Reading with eBooks

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Helsinki, 1 November, 2005 — Reading with eBooks

The eBook can be defined as “a book composed in or converted to digital format for display on a computer screen or handheld device” (Merriam-Webster). EBooks have been predicted as the big challenger or even a threat to print books for a long time. Despite predictions about paperless offices the real threats to the print and paper industries haven’t materialised yet.

Reading with eBooks

In Finland, it is perhaps too early to predict the downfall of the traditional print books, since 2004 proved to be a hugely successful year for the book publishing industry. This proves an important point: people are still reading books even when there are so many other mediums competing for their attention. The question we are asking now is whether they are willing to change the way they read their books and start reading electronic books, or whether books printed on paper are just the thing users want in this rapidly electrifying world?

Mobility is a key issue when designing eBook readers. A traditional book is mobile; it fits into a small bag, can be read almost anywhere and its batteries won’t run out. Portability is essentially what people want from an eBook reader as well: lightness, thinness and paper-like qualities (Onabe, 2001). With today’s display technology, producing a device like this hasn’t been an easy task. LCD displays traditionally require a backlight, which in turn consumes a lot of battery power. Short battery life remains an issue that will hinder extended usage. (Harrison, 2000)

The content is eventually the most important thing: if it’s interesting, people will read it, no matter what technological limitations there are. EBooks have the advantage of being quick to update and launch. Rapidly changing areas of business, research and science suffer from the long deployment time of print books, because the content becomes obsolete very quickly. Also, if there is only a niche market for a book, it might not get printed. In the mass market, it is hard to service the needs of individual consumers. EBooks offer also a market for writers who would otherwise find it difficult to get published. The material available through eBook resellers can be a lot more varied than the books offered through traditional print publishers. (Anderson, 2004)

The displays used with basic home computers are not optimal for long reading sessions. Many people still have old CRT monitors that are quite tiring for the eyes. After a long day in the office spent staring at a computer screen, many people really want something else at home. It’s often much easier and more comfortable to use paper. The thickness of the book, the turning of pages and riffling through them gives the reader a lot of navigational information and an overall sense of the book. With scrollable pages and reflowing text the sense of the book is often lost and the user has a difficult time deciphering the amount of text that remains to be read. These are important factors that must be considered when designing an eBook reader. (Schilit at al., 1999)

Using today’s displays, reading from screen is approximately as fast as reading on paper, but it is still sometimes experienced as uncomfortable or slow. This is partly due to the contrast and resolution of screens when compared with paper. Other aspects that affect the screen reading experience are for instance line lengths, line spacing, reflections from the display, text scrolling and navigational clues. (Hänninen, 2004)

The purpose of this study was to find out how willing people are to accept a new way of reading books. The main focus was on the subjective satisfaction of the users after their eBook reading experience. Based on the replies and reactions of the test users we wished to gain insight on the pleasurableness and potential future success of eBooks and eBook devices. The usability of eBook devices was estimated for instance in comparison to reading on a traditional computer screen.

Another goal was to find out how paper compares to these reading devices: whether the devices are good enough to substitute print for some people; what the users see as the strengths of paper and of electronic devices and how paper could be developed to rise to the challenge of new technology.

Methods

The test part of the study was conducted in three successive two week periods. The users filled out a questionnaire before and after their test use period, and the questionnaires were followed up with group discussions.

After the group discussion, the test period started. Prior to receiving the device some material requested by the users was loaded onto the devices. The users received an eBook device, either an iPAQ or a Tablet PC, for two weeks. The users had a possibility to request a certain device. Of course, it would have been possible to randomly distribute the devices, but then the users’ initial dislikes for certain devices might have affected the outcome. Additional tests were also carried out with a Nokia 7710 smart phone and a Rocket eBook device. More information on the devices may be found elsewhere (Pietilä, 2005).

After the two-week test period, every user filled out a satisfaction questionnaire asking basic satisfaction questions about the device, the software and the content, using for instance the SUS usability scale. The SUS (Standard Usability Scale) is a freely available, standardised scale, developed in 1986. (Brooke) One user was asked to test and use all devices. He then evaluated all the devices on the SU scale. Thus we were able to get a SUS ranking of all the devices available.

An important goal was to find out how paper compares to these reading devices: whether the devices are good enough already for some people to give up using paper; what they see as the strengths of paper and of electronic devices and how paper could be developed to rise to the challenge of new technology. The users were asked to fill out a satisfaction questionnaire about printed material in addition to the questionnaire about electronic material.

The test users were employees of Oy Keskuslaboratorio – Centrallaboratorium Ab and their families. The fact that all of the primary test subjects worked for the paper industry might have affected their initial attitude somewhat, because eBooks are an alternative to paper. The test subjects were between the ages of 5 and 56, the average age being 32 and the total amount of test users 16.

Of the seven families in the study, three had children, and four children under 18 also participated in the study. Of the 16 test users, nine had a university degree. Half of the test users were female.

Results and Discussion

After the initial group discussion, it was apparent that the users seemed quite worried about the readability of the screen. There was also a slight problem with the material: there were very few Finnish eBooks available, and Finnish material for children was even scarcer. For some languages, there was no material available in other formats besides PDF, and encrypted PDF files couldn’t be viewed on the Pocket PC device.

Readers also expressed some concern over the technical aspects of the devices. For instance, if the battery on the device should run out during a trip, reading would be abruptly interrupted. It was also seen as possible that the fear of breaking the device would prevent people from taking their eBook readers along when they leave home. Small size and other useful functions besides the eBook reader were also seen as contributing factors to the users’ willingness to carry the device along. Users were somewhat doubtful about the literary quality of self-published works, easily associated with the variety of material available on personal web sites.

Reading Habits and Computer Use

Only one family out of the seven participating in this study didn’t have any kind of device that could be used to read eBooks at home. The users were quite experienced at using computers and quite avid readers as well. Only two users had read nothing on screen. The participants hadn’t had much experience with entire eBooks, but newspapers, magazines and long word processor documents were familiar to a majority of them. 10 participants said they read newspaper and magazine websites at least a couple of times every week.

On average, people were willing to pay more for hardcover and paperback books than for eBooks. People were ready to pay on average 23 euros for a hardcover, 14 euros for a paperback and 9 euros for an eBook. This seems to imply that the users really expect to benefit from the lower production costs of eBooks and get them at a lower price.

Satisfaction Questionnaires and Group Discussion

The users were given satisfaction questionnaires to fill out the moment they returned the devices. This was to ensure that the users would be able to answer the questions while they still had vivid memories of their own use period. Some of the questions from the preliminary questionnaire were repeated in the satisfaction questionnaire in order to determine how attitudes and feelings had changed after the test use period.

Test Period Experiences and Discussion

The users were asked to give their opinion on the device they used on five different aspects. The Tablet PC got a lower score for every characteristic. The difference is significantly large for the aspects of lightness, where the iPAQ got an average result of 4.1 and the Tablet PC scored an average of 1.9, and for the ease of handling with iPAQ scoring 4.3 and the Tablet 2.8. The devices are nearly equal when it comes to the quality of the display, the battery life and the robustness. The size of the Tablet affects its score for the ease of handling. Unlike the iPAQ, it can’t be held with one hand — and not even with two hands for a long time, if there’s no other support. Heavy things are harder to handle than small, light devices, and with heavy equipment the fear of dropping the device is often bigger. It’s surprising that the iPAQ got slightly a better score (3.9 vs. 3.6 for Tablet) for robustness as well, although smaller and lighter devices could be seen as flimsy. Despite its compact size, the device felt robust and the users weren’t afraid that it was going to break in their hands.

Although screen quality was one of the main concerns before the user experiment, both devices got very high scores for their screens. Users may have compared the LCD screens on the devices to their desktop CRT screens and found them more comfortable to use.

The participants were given a list of device and material features, and they were told to choose the three properties they felt were the most important to them. 15 users responded, and the results were quite clear. The results can be seen in Table 1. The cells marked in bold typeface and an asterisk (*) are eBook content properties. Affordability is appreciated as a property of both content and device.

Feature users table 1

lightness, portability, small size – 12 users
extensive selection (*) – 11 users
readability, quality of display – 11 users
affordability (*) – 7 users
ease of reading (*) – 7 users
long battery life, wirelessness - 6 users
affordability 4 – users

Readability is fundamentally important. Although backlight and battery life came up very often in the open questions, they’re not among the top three features chosen here. Instead, people are still emphasising the importance of a good quality display and its readability. The lightness, small size and portability of the device are also important, and especially so for the Tablet users, who have experienced using a heavy device.

The answers here revolve around a couple of significant themes, and it seems that most users agree on the most important things but have probably chosen a different option to express their opinion. All the people who didn’t pick screen qualities among their three most desirable elements of an eBook device emphasised mobility: their choices were portability, wirelessness, lightness of the device, small size and long battery life, for instance.

A similar comparison was done with material, or actual eBook, properties. 11 users out of 16 picked “extensive selection” as one of their three most important features. This further emphasises the statement that “content is king”.

Affordability is another important issue. Many users don’t want to pay the same amount of money for something non-physical than they would pay for a printed book. Users were also willing to keep an eternal right to use the material and be sure that their material is preserved so that it can be read even several years later. This is a valid concern, because so far we have seen technological advances make old files and software obsolete.

The users were also asked what they thought of the display quality with regard to reading eBooks. Perhaps a bit surprisingly nobody thought the display quality to be bad. Out of the 15 users — one of whom had used both devices — who responded this question, three thought the display was very good (two iPAQ users and one Tablet user) and thirteen thought the display was quite good (6 iPAQ users and 7 Tablet users). The user who had used both devices had rated the iPAQ display as very good and the Tablet display as quite good. It seems that the screens were better than what people had anticipated. This result seems to imply that display technologies are nearly good enough in terms of quality.

Only one iPAQ user had managed to read several books. Five users, three of them iPAQ users, had read one book. Five people, all of them Tablet users, said they’d read parts of several books, and six people, three iPAQ and three Tablet users, had read part of one book. Again, iPAQ users had been reading somewhat more, but all in all, the scores are quite equal. The reasons for not finishing a book were multiple. Six people answered that they hadn’t had enough time. Two users answered that the material was too difficult to read, for example because of the language. Two Tablet users thought that reading was too uncomfortable and that’s why they didn’t finish a book. One user also answered that the material wasn’t interesting.

Many people were concerned about the readability of the screen, and many fears focus on the symptoms that reading on a display can cause. For the questionnaire, most commonly reported screen reading symptoms were listed and the users were asked to report all the problems they experienced.

Six users experienced no symptoms that would differ from ones experienced after reading paper documents. 15 users answered this question, and five of the nine users who did experience something said they had multiple symptoms. The most common symptom was tired hands, experienced by four iPAQ users and three Tablet users. There was a much bigger share of Tablet users who didn’t suffer from any symptoms. This is surprising because many Tablet users seemed less impressed with their device’s readability and comfort of use than their iPAQ using counterparts. Tablet users generally had used the device somewhat less than iPAQ user, so maybe there was less long term reading on the screen and thus less symptoms.

EBook use substituted mainly print reading. However, whatever the activity substituted by eBook use was, none of the users said it replaced the first activity altogether. 13 out of 15 users responded that the replacement wasn’t complete, two couldn’t say. Also, when asked whether this — even partial — substitution could be permanent, if the users had eBook devices after the experiment, only one iPAQ user (whose eBook use had substituted electronic media use) thought the change might have been permanent. The majority of the participants, nine users, answered that they didn’t believe that eBook use would have permanently substituted any of their aforementioned activities.

Only two people doubted their future interest in eBooks. Twelve users were carefully positive, answering either that they are interested in eBooks if they are cheaper than printed ones or that they are already somewhat interested. In the future, some of the participants may consider eBooks as an option, especially if they have a good reading device available. Nobody had purchased eBooks yet, but at least one user had downloaded some more Project Gutenberg titles on his computer.

Finally, before the SUS evaluations and the open questions, the users were asked to compare eBooks as a reading platform with printed material and regular computers. The participants of this study preferred their eBook devices to regular computer screens used for reading. According to four users, regular computer screens and eBook devices were about equally pleasant as reading platforms. Six users thought the eBook device was somewhat more pleasant for reading than a regular computer screen, and four users thought their eBook device was significantly more pleasant than a computer screen when reading. Again, iPAQ users were generally more satisfied with their device.

One iPAQ user thought that reading on the eBook device was somewhat more pleasant than reading on paper, and two iPAQ users thought that reading on the device was about equally pleasant as reading on paper. Other users still preferred paper, with nine users (4 iPAQ, 5 Tablet) saying reading on the device was somewhat less pleasant and two Tablet users saying reading on the device was significantly less pleasant than reading on paper.

The biggest differences between the average results of iPAQ and Tablet users are in the ease of use and the affordability of eBooks. The differences between the quality, ease of reading and reliability characteristics is also significant. It seems that the iPAQ has surpassed expectations, but the Tablet hasn’t done quite as well. Both devices have scored lower on the versatility scale than what was expected in the preliminary questionnaire.

In many of these cases, it’s easy to see that the device has affected the ratings given to eBooks, although eBooks are just the content and the device is only a medium to display them. Tablet users haven’t been very impressed with the device, and it has especially low scores for the ease of use. The general bigger satisfaction of iPAQ users in comparison to Tablet users is apparent through most of the results. Of course, the initial attitudes scores are an average over all the users, and the figures don’t tell whether the change was especially big for the users of a certain device.

SU Scores

The respondents were asked to fill out any forms that were relevant to the devices they had used. In total, 6 people completed the Table PC questionnaire and 7 people completed the iPAQ questionnaire. Regular computers were rated by 12 users, the Nokia 7710 smart phone by one user, Rocket eBook by 5 users and printed material by 15 respondents.

It’s quite obvious that the questionnaire was not designed to be used with printed material, and it’s thus not very surprising that the scores received by printed material were significantly higher than the scores of other eBook platforms. However, only two people of the total 15 users who rated printed documents gave printed material the full score of 100 points.

Printed material performed best in the reading platform comparison, receiving an overall average SU score of 86.4 out of 100 with the highest individual score at 100 and the lowest at 67.5. Of the actual eBook reading devices, the highest overall score of 80.0 was obtained by the Rocket eBook. The lowest individual score of all was 45, given to the Tablet, followed closely by the regular computer at 47.5. Incidentally, with the exception of paper, the regular computer also scored highest at 97.5, probably because of its familiarity to users.

Tablet, although a standard computer and therefore probably initially more familiar to users than the iPAQ, received a significantly lower overall score. All in all, Tablet users were not as satisfied with their device as were the iPAQ users.

The Nokia 7710 scored quite well, but since only one user was able to use the smart phone, the result isn’t definitive. It is interesting to see that users were very happy with the Rocket eBook device, since there isn’t much variance in the ratings.

Problems and Strengths of eBooks in Use

The users were asked to report what were the problems and weaknesses they encountered during their use. Many problems were related to device size and ergonomics. This seemed to be a problem especially for Tablet PC users. Battery life wasn’t satisfactory, and some users thought the screen wasn’t good enough. Many users expressed their difficulties in discerning the book and keeping track of where they were. There were also content problems, especially due to the limited availability of material on languages besides English.

There were some positive points to using eBooks as well. Many users commented on the saved storage space, because it’s possible to fit all your eBooks on a single hard drive. There were also some practicality issues that emerged. Some users commented how it was easy to read on the screen, and many thought the backlight was a good extra benefit. The ability to get books quickly on the Internet was also a significant advantage.

The Advantages of Paper over eBook Devices

As the experiment was supposed to be a comparison of electric and printed material, the users were asked to make this comparison and report their thoughts on the advantages of paper as well as the advantages of eBooks.

Paper was complimented for its reliability and readability. Users also thought that one of the appeals of paper it that people have grown accustomed to using it. It’s a habit, and a pleasurable one at that. The short deployment time of paper was also a bonus, because you can just open and close a book and start reading immediately. Other issues were the readability of paper in direct sunlight, the fact that paper books can be taken and read almost anywhere, like the beach and a summer cottage with no electricity. Paper was also thought to be easier to control and discern because it's physical.

Conclusions and Summary

Many users were hesitant at first, and had doubts especially about the screen quality of the devices. In the end, many users were surprised by the screen quality. Generally, Tablet users were more dissatisfied with their experience, because the device took too long to start up and was big, heavy and clumsy. This was reflected in their overall responses and satisfaction, which was on average significantly lower than the satisfaction experienced by iPAQ users. These differences can also be seen in the SUS scores.

Despite an overall careful response, the users found some benefits in eBooks, namely their backlight and the possibility to save space. Many new promising and energy-efficient technologies, such as electronic paper, are based on principles that don’t naturally provide backlight. Since short battery life — mostly caused by the display and its backlight — was one of the biggest problems of eBook devices according to users, it is hard to find a balance between the benefits of backlight and its tendency to shorten battery life.

One problem faced with the experiment was the very limited availability of Finnish material for the devices. If there is no appropriate reading material available, advances in eBook device technology will have only a marginal effect on the popularity of eBooks. If there are no readers, there is no incentive to produce eBooks. Many publishers and users alike are treading carefully, since eBooks have been hyped before and they have failed to meet the expectations. Despite this, eBooks still have a very solid and loyal reader base and specialised publishers worldwide, but these literary works and their producers are still relatively unknown to the large public. There has to be current Finnish material available, if eBooks are to gain a substantial share of the Finnish book market. The users who participated in this study were in the end somewhat interested in eBooks, but still a bit cautious. The success of eBooks in Finland will depend on several factors, including the economics of eBooks.

Print is often seen as a luxury product when compared to its electronic counterpart. If eBooks are priced like printed books, there will be a tough competition. In many cases, people seem to pick an option based on the “least effort” principle: whichever option is the easiest, most satisfactory and most comfortable. If eBooks are readily available, affordable and comfortable to read and the selection is large and varied enough, they have a good chance of gaining at least a small share of the market. The sales of eBooks have steadily grown worldwide, and they show a lot of potential. It’s hard to predict eBooks as the first choice for most users yet, since the general opinion seems to be that they are uncomfortable to read. The issues regarding preservation, credibility, copying, lending and reselling may further hinder the potential readers’ enthusiasm.

Many users are also reluctant to invest in a separate device, especially if they feel they don’t get value for their money. Since eBooks are now only slightly cheaper than printed paperback books, one would have to read perhaps dozens or even hundreds of books to break even financially after the purchase of a device. Some users don’t wish to carry along extra weight in the form of a specialised device, because they have so many things to carry already. The device needs to be small and light. There’s a big possibility with large-screen mobile phones and PDAs that are often carried along anyway, and eBook reading software would be just another application for which people could use their mobile devices. The relatively small screen size didn’t seem to bother users much, once they got immersed in the book they were reading. If eBooks come to cell phones, it’s natural that reading devices become personal, and eBooks tied to their devices will not be given even to family members, unless they can be copied onto another device.

Based on the experiments and conclusions of this thesis, it’s time to answer the questions posed in the beginning. EBooks can become serious contenders, but they aren’t ready for mainstream use yet. There’s little or no belief in eBooks after the first wave of failures, and many publishers and device manufacturers appear to lack courage to try again. Devices will still have to come a long way to be accepted by the majority of users, although they are already good enough for some. The issues of good screen quality and readability versus backlight and long battery life have to be resolved. There needs to be more content in eBook format so that everybody will find what he or she wants. Further research into the use of eBooks in mobile phones with large screens would be interesting, since they are a good candidate platform for electronic reading. Still, eBooks are not likely to replace printed books in the near future, but they might be an addition to traditional publishing, making available material that otherwise would be unobtainable.

Acknowledgements:

Nokia is thanked for loaning the smart phones used in the study.

Literature and references:
Anderson, C., (2004), The Long Tail. Wired 10/2004, p. 170–177.
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Katri Pietilä, Sampo Timonen, Anu Seisto, and Susanna Nieminen
KCL
P. O. Box 70, FIN 02151 Espoo, Finland
firstname.lastname@kcl.fi

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