Abstract
Electronic books (eBooks) and eReaders are now a commonplace tool in the reading experience for many readers. Yet these have long received mixed reviews. Designing suitable interactions that support successful eReading experiences is a relevant task. This paper reports on an exploration of orientation cue designs for electronic books through consideration of design techniques implemented in both physical books (pBooks) and eBooks. We executed a case study of contemporary pBook and eBook orientation cue designs and report on the results of a heuristic evaluation with a small set of expert evaluators. Our findings identify the need for further investigation of the design of orientation cues for both pBooks and eBooks.
Highlights
EBooks and eReaders have long received mixed review
While the page numbers were located at the top of each page in three of the four physical books (pBooks), they were located at the bottom of the page in all of the Electronic books (eBooks). pBooks 1, 2 and 4 omitted page numbers on the first chapter pages, while all eBooks provided page numbers on everypage
Our explorative investigations reported in this paper show that chapter headings, page numbers, and progress bars may be the most useful visual orientation cues for readers when orienting themselves in both pBooks and eBooks
Summary
EBooks and eReaders have long received mixed review. Some critics consider that reading on a screen has several limitations, which creates an unpleasant reading experience, and traditional physical books (pBooks) will not be replaced. Others report that eBooks represent the future of reading with the extinction of traditional physical books being imminent. These arguments aside, eBooks have been a part of the book world for some time and do not appear to be diminishing in uptake for many reading situations. The cues for navigation and orientation in digital books are less familiar for the majority of readers and conventions are not as well established. We hypothesise that an integral research avenue is the investigation of how best to implement orientation cues (see Section 2) in eBooks for readers. This paper presents our exploratory investigations into the current state of orientation in reading and highlights the areas of need for deeper investigation
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