Look, I love the SI Vault.1 But the reading experience induces headaches. If the tiny Verdana type2, flashing advertisements and general cruft don’t do it, then clicking through 11 pages to read a single Gary Smith story surely will.
Without Readability or Safari Reader, I struggle to finish even the most compelling stories. And that’s a shame. I’d readily pay for access to a well-designed Vault with a usable search function and logical architecture. (Oh, to easily browse by writer!)
But alas, for now I can only hope for something better.
[1] When I can get to and stay at the Vault, that is. First: Why does the homepage link, labeled “THE VAULT” right there in the banner, lead instead to the App Store listing for the magazine’s iPad app? How does that make any sense? Instead users must poke around for alternate entry points, head to a search engine, or manually enter the URL (if they know or guess it). Is a few more apps sold worth the frustrating user experience?
And second: Why send me away, again to the App store, when I try to read stories from recent issues? When I click a link that says, “Read all articles,” I expect a table of contents, and nothing else. Even if I were browsing the Vault on an iPad, this sort of deception wouldn’t be right.
[2] I’ll warn you now, don’t touch that text-size widget; the hideous result is far worse than the original. In fact, every article on SI.com sports tiny, sans-serif type. Who enjoys reading that?