Mid-Atlantic Fall Conference
10/8/2015
Proxy Usability
Broc Romanek
& Rich Andrews
Agenda
1.
Why focus on mobile investors?
2.
What is Responsive Web Design?
3.
What is wrong with PDF?
4.
How the S&P 500 have responded to mobile investors
5.
S&P 500 – Proxy Results
6.
S&P 500 – Annual Report Results
7.
Best practices to support mobile
8.
Price & value decision
9.
More information
1. Why focus on mobile?
Mobile devices (smartphones, tablets,
iPads) have exploded and saturated the
marketplace.
78% of Americans now own a smartphone
– and 10% of smartphone owners do not
have any other form of high-speed internet
access. Smartphone use is very high in the
Millennial generation.
50% of Americans own a tablet (such as an
iPad). And, unlike smartphones, older
Americans outpace Millennials in their use
of tablets.
1. Why focus on mobile? (2)
In 2015 the growth continues for
smartphones, but in particular the new
larger smartphones with 5 inch or larger
screens (called “phablets”) have hit
mainstream.
This means that more information can be
consumed on these larger screen devices
than before.
More trends/stats:
http://www.ezonlinedocuments.com/trends
2. What does Responsive mean?
Content on a website that is mobilefriendly will “respond” to the user’s device
properly.
This means that text will fit the size of the
screen, reformatting so the user doesn’t
have to scroll horizontally at all (they will
still need to scroll vertically, of course).
But, the text when reformatted is
readable, not just shrunk down.
Websites have to be designed to be
responsive, and it requires considerable
effort and cost.
3. What is wrong with PDF?
PDF has many limitations, especially on
mobile devices. PDF is not responsive and
does not reformat text to be readable on
different devices.
In addition, PDF doesn’t offer navigational
options such as dropdowns, tab menus or
tiles navigation – not allowing users to
quickly get to important sections of the
document.
And, the built-in PDF reader on stock Apple
devices that does not offer full-text
searching, bookmarks, or cross-document
linking. This fails the SEC rules and
recommendations for proxy notice!
More info:
http://www.ezonlinedocuments.com/sec
4. S&P 500 response to mobile
EZOnlineDocuments did a study of the S&P
500 in August of 2015 and it is very clear
that companies have aggressively
responded to the changing mobile user.
68% of the S&P 500 have already upgraded
their website to be responsive (mobilefriendly).
This upgrade is very difficult and
expensive, so the scope of change is very
impressive.
5. S&P 500 – Proxy Results
Nearly half of the S&P 500 now provide
Proxy Summary sections to improve
communication.
However, 90% of S&P 500 companies still
provide the online proxy statement in nonmobile-friendly PDF format!
6. S&P 500 – Annual Report Results
73% of the S&P 500 provide a summary
section (often called a Year in Review or a
printed “glossy section”).
But 68% still provide the online annual
report in non-mobile-friendly PDF format!
7. Best practices to support mobile
Easy Navigation
Being able to quickly get around is a key feature for
mobile users. Many strategies can help including
dropdown menus, tab-based menus, clickable
indexes, and even tiles navigation designed for
touch interfaces.
Full-Text Searching
The ability to search the document is a key feature
often not available in mobile conversions. But this
feature is one of the key SEC rules as well and needs
to exist on mobile versions.
Partial or Full Responsive
Complete support of mobile is the most powerful,
but very expensive, option. And alternative is to
make just the summary or introduction section
responsive.
Example of Tiles Navigation
for touch interfaces
8. Price & value decision
The decision process for the level of mobile support may involve budget considerations as full
responsive is very pricey compared to other methods.
9. For more information
Broc Romanek
Editor
TheCorporateCounsel
(703) 237-9222
[email protected]
Rich Andrews
CEO
EZOnlineDocuments, LLC
(973) 236-1576
[email protected]