Creating Gateway Pages to PDF Documents

I've long been a fan of Jakob Nielsen's research on usability. I think the Internet, and customer experiences in general, could be improved by implementing many of his principles.

Given iDialogue "virtual rooms" make great use of PDF documents, I found Jakob's recent article headline to be provocative.

PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later (link).

But like most provocative headlines, this particular article buries the lede and actually does offer some very useful advice in its conclusion, which is to "Use HTML Gateway Pages Instead of PDFs".

"Pew Research brilliantly uses HTML gateway pages to summarize the findings in its reports while still allowing users the option to download the complete report PDF."

We use this in practice when implementing CRM-driven dialogues.

Let's use a typical Salesforce use case. When sending a PDF quote generated from a Salesforce Opportunity, the essential piece of information is the "Total Amount". In the iDialogue Room Builder, the value of the record's Total Amount can be merged into the HTML of the default landing page, with a link to an itemized PDF (see screenshots below).

Invoices are another classic example of providing the customer with a high level summary of the invoice and an option to download a detailed PDF for their records, if necessary.

Step 1 of 2. Add a merge field into the HTML template for a virtual room

Step 2 of 2: Contact clicks on link to room. Summary of quote is merged into the page. PDF with details is available.