[Manabi]

Originally Posted by Anthem

I've noticed something similar as well. Sometimes I feel like my Kindle gets too much out of the way. Sometimes it just feels like you are staring at walls of text without context. I do like how print books tend to put the author and chapter title or book title at the top of opposing pages. Have any e-readers attempted to mimic this? I could have sworn that the Kobo software did something like this. Even so, I still do 90% of my reading digitally now.

I'm surprised that the Kindle eInk readers don't at least have the book title on the top of every page, since the Kindle Android apps do. Both their general one, and they one the put on the Kindle Fires. The author now, you'd have to scroll back to the front of the book to find, which can be annoying.

Originally Posted by Anthem

I wonder if a progress bar could effectively replicate the experience of progress that the researchers are talking about.

Pretty much all the e-reader apps I've looked at have a progress bar, although most (maybe all), hide it until you tap on the screen to bring the interface back up. The Kindle app also has both a percent read (bottom right) and either time left in chapter, time left in book, or location (bottom left). I leave it on time left in book usually, and I find it quite helpful. It makes it much easier for me to realize I should give up and go to bed and finish the next day. Turns out I'm really bad at estimating how long it takes me to read what's left in a book.

Originally Posted by Anthem

Well, to be fair, if this study came out saying that e-readers performed dramatically better than paper readers... I find it hard to believe that a few of us here wouldn't feel a bit fuzzy inside. The vitriol and the gloating is the problem.

I'd be suspicious of that too, it doesn't make sense to me in a general. In specific instances, yes, for the population at large? No.

Originally Posted by soulfuldog

I miss that little progress bar more than anything else about my old Kindle. Mind you, I quite like having the 'time left in book..' and percentage of book figure in either corner that I have on my PW. So it's not like there is nothing to indicate how far you are in the book (you don't get to see how close you are to the end of chapter though). I'd guess the fact the study "included only two experienced Kindle users" says more about why there wasn't the same tracking of progress in the ebook compared to the paper version.

If you're using the Kindle Android app, you can tap on the percentage in the corner to change it. It cycles from location, to time left in chapter, to time left in book, to totally off. It has to be displaying first or ready to display (turn a few pages till it does), then try it. I had to figure that one out cause I accidentally turned the whole thing off once.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

To which I say: didn't we already know that? Those are the people who still prefer physical books--and aren't going to be deprived of them.

I remember learning that different people have different ways of learning. Some are more tactile, it helps them immensely to both take notes and to rewrite notes. I suspect it's those types of people who prefer physical books, simply because that's the way their brain is wired. Other people's wiring makes e-books either better, or equal, and convenience may win out when all things are equal. So yeah, physical books aren't going away, some people are always going to prefer them, and not just for sentimental reasons. But trying to push one format as better than the other is just silly. People are all different, no one thing is ever going to be better for everyone.

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

For example they should have twice the subject pool to make it meaningful. Half of them preference pbook readers, the other half preference ebook readers. Now split each group again in half randomly and give half of them their prefered choice of e or p book, the other half the non-prefered. So you got 25% pbook readers tested with a paper version, 25% pbook readers tested with electronic version, and same for the ebook readers. Those results would be meaningful. If you get the same result statistically in pbook beeing better than ebook in both pbook and ebook groups, than the advantage of paper over electronic would mean something. Or, maybe, the non-prefered book type is worse for remembering than the prefered choice - e.g. ebook lovers will remember better from ebooks and pbook lovers will remember better from pbooks.

There needs to be a control group too. I'd suggest a group composed of non-readers, people who can read, but don't choose to do so unless required to for work/school/etc. How well those people retain info from both physical and e-books would make a nice control group.

Originally Posted by Barty

There was an earlier study that showed that reading with an ugly or difficult font actually aided comprehension, possibly because you have to concentrate more. I think maybe the relative ease of reading linear narrative text broken into smaller chunks to fit on an e-reader screen, with font face and size of your choice, lets you glide over the text and lulls you into thinking you are absorbing more than you are. It's like listening to a skilled speaker can fool you into believing they are making a coherent argument even if they're just spouting gibberish.

Unless forced to, or it was a book I desperately, desperately wanted to read, if I was faced with a font hard to read, physical or e-book either one, I'd just not bother reading it. I suspect most people are the same. I read for enjoyment, having to deal with hard-to-read fonts is too much like work.