Designing for Digital Reading (Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services) - Softcover

Pearson, Jennifer; Buchanan, George; Thimbleby, Harold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1627052437 ISBN 13: 9781627052436

Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2013

Synopsis

Reading is a complex human activity that has evolved, and co-evolved, with technology over thousands of years. Mass printing in the fifteenth century firmly established what we know as the modern book, with its physical format of covers and paper pages, and now-standard features such as page numbers, footnotes, and diagrams. Today, electronic documents are enabling paperless reading supported by eReading technologies such as Kindles and Nooks, yet a high proportion of users still opt to print on paper before reading. This persistent habit of "printing to read" is one sign of the shortcomings of digital documents -- although the popularity of eReaders is one sign of the shortcomings of paper. How do we get the best of both worlds?

The physical properties of paper (for example, it is light, thin, and flexible) contribute to the ease with which physical documents are manipulated; but these properties have a completely different set of affordances to their digital equivalents. Paper can be folded, ripped, or scribbled on almost subconsciously -- activities that require significant cognitive attention in their digital form, if they are even possible. The nearly subliminal interaction that comes from years of learned behavior with paper has been described as lightweight interaction, which is achieved when a person actively reads an article in a way that is so easy and unselfconscious that they are not apt to remember their actions later.

Reading is now in a period of rapid change, and digital text is fast becoming the predominant mode of reading. As a society, we are merely at the start of the journey of designing truly effective tools for handling digital text.

This book investigates the advantages of paper, how the affordances of paper can be realized in digital form, and what forms best support lightweight interaction for active reading. To understand how to design for the future, we review the ways reading technology and reader behavior have both changed and remained constant over hundreds of years. We explore the reasoning behind reader behavior and introduce and evaluate several user interface designs that implement these lightweight properties familiar from our everyday use of paper.

We start by looking back, reviewing the development of reading technology and the progress of research on reading over many years. Drawing key concepts from this review, we move forward to develop and test methods for creating new and more effective interactions for supporting digital reading. Finally, we lay down a set of lightweight attributes which can be used as evidence-based guidelines to improve the usability of future digital reading technologies. By the end of this book, then, we hope you will be equipped to critique the present state of digital reading, and to better design and evaluate new interaction styles and technologies.

Table of Contents: Preface / Acknowledgments / Figure Credits / Introduction / Reading Through the Ages / Key Concepts / Lightweight Interactions / Improving Digital Reading / Bibliography / Authors' Biographies

About this title

Product Description

Reading is a complex human activity evolved, and co-evolved, with technology over thousands of years. Today, electronic documents are enabling paperless reading, supported by eReading technologies such as Kindles and Nooks. However, a high proportion of people still prefer to print onto paper for reading. This persistent habit is one sign that interactions with digital documents require improvement. Reading is now in a period of rapid change, and digital text is fast becoming the predominant form of reading. Now is the right time to address the shortcomings of how we interact with electronic documents. The physical properties of paper contribute to the ease with which printed documents are manipulated. Paper can be folded or scribbled on almost subconsciously. In contrast, the same activities on electronic documents require the reader's attention to focus on their control of the technology, not on the document's content. This is because of fundamental characteristics of the interaction design of the digital document. We demonstrate that low-attention, almost subliminal interaction is achieved in some facets of working with paper. However, print is not a panacea, and digital documents can, and should, be improved to the point where working with them is more, not less, effective. Hundreds of years of incremental evolution have resulted in major improvements for reading on paper. Principled approaches to the design of electronic reading devices and document reader software can make dramatic improvements to the ease of reading in a much shorter time. This book shows you how to do just that.

Edition details

• Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1627052437
• ISBN 13: 9781627052436
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 136