malama, c. and landoni, m. and wilson, r. (2004) fiction electronic books: a usability study. in:...
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Malama, C. and Landoni, M. and Wilson, R. (2004) Fiction electronic books: a usability study. In: Eighth European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL
2004), 12-17 Sep 2004, Bath, United Kingdom. This is an author-produced version of a presentation at ECDL 2004.This version has been peer-reviewed, but does not include thefinal publisher proof corrections, published layout, or pagination.Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the researchoutput of the University of Strathclyde. Copyright © and MoralRights for the papers on this site are retained by the individualauthors and/or other copyright owners. Users may downloadand/or print one copy of any article(s) in Strathprints to facilitatetheir private study or for non-commercial research. You may notengage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the url (http://eprints.cdlr.strath.ac.uk) of the Strathprints website.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to TheStrathprints Administrator: eprints@cis.strath.ac.uk
Fiction Electronic Books: a Usability
StudyChrysanthi Malama, Monica
Landoni & Ruth Wilson
University of Strathclyde, UKECDL - 13 September 2004
Outline
Background The Visual Book The WEB Book EBONI
Fiction Ebooks: Aims Methodology Results Analysis & Conclusions
The Visual Book
1993-1997 Importance of appearance in the design
of electronic textbooks The paper book metaphor is well-
understood
The WEB Book
What about books on the Web? Applied Morkes and Nielsen’s general
web design guidelines Scannability found to be important for
books on the Web
EBONI
Electronic Books ON-screen Interface Evaluations of:
Web textbooks Textbooks in proprietary formats (Adobe Reader,
Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket Reader) Electronic encyclopaedias Portable electronic books
By: students & lecturers in UK Higher Education
Electronic textbook design guidelines: http://ebooks.strath.ac.uk/eboni/guidelines
Fiction Ebooks: Aims
To study whether the presentation of a fiction book in electronic format that shares the EBONI project’s guidelines in terms of visual components (such as size, quality and design) increases satisfaction and usability.
To compare the results of this study with the results of the EBONI project which focused on the design of learning and teaching material on the Internet.
The Fiction Ebooks
Same book in three formats Freely available on the Internet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures
of Gerard Scrolling book Adobe Reader (PDF) Microsoft Reader
Scrolling Book
From Project Gutenberg http://gutenberg.net/
Simple, scrolling book Everything displayed on one long page
Adobe Reader
From Nalanda Digital Library (India) http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/
PDF format Look of a physical book Single page on screen at a time
Functionality Bookmarks Find Zoom in/out Thumbnails…
Microsoft Reader
Virginia Digital Library http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/Plist.html
Greatest functionality: Bookmarks Find Pan/zoom Clear Type “Riffle Control” for navigation Alter font size Annotations: notes, highlights, drawings
Procedure
25 participants: Lecturers and postgraduates in Computer &
Information Sciences Wider public
Conducted over the Internet: Contacted by email Online instructions Online questionnaire
Procedure
Pre-questionnaire Age, gender, occupation Previous experience of ebooks
Invited to read the three versions of the book in any order
Subjective satisfaction questionnaire How easy to learn, read, navigate… Comments
Measures
Subjective satisfaction comprised: Ease of use
“Compared to what you expected, how quickly did you learn to use the ebook?”
“Was the text easy to read?” “Was the book easy to navigate?” “How frustrated did you feel?”
Quality Rate how “annoying”, “engaging”, “helpful” &
“unpleasant” each version was Rate functionalities in terms of helpfulness
Results
Ease of use
Quality Overall Satisfactio
nScrolling 6.9 5.3 6.1Adobe Ebook Reader
7.1 6.8 7
Microsoft Reader
5.8 5.8 5.8
Comments: Scrolling Ebook
Positive: Easy to download
Negative: User-unfriendly Disliked scrolling Boring font and layout Difficult to navigate
Comments: Adobe Reader
Positive: More “book-like” Attractive, clear & colourful Easy navigation
Negative: Took time to download Can’t underline
Comments: Microsoft Reader
Positive: “book-like” Functionality
“I could not believe that you could draw… make notes and highlight”
Negative: Download problems Navigation icons Software failure
Analysis
Importance of book metaphor, in particular: Tables of contents Pages Navigation Bookmarks Highlight facility
And: Customisation, e.g. font size Search tools Colour
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