Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar
I think we also need to keep in mind that we on this board do not represent the typical consumer user. We might all keep hundreds of books ready to read and want flexibility with different sorting methods, however many if not most of the ereader users probably keep a handful of books. Even a couple of hundred are more than manageable with title, author and most recent sort options. I know a ton of people who are now getting ereaders and most of them only have a handful of books on the device and they think I'm nuts with having a few hundred.
Irex have stated numerous times that this device is targeted at the same market that Sony, Amazon and B&N are going after and we know how they currently view folders. A flat structure with a couple of different sort options and a search feature is probably more comparable to how people would store their paper books. I doubt few sort them by category.
I'm not defending irex's decision or promoting one approach over the other, just pointing out that we are probably not the typical mass market user and that a more complex, but flexible approach could actually be a negative to the mass market.
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I agree. They've said to me before that one of their goals with the DR800 was to come up with a better/simpler UI and improve upon the DR1000's interface based on feedback they'd been getting.
This is probably one of those areas where a specific design may make sense for a high end user or the business market, but a simpler one would be a better idea for general consumers.
Would the "average Joe" want his books displayed in a hierarchical structure where he had to navigate through the sub-layers to find things, or would he want them all presented in a single sortable list? A power user would probably prefer the folder structure, an "average Joe" would probably prefer the sortable list. The iLiad and DR1000 were aimed at one market, this is aimed at another.
Personally, I've got a NAS RAID array on my home LAN that has my eBook archive on it. That's where I really want the hierarchical structure. I typically only keep eBooks I'm currently reading, or expect to read next, on my device at any one time. When I'm done reading I delete it from the device. I do store them in a hierarchical structure on the device too, but I don't keep enough eBooks on it where that would really be necessary. A sortable list would be fine with me.