The Times
Supporting the Paywall

The Times

Supporting the paywall: creating fresh solutions for journalists

The Times iPad edition launched in May 2010 (the first UK newspaper to adopt the device), shortly followed by a digital paywall in June 2010.

Applied Works were approached to develop rich, engaging content that made best use of emerging technologies, and create fresh solutions to journalistic opportunities the iPad offers.

Our relationship with The Times has been one of true collaboration – one where we’ve helped to formulate the strategy, and continue to identify ongoing opportunities.

Technical challenge

When we began work in April 2010 Apple hadn’t yet launched the iPad. The Times were lucky enough to have two for testing on – unfortunately we had access to neither, as they were padlocked to a desk in a room deep inside News International.

Nevertheless we were very well placed to develop R&D and formulate a technical approach, building on our expertise in HTML5 and CSS3.

Solution

Common canvas size and reusable code base for website and iPad

Careful planning allowed us to implement much of the same code for the iPad and website editions – a significant time and cost saving.

Built as ‘web-views’ (HTML5 living outside the core app) we were able to work quickly alongside editorial teams, to integrate graphics into daily editions at the very last moment.

Further long-term savings were made by designing and building graphics inside a framework that had the potential to be easily recycled for similar story types across the news desks (current affairs, business, fashion, sport...).

Wall of Debt

June 2010

Built on the premise ‘if one brick equals £1 billion’, this graphic illustrates the spiralling UK national debt, making sense of the vast numbers involved.

Produced to support coverage of George Osborne’s emergency budget, fifteen years worth of data tell the story, by comparing the huge debt ‘wall’ with budget deficit and the forthcoming budget cuts.

World Cup Planner

June/July 2010

Inspired by the nostalgia of past World Cups (wallcharts, Panini sticker albums, Subbuteo etc), this graphic was a result of an idea we pitched to The Times ahead of the event – a live ‘second screen’ companion to TV or radio coverage.

Planner/wallchart

Fixtures, results and live scores for group stages and knockout games.

Player cards

‘Flip-able’ team-themed player cards, with live stats for all 736 players.

Health of England

July 2010

Displaying public health information divided into regions, this graphic illustrates the distinct North/South health divide in England using data collected by the Department of Health.

32 ‘health wheels’ distil different health indicators across nine regions. The wheels act as barometers for the health of each region, and provide users with an intuitive way of scanning through all the indicators.

A map of England communicates the national perspective in response to the wheel, with a ‘traffic light’ colour code identifying which regions score ‘better than’, ‘worse than’ or ‘average’ compared to the national mean.

For the regional view, segments on the wheel are colour coded according to the performance of each indicator. The screens below illustrate tooth decay at age 5, for England, London, the North East and South East.

Tooth decay at age 5, all regions

Tooth decay at age 5, London

Tooth decay at age 5, North East

Tooth decay at age 5, South East

Eureka Magazine

iPad app intro sequence

Animated intro sequence to a one-off special edition of The Times’ monthly science supplement Eureka Magazine.

The sequence builds on the app’s interface of interconnected hexagonal buttons, which act as the main navigation. Animated lines ‘spawn’ branches of hexagons, one for each of the app’s five sports science topics.