Maybe it would be interesting and even useful to mock up an interface that would actually serve our needs. It's even conceivable that if we did it right (and watched volunteers trying to use our interface) that it would be an improvement even for linear reading.
Bruce On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 3:03 PM, Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org> wrote: > The page interface is a pain. When I lose my place in a fat ebook, it is > very hard to find it again. I think they need to keep an infinite stack of > bookmarks for each page visited, so I can scroll back and forth through my > history. That would let me find my place after accidentally scrolling a > ~100 pages forward or backward, and would keep a most recently used page > stack for multiple pages in a reference book. > > Switching between phone & desktop browser in google books is painless, > too, and the phone and browser will play kindle books, as well. I > appreciate google's efforts to make public domain texts freely available. > Apple and Amazon seem more inclined to sell me new e-editions of public > domain works, but maybe I haven't tried hard enough to access the classics > with them. > > -- rec -- > On Feb 9, 2013 2:15 PM, "Bruce Sherwood" <bruce.sherw...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I've been very happy with the Kindle ecology because I can pick up and >> leave off from any device -- phone, Kindle reader, desktop computer. I >> haven't found the format wars significant because, thanks to the wonders of >> modern electronics, there are readers and/or convertors for all formats. >> For example, Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com) will convert just about >> anything to anything. My wife stopped reading books on her iPad (iPad 1) >> and switched to a Kindle reader because the iPad was just too >> inconveniently heavy for reading. >> >> There is however a problem that I'd like to see addressed. When I read a >> novel or most nonfiction, I read almost exclusively linearly, from start to >> finish. When I read/study/refer to a technical book (and I use quite a few >> technical books in my Kindle environment, whether or not they came from >> Amazon) I jump around a lot. The existing user ebook interfaces just don't >> cater to this kind of use. >> >> A simple example with a technical book on paper: I stick one finger in >> the book at the page where I'm reading, and I flip back and forth, very >> fast, looking for something related, then go back to where I was. The >> equivalent is hard to do with an ebook. It's true that the ebook gives me >> something the paper book doesn't, a word-lookup search capability, but >> that's a clumsy scheme for the example I just gave. In fact, usually I >> wouldn't even know what search term to give, because my page flipping has >> more to do with visual pattern matching to a page that has a particular >> diagram. Even just the page-flipping itself is awkward. On an e-ink reader >> like the Kindle, page replots are a lot slower than my quick scans of a >> paper page. >> >> The closest I've come to experiencing a usable interface is the Kindle >> reader on my desktop computer, which has a very large screen adequate for >> side-by-side two-page displays. There's a horizontal slider under the >> pages, and I can drag quickly forward and backward, with rapid page >> changes. Alas, there is no intelligent acceleration in the slider, so for a >> long book (i.e. most technical books) an infinitesimal slider jumps many >> pages. Sigh. >> >> I don't claim to know exactly what a good interface would be for >> technical books, but I'm convinced that I haven't seen one. Incidentally, >> there seems to be some resistance from students to technical e-textbooks >> despite their much lower cost and the potential, sometimes realized, of >> including interactive elements, animations, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if >> the problem isn't exactly the same problem I encounter with technical books. >> >> Bruce >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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