analysis

Task - Analyse an interface that is of a similar topic or purpose to the one that you wish to design for Studio Brief 2.

instapaper
Instapaper is a bookmarking service owned by Pinterest. It allows web content to be saved so it can be "read later" on a different device, such as an e-reader, smartphone, tablet

Good
- can save articles from anywhere to keep as an archived article to read at any time
- an account means that articles can be accessed on any computer or app when signed in
- can change background colour to help with ease of reading (fig. 5)
- font size can be changed
- section for videos as well as articles
- can make own folders
- can highlight particular parts of an article ad keep in a fold to access when needed

Bad
- basic wordpress layout with no thought into visual design, only usability
- the target audience of pinterest would be design conscious, creative young adults and as this interface is owned by pinterest I would have assumed that the design would have been more visually engaging

Figure 1 shows the homepage of 'instapaper' which is very plain, lacks content and visual identity. In comparison to 'Pinterest' which has a very developed grid layout, bold colours, easy to use navigation system etc. As 'Instapaper' is owned by Pinterest, it would ave been assumed that the two would have had a similar visual design style and both appealed to the same target audience. Pinterest has the same target audience as the app will have that I am to design - creative and design conscious, students and young adults. 

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

The interface allows you to search through the suggested articles (fig. 3) and then when opened, you are redirected to the external page (fig. 4) that the article has been sourced from. 

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

In order to use this bookmarking interface, you must create an account which enables you to access your saved articles and videos from any phone or computer you decide to use. When using the phone app, the articles can be sourced from any other app or web browser that you may be reading , as shown in figure 6. The share icon is then clicked and you have the option to bookmark (fig. 7) the article within the 'Instapaper' application. Figure 8 shows the article saved within the application, meaning you can have easy access this whenever you need it. 

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Thoughts
This interface has a similar concept to what I am looking at designing, but as well as being able to bookmark the articles of interest, I want to provide the user with a newsfeed of articles sourced from all of the creative websites and blogs that they have selected to be of interest to them. The feautre of being able to import any article from any source and then adding it to a library on the 'instapaper' app is a feature that I could also incorporate into the design of my app.