Title Pages for Pīnyīn Plus Publication Resources Revised for Better First-Time Experiences

Pīnyīn Plus material involves a whole new way of interacting with the various dimensions of material that can be helpful to those learning Mandarin for the Mandarin field. Whereas the official 2-line and unofficial 3-line material that has become traditional always shows all of its characters, romanization, and English (if available) material, like material printed on paper has to, Pīnyīn Plus material takes advantage of the power of modern mobile devices to enable dynamic showing and hiding of its available additional material.

This new dynamic ability in principle provides users with the benefits of flashcards in context, and it empowers users to customize the material to best suit them. It also frees material producers to make the additional material richer and more completely informative, since it will only take up display real estate if and when the user chooses. However, the newness of this ability to show or hide material at will means that many new users are unaware that this ability even exists—they naturally still assume that what you see is all you get, like it always used to be.

This situation presents a challenge when it comes to how the title page for a Pīnyīn Plus resource should be designed. At first, to show users the pure, clean reading experience that is possible with Pīnyīn Plus material, only the Pīnyīn was shown by default, with no flashcards visible, in hopes that users would discover from reading the explanatory material or from their own exploration that additional material for any Pīnyīn expression is just a tap or click away. Unfortunately, most people don’t read explanatory material, even blinking or pulsing explanatory material (generally considered horrible by web designers), and not everyone’s an explorer—apparently many users would just take one look, only see Pīnyīn, and then assume that that was all that was available.

The next approach that was tried involved revealing the “flashcards” for a few selected relatively advanced expressions the first time a Pīnyīn Plus material page is loaded. This instantly shows new users that, yes, rich additional information is available. While this approach still seems to have good aspects, including pre-revealing information that most users probably want to see anyway, on reflection it may not be good to pre-reveal the “flashcard” for the big title on a title page, which title shows the name of the official publication that the Pīnyīn Plus material is based on. In Pīnyīn Plus material, the “flashcard” for the name of an official publication is generally going to be a complex compound affair, showing both the literal meanings of the expressions involved, and also the actual official English name of the publication that those literal meanings effectively represent. While there is value and richness in all that information, the different parts of which are rendered in different colours for easier differentiation, if that complex compound “flashcard”—in big, title font text, no less—is the first thing a new user sees, it can be understandable if that new user then runs away screaming. 😱

So, in summary, while on the positive side Pīnyīn Plus material allows both showing less information and showing more information than traditional material does, allowing for more flexibility and fewer compromises, if approached without this understanding, Pīnyīn Plus material can seem to new users to be either disappointing (“What? No English or characters?”) or intimidating (“Eek! So much stuff all at once!”).

A new approach will now be tried re the presentation of the big title on a title page of Pīnyīn Plus material. To avoid possibly intimidating new users, the complex compound “flashcard” of the publication name will not be revealed by default. Also, to effectively, reliably, and quickly guide new users away from possible unnecessary disappointment, while introducing them to the defining new aspect of using and getting the intended benefits from Pīnyīn Plus material, there will be more pulsing, coloured text! While generally a big design no-no, in this situation, with new users needing to realize that something invisible but significantly new and powerfully beneficial—and under their control!—is available, it seems appropriate. This pulsing text will follow immediately after the title and say, “← Tap/click to show/hide the ‘flashcard’”, and hopefully, this will cause new users to say, “Cool!”

Check out the new title page implementations for the existing Pīnyīn Plus publication resources below:

• Good News Br.
  (Pīnyīn Plus, Scriptures, EPUB)
  (2016-03 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced,
  and 📘 Reveal None controls for
  all the “flashcards” in a lesson, paragraph, etc.,
  links for getting around,
  picture links, audio links, video link,
  supports offline use & annotation)
• Good News Br.
  (Pīnyīn Plus, Scriptures, Web)
  (2016-03 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced,
  and 📘 Reveal None controls for
  all the “flashcards” in a lesson, paragraph, etc.,
  links for getting around,
  picture links, audio links, video link,
  Night Theme that can be turned on or off
  using the ☀️/🌙 button at the top right,
  adjustable text size)
  (Info re offline viewing and printing)
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Publications ▶ Brochures ▶
  Good News Brochure Links (tiandi.info/fg)

• NWT Bible (Pīnyīn Plus, Web)
  (2007 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly, unofficial,
  incomplete but with many often-used scriptures,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and
  📘 Reveal None controls
  for all the “flashcards” in a chapter, paragraph, etc.,
  extensive links for getting around, audio links,
  Night Theme that can be turned on or off
  using the ☀️/🌙 button at the top right,
  adjustable text size)
  (Info re offline viewing and printing)
  
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Publications ▶
  New World Translation Bible Links (tiandi.info/bi)