As part of our continuing effort to test, improve and update our interactive print resources and tools, we have made a significant upgrade to our calls-to-action.

Download the refreshed Layar Call-to-Action Pack, including the Layar Logo and the all new Call-to-Action Guidelines.

Our research and experience have shown that proper calls-to-action are imperative to the success of an interactive print campaign. Alerting your users through descriptive and explanatory calls-to-action is, more often than not, more important than the overall quality of the digital content. After all, if users don’t know about your content, it doesn’t matter how great it is!

Thanks to over 40,000 Creator editors publishing campaigns, popular interactive print titles reaching millions of homes monthly, over 30 million Layar App users and sophisticated analytics, we have a unique vantage point from which to observe how users are consuming interactive print.

Based on our observations, we have identified the most effective calls-to-action. Therefore, we have reviewed, user-tested and redesigned our calls-to- action to better provide you with the most efficient ways to make your campaigns more apparent to your users.

The Call-to-Action Guidelines are part of our goal to unify calls-to-action across campaigns to educate new interactive print users while providing a seamless experience.

As augmented reality and interactive print continue to grow, it is becoming clear that many more people now understand that a whole new world is emerging. We now have designers and engineers specifically working on AR projects, and with that comes and increasing amount of theory and best practices for AR user experience.

We recently saw this article by UX Magazine about augmented reality and user experience and we noticed how it related to interactive print in some places. In the article, authors Olli Siebelt and Michael Marina provide some starting guidelines for thinking about user experience when developing augmented reality experiences.

Consider Context
They mention first to categorize and plan your project based on the intended use case, and the same can be said for developing an interactive print campaign with Layar. 

It is important to consider differences in context when enhancing a magazine page versus and billboard ad or product packaging. The experience needs to feel natural to users, and what feels natural will vary between these different scenarios.

Real World Testing
Another tip – to go out and test in the real world before creating your project – can also be translated to interactive print campaigns. It was important for Layar Partner Limebizz to know the environment in which one of its latest campaigns would be displayed.

The bright orange mystery crate displayed in Antwerp’s central station was a very unique use of interactive print for users. Instead of holding a magazine in their hand, they were standing amidst a busy train station with varying lighting throughout the day. The results were terrific!

Design for Mobile
And finally, having a eye for design for the small screen is one of the big points made in the AR UX article. This also applies to interactive print. It’s very important that visual assets are easy to view and read on a mobile device, and that any web-based content linked to from your print is mobile-friendly.

See More In Our Guide!
These are just a few of the great tips we provide in our comprehensive Best Practices Guide! Have a look at the steps you can take toward more effective interactive print campaign creation, including:

• Getting started with interactive print
• Best practices for the Layar Creator
• Concepting your campaign
• “Dos and Don’ts” for instruction pages, calls-to-action and more
• Testing your campaign
• Integrating interactive print into your workflow
• And more!

Not long ago we shared our Comprehensive Best Practices Guide for the Layar Creator - a detailed look at how to create the best and most effective interactive print campaigns.

In that guide we included tips for calls-to-action - the text and iconography you place in your print to prompt readers to scan with the Layar App. After some research, we’ve come up with even more tips for calls-to-action. Here’s what we’ve learned:

The most important elements of a call-to-action include:

1. Smartphone icon
   The presence of a smartphone icon immediately makes readers think “mobile.” People these days instinctively reach for their smartphone when they see one, like when a friend they are with gets a text or call. Adding the icon in your print indicates how the reader can access the scannable content.


2. Visual cues
   Using logos and visuals over text often conveys messages quicker and clearer. Including the Layar logo over simple text to direct readers to download the Layar app is key. We have also found that round shapes draw attention better than others. Color is also important, as it should compliment the content on the page while standing out to the reader.


3. Brief description
   Users are more likely to scan your content if they know what to expect. If they like what they might find, they will be more interested in picking up their smartphone and scanning the page. Use a short, descriptive action phrase, such as “Scan to buy!” or “Scan to watch video!”


4. Reference instructions
   Sometimes readers come across your calls-to-action without first encountering the instructions you included near the beginning of the magazine. In this case, it’s imperative to direct readers back to the instructions by including the page number (e.g., “See page 4 for instructions.”)

The image above is an ideal example of a call-to-action which includes all of these elements. It includes a smartphone icon, the Layar logo, a brief description and a reference to instructions.

An additional tip for calls-to-action deals with positioning. Logically, it’s best to place calls-to-action near the relevant printed content. As an example, if you’re offering the ability to listen to a song, it makes sense to place a call-to-action near a photo of the artist or the album artwork. The call-to-action works in tandem with the visuals of the content to encourage the reader to scan.

This also applies to spreads of content in a magazine. One might be inclined to only insert one call-to-action for two adjacent pages with digital content, but our research shows that elements on the page without the call-to-action are less likely to be viewed. To ensure all of your content is viewed, place calls-to-action on each page with content, even if they are next to each other in a magazine spread.

Despite all of these tips, there are still challenges. Right now it’s still too early and AR is still too young for readers to recognize the Layar logo alone. Including the text and icons mentioned above helps, but sometimes it’s not enough. For example, you can also add extra information about the digital content in the form of a short list placed near the call-to-action, depending on your page format and layout.

If you’d like more information on calls-to-action and other tips for making the best of your Creator campaigns, check out our Best Practices Guide.

Here at Layar we are invested in helping publishers create the best experience for their readers in the Layar Creator. Since the augmented reality field is relatively new to most, we’ve created a comprehensive best practices guide for creating engaging, high quality Layar Creator campaigns.

The following set of best practices encompasses the results of user tests, as well as statistics studies on a few Layar Creator campaigns. They are part of an ongoing learning process about user experience in the augmented reality field, with a focus on printed publications. You will find both general and specific recommendations, example images and useful links for more information.

Click here to download Layar’s Best Practices Guide for Layar Creator.

The guide includes:

• Insights on instructions pages (purpose, positioning, design and communication style, etc.).
• Calls to action in print (purpose, positioning, design, copy, the Layar logo, etc.).
• Suggestions regarding digital content (target market, content type, principle, etc.).

We will continue to update this document and warmly welcome your feedback. We are aware that some methods work better for some publications more than others, that is why we kindly ask you to share your experience with us. We would love to hear back from you!

To leave us feedback, contact Georgia Diaconescu at georgia@layar.com.