KnitNet. the online magazine that launched as a free (advertiser-supported) publication in 1998 then switched to advertising+subscription basis (with a few free patterns and articles) some time before Knitty was launched, has made their October issue free to read for anyone. (If you start from KnitNet’s main page, click on the “new or just visiting?” oval.)
The trick is, you can only navigate using the hyperlinked back/forward page numbers at the top of the frame, something they consider to be a good feature. That form of presentation makes sense to me when the information needs to be presented in print or in a linear fashion, but I don’t particularly like it when the content doesn’t have to be consumed in a particular order. Good for people who don’t know how the internets work and can’t keep track of which links they’ve already visited? Yeah. Good for ensuring that all ads get roughly the same number of impressions? Yeah. Annoying for me? Yeah.
Thank you all for your comments. We do look at all comments that we get and we take them very seriously. You will see that if you visit the site. We hope that you continue to enjoy the magazine.
Regards,
Dougal
I also paged through, printed patterns as .pdfs for future reference and filled out the survey. I told them in no uncertain terms what I thought of the arrows… hehe Maybe they’ll get enough feedback to get rid of the arrows?
I paged through also, I wasn’t overly impressed with the content. The navigation was awful. I did fill out the survey at the end which included a ‘Do you like the arrows?’ question and there was also a box in which you could suggest improvements – I suggested that they get rid of the arrows.
I paged through the whole thing, quickly, since I was really only looking for the patterns. I actually quite liked most of the sweaters, so I was pleasantly surprised about that. Formatting? Not so much.
I’m completely stunned that they think this navigation is a good feature. I don’t look through print magazines page by page, front to back. Why on earth would I want to do so in an online magazine?
So annoying that I didn’t read any further than Page 2.