Post on 10-May-2015
description
Academic E-ReadingThemes from User Experience Studies
Nicole Hennig, HeadMIT Libraries User Experience GroupNov. 8, 2011
Today’s talk
1. User needs study results
2. Mobile academic ereading - the current state
3. Mobile academic ereading - improving it
User Needs Research
Digital Scholarship Study
17 students kept diaries of their academic lives for a week
- in-depth interviews
how are new technologies & formats changing how students work?
Convenience wins Fragmentation hurts
Place matters
Themes
People count
Familiarity
Convenience wins
Time invested in familiar systems
Post-paper society - no more flipping through current journals
Convenience wins
Interlibrary borrowing?Just difficult enough to skip.
Difficult? change topic
Convenience wins
The convenience of pen & paper.
Convenience wins
Mobile works
Fragmentation hurts
Multiple storage solutions
Fragmentation hurts
Even “the cloud” is fragmented.
Fragmentation hurts
Fragmentation hurts
Work-arounds
Collaboration
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kmakice/3462454985/
People count
Collaboration tools
People count
Alone together
People count
Distance tools
People count
Familiar experts
People count
Place matters
24-hours, work from everywhere
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kcolwell/502787405/
Convenience wins Fragmentation hurts
Place matters
Themes
People count
“How might we?...”
A. Convenience wins1. How might we make our services as convenient as possible?
B. Fragmentation hurts1. How might we reduce fragmentation in our resources and tools that we provide?
2. How might we make our tools interoperate with the tools that people use? (Dropbox, Instapaper, Google Docs, Evernote, Refworks, Zotero)
C. People count
1. How might we enable people to connect to the experts they need?
Academic ebooks - current situation
We subscribe to many ebook packages, but most are not easy to read on mobile devices.
http://libguides.mit.edu/ereadingfaq
What we tell our users
Comparing features
What we look for
Students use of ebooks not growing
Chronicle of Higher Education
MIT Libraries Fall 2011 survey
77% have a smartphone or e-reader.
MIT Libraries Fall 2011 Survey. 6,500 responses, 44% response rate
MIT students want to read & take notes while mobile
Results not completely analyzed yet, but majority “not currently doing this, but would like to” for all choices.
MIT Libraries Fall 2011 Survey. 6,500 responses, 44% response rate
Expectations from non-academic e-reading
- read anytime/anywhere
- small, lightweight, carry many books with you
- easy to get new books immediately
- ability to sync between mobile devices & computers
- zooming in to details of illustrations (iPad & other tablets)
- even small screens can work for reading PDFs, thanks to apps like GoodReader
Popular workshop
http://libguides.mit.edu/apps
Char Booth, Univ. of California, Berkeley
“Librarians must carve out new roles as advocates of more usable digital collections”
What academic ebooks could be
1. Solve user problems Convenience wins
Fragmentation hurts2. An ecosystem
3. Social contextPeople count
Medium matters
4. Take advantage of the medium
• pondering • thinking• taking notes • bookmarking• copying • quoting • defining words• underlining • highlighting • comparing with other text • skipping around• skimming• looking at photos • examining charts/graphs• citing• discussing
It’s more than reading
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bludgeoner86/2298513747/
Improved ways to annotate digital documents that allow for either typing or handwriting in a way that works easily and intuitively.
Easy annotation
Convenience wins
GoodReaderiAnnotate PDF
Allow for ease of saving and formatting citations in formats required.
Integration with citation tools
1Convenience wins
- Context, Not Containerby Brian O’Leary
Content is no longer just a product. It’s part of a value chain that solves readers’ problems. Readers expect publishers to point them to the outcomes or answers they want, where and when they want them.
Convenience wins
Solve user problems
Allows one to be “device-agnostic”... change or upgrade device, keep your content.
Download once, read anywhere
Fragmentation hurts
Download once, read anywhere
Fragmentation hurts
Allows for easy organizing, saving, and moving content between devices and systems.
Integration with cloud tools
Fragmentation hurts
Allow for sharing of quotes and text snippets via email, Twitter, Google+, or other social media.
Social features, discussion
People count
Social features, discussion
People count
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aufheben/494023168/
Text - also known as “formless” content
Medium matters
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25541021@N00/4339699941/
Text + graphics, maps, diagrams- also known as “definite content”
Medium matters
— Books in the age of the iPad by Craig Mod
“.....definite content..... It may be reflowable, but depending on how it is reflowed, inherent meaning and quality of the text may shift.”
Formless vs. Definite Content
Medium matters
Allow for zooming in and out, with multi-touch gestures for very large, detailed images, maps, or diagrams.
Better ways to view illustrations
http://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/2230280043/
Medium matters
Learn from design of comic appsauto-zoom to each panel
What if zoom features were applied to scholarly illustrations?
Medium matters
3D images, rotation. Takes advantage of multi-touch & swipe.
The Elements, iPad app
Medium matters
- Books in the age of the iPadby Craig Mod
“Take something as fundamental as pages, for example. The metaphor of flipping pages already feels boring and forced on the iPhone and on the iPad. The flow of content no longer has to be chunked into “page”-sized bites.”
Medium matters
Page turning metaphor
- Books in the age of the iPad by Craig Mod
“One simplistic reimagining of book layout would be to place chapters on the horizontal plane, with content on a fluid vertical plane.”
Medium matters
- Books in the age of the iPad
“In printed books, the two-page spread was our canvas. It’s easy to think similarly about the iPad. Let’s not. The canvas of the iPad must be considered in a way that acknowledges the physical boundaries of the device, while also embracing the effective limitlessness of space just beyond those edges.
We’re going to see new forms of storytelling emerge from this canvas.”
by Craig Mod
Limitless space beyond the edges
Medium matters
- Context, Not Containerby Brian O’Leary
“The way we think about book, magazine, and newspaper publishing is unduly governed by the physical containers we have used for centuries to transmit information.”
Medium matters
- Context, Not Containerby Brian O’Leary
“Many current audiences (and all future ones) live in an open and accessible environment. They expect to be able to look under the hood, mix and match chunks of content, and create, seamlessly, something of their own. Failure to meet those needs will result in obscurity, at best.”
DIY: create your own, mix/match
Medium matters
- we want to offer the best
- we want to innovate
- we want to provide useful tools for scholarship and learning
- we need more thoughtful analysis around DRM issues
Librarians & scholarly publishers
Medium matters
- Analyzing the business case for DRMby Kirk Biglione
Meanwhile, a growing number of mostly independent publishers are doing the unthinkable: releasing ebooks without any form of copy restriction. Are these publishers completely oblivious to the obvious problem of digital piracy? Or are they taking a calculated risk that will ultimately benefit their business?
DRM: Making informed decisions
Medium matters
http://book.pressbooks.com/chapter/analyzing-business-case-for-drm
Books in the age of the iPad by Craig Mod
Context, Not Container by Brian O’Leary
A social book
Analyzing the business case for DRM by Kirk Biglione
What academic ebooks could be
1. Solve user problems Convenience wins
Fragmentation hurts2. An ecosystem
3. Social contextPeople count
Medium matters
4. Take advantage of the medium