Force on Publisher Defaults on Nook Color

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by slm

You know, a white-on-white text entry at the start saying something like:
"If you can read this, the publisher formatting on this book is not showing and some text may not be visible in its intended form"
could make most of this conversation irrelevant

Except that the casual, non-technical, "open the box my new toy came in and start reading" user would still see that and say; "huh?"

Defaults should always be for the lowest common denominator. Because the technically proficient, "I want to change how this book looks" crowd will always find a way to easily accomplish their goal. The rest won't even know they had an option.

[Timur]

@sueneu: I understand your concerns, as a book designer you strive to achieve the best reading experience with least amount of friction to the majority of your readers.

But you must be aware that it is not in my best interest to promote "the lowest common denominator defaults" as DiapDealer put it succintly.

Granted, it is not particularly time-consuming for me to turn off an option, but this tendency of catering to the most ignorant users(book readers in this case; they should have the highest potential to learn things) in technology products is getting on my nerves.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

And Yes, Diap, the change is quite draconian - but if the user wants the content rendered in Trebuchet with text in white and background in black, I feel the content should be rendered in Trebuchet with text in white and background in black. Unfortunately there was sufficient content that was preventing the previous, more cooperative, method of CSS override (on the body/p/div tags), that a more thorough method needed to be used.

Applause.

[sueneu]

Slm,
Much subtler way of suggesting publisher defaults!

For this title, my clients decided to use roman letters where the Cyrillic didn't reliably display.

Jim, I have a new sympathy for you guys dealing with the crazy auto generated CSS (like that basic body text styled with a p.class that's called over and over again from InDesign export).

Thanks for all the help.

[lizcastro]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

No, what I said and am saying is that the reader (the person using a device, not the device itself) should have the final say on how they view content

Yes, the reader should definitely have the final say. But giving them the initial say by automatically subverting the design of the book creator is overkill and actually deprives them of any superior design that the book might offer (no nice drop caps, no well formatted poetry, just to name a very few).

The vast majority of readers will never know that the "Publisher Defaults" button even exists and so will blame the publisher and not the NOOK for the ugliness of the books.

It's really awful, and I beg you to reconsider your position.

kind regards,
Liz

[lizcastro]

And I could use media queries to make sure that the book looked at least decent in NOOK with Publisher Defaults off, but that means designing to the least common denominator, that is, guaranteeing that the book looks bland, since to offer a nicer design is to risk it looking awful if the user has not discovered the Publisher Defaults button.

Is that really what you want?

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by lizcastro

that the book looks bland, since to offer a nicer design is to risk it looking awful if the user has not discovered the Publisher Defaults button.

Is that really what you want?

Hi Liz,

What I really want is to have all content authored correctly, so that it will play well with a user style sheet. Since that isn't possible, my other options are just choosing from the least bad set - ie choose 2 of the following 3:
- Content is reliable (Override Features Work)
- Reading with no surprises (Settings that I set - stay set)
- Content may have easily discoverable high-design layout features.

I think the first two are the correct choice, since they create the least problems for the user/reader.

[DiapDealer]

All your reasoning makes perfect sense to me... except the part about making it the default. That part I just can't get my head around. I'm all for the user having the ultimate ability to "fix" things they don't like, but you're fixing things that the user hasn't even determined is broken yet (and for the most part, will have no idea anything's even been "fixed" for them).

Oh well... I guess I don't have to get it. Time will tell if it was the right decision.

[PageLab]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

This isn't about what I want, or what B&N wants, this is about what the reader wants.

The formatting intentions of the author should prevail over readers' expectations, and I'm not talking about eye candy here. If you want to read a book – and are interested in what the author has to say –, then his original intent should be preserved, formatting included. This is crucial and should be honored by the eReader, which must leave the publisher defaults on. The message embedded in the decision to leave the publisher defaults switched off is that it is ALWAYS possible to separate the message from its visual presentation. This is not true.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by PageLab

The formatting intentions of the author should prevail over readers' expectations, and I'm not talking about eye candy here.

The formatting intentions of the author maybe. The actual formatting used by the publisher, no way. I don't want to be forced idiotic margins, tiny font sizes, or unreadable fonts just because the publisher (or someone hired by them) thought they look cool in the iPad.

[PageLab]

Originally Posted by Jellby

The formatting intentions of the author maybe. The actual formatting used by the publisher, no way. I don't want to be forced idiotic margins, tiny font sizes, or unreadable fonts just because the publisher (or someone hired by them) thought they look cool in the iPad.

Well, if the publisher don't pay attention to what the author wants for his book, that's just a bad publisher. But we can't generalize saying that all publishers are bad, and don't know what they are doing... I totally agree with you that we should not impose this kind of thing to readers, but actually there IS situations where the content demands some level of control. Simply removing all of it by default doesn't make any sense. Until we have a software able to predict all types of formatting possible, it's better to leave the final decision in human hands – and brains, hopefully.

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by PageLab

The formatting intentions of the author should prevail over readers' expectations, and I'm not talking about eye candy here.

PageLab,
Welcome to MobileRead. First to make sure we are talking about the same things, let me be specific about what we are talking about within the context of this thread. Most nook reading systems have a Text option panel. This panel lets you set the font, font size, page margin, line-height, and for reader systems on a LCD device instead of eInk, the background color and text color as well. These options necessarily override the styling that is in the ePub, and as such there is an additional option, labeled 'Publisher Defaults', to not override any styling and display the content with just the formatting that is in the ePub.

If you are saying that the users should not have these options, then I disagree with you. These are features that substantially improve the reading experience for the vast majority of users, and are not unique to B&N readers, precisely because users have stated a strong preference for having those features.

If you meant something else, then please elaborate, because I didn't get that from what you wrote.

[PageLab]

Hi Jim,

Sorry if I wasn't very clear. I have nothing against the options you're talking about, like font size, background color and others. They're great and, in the majority of books, clearly improve the overall reading experience. What I'm saying is that the Publisher Defaults should be set ON from the beginning, because in some books, the formatting are highly connected with the meaning of the text, and there's no way for the software – or for the reader – to guess it right. Turning it OFF by default would simply break the understanding of the content.

So far, the only solution for this problem, in this particular situation, is to instruct the reader to activate the Publisher Defaults at the beginning of the book. This is just bad user experience.

I'm aware that a poorly designed eBook affects the reading experience negatively, but to simply ignore the original formatting of every single book beforehand is to judge different books on the same way.

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by PageLab

What I'm saying is that the Publisher Defaults should be set ON from the beginning, because in some books, the formatting are highly connected with the meaning of the text, and there's no way for the software – or for the reader – to guess it right. Turning it OFF by default would simply break the understanding of the content.

Okay, I understand now, however I still disagree.

Restating my point #2 above. I don't think of this a default so much as a user preference for reading content. Forcing the user to re-affirm that preference for each book, because some content might be better viewed in a different fashion, does not make for a pleasant experience.

Also not given the first few pages of content (title page, table of content etc...), it is highly unlikely that a user viewing it would not immediately change back anyway, so I see a definite downside for not real upside.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

Restating my point #2 above. I don't think of this a default so much as a user preference for reading content. Forcing the user to re-affirm that preference for each book, because some content might be better viewed in a different fashion, does not make for a pleasant experience.

When I excitedly tear open the packaging on my brand-new Nook and immediately load a book and start to read... exactly whose styling preferences will I be seeing? I suspect it isn't mine, or the author's or the publisher's. I suspect it's B&N's... the only entity in this equation who shouldn't have a say in it.