How the hell do you use Locations?

[foghat]

Originally Posted by cybmole

i think the dots show how far into the book you are i.e.what % of the book you've already read. they are based on last page read

The bolded dots show how far you are into the book. The non-bolded dots give an approximation of the length of the book.

[susan_cassidy]

Locations are handy when you read a sample, and buy the book. Remembering the location of the end of the sample, you just go to that location in the full book, and you are ready to pick up where you left off.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by foghat

Percent is okay, but in and of itself is not enough, imo.
I use locations to get a feel for how 'big' one book is vs. others I've read. I like to have an idea as to what I am getting myself into (time wise) when starting a book. I just drop the last digit from the location number to give me a quasi page number. Works for what I need.

I use to like what mobipocket use to do. They use give approximate reading time based on location size. Amazon does not show this number which is to bad

[solar]

Originally Posted by coolbreeze

I don't see it as a problem, but I do see the implementation is more confusing than not.

Either give us page numbers or get rid of locations. I simply find the location number completely useless. At least a page number would further resemble a paper book.

+ 1. Well said.

[WS64]

Originally Posted by coolbreeze

Either give us page numbers or get rid of locations. I simply find the location number completely useless. At least a page number would further resemble a paper book.

How can page numbers work when you have differnet font sizes/landscape and portrait mode/adjustable words per line/other settings?

There is no thing like a page on ebooks. This is one of the advantages of an ebook!

I don't care how exactly the locations work as long as I can be sure to come back to the same place when I choose for example location 500, no matter what setting I use to display my book.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by WS64

How can page numbers work when you have differnet font sizes/landscape and portrait mode/adjustable words per line/other settings?

There is no thing like a page on ebooks. This is one of the advantages of an ebook!

We have "Page turn" buttons for a reason. When you bookmark a page, you get a dog-ear in the upper-right corner...

If you read up on engineering or software interface design, you'll see why it's smart to stick with the page metaphor, but at its most basic, pages are both transparent and intuitive to the user.

Locations cannot be, even after people get "used to" them, because, by counting markup, they aren't transparent or predictable. As formats of ebooks become more sophisticated, this will become more of an issue.


It doesn't take a degree in software or web design to know Locations aren't optimal from a usability perspective. Amazon is the only reader, TMK, that doesn't offer some form of page display, for better or worse, and I think it's safe to say locations have caused more user dissatisfaction than anything else about the Kindle, except maybe file management.

Screen savers are up there too, and that something so quick and easy to fix hasn't been - even the simple removal of "Emily Skeletor" - kinda makes one wonder if they need a little new blood in the software department.

I don't care how exactly the locations work as long as I can be sure to come back to the same place when I choose for example location 500, no matter what setting I use to display my book.

Locations' functions as spot-markers would remain, regardless of whether the user sees a page number or a location number displayed, because they're a basic aspect under the hood of the .mobi system.

All Amazon did was make the internal odometer visible to the user. (Which itself wouldn't be as much of a problem, except that they don't even count the same "road" the reader is actually traveling.)

I see no reason to remove the option to display locations as is, but I see a lot of reasons why they should also provide a paging option for all those who prefer it.

What perplexes me the most is that anyone would begrudge offering a feature so many others wish for, just because they don't need it themselves.

[Bikeridr]

I've read this thread with interest.
Firstly I found the "locations" awkward or strange. Now I see that it is a perfect (electronic) adaption to (paper) pages. You get an absolute reference, no matter of size and/or formatting of the book. 2001 words and 3 letters into the book is still 2001 words and 3 letters regardless of the font being big bold size 17,2 or small unbold size 8.

Page numbers in an eBook relates to me the same way as if I ask someone how far it is from Oslo to Trondheim and they answer "9 hours". It gives me nothing. How would I know the driving skills and average speed of the person asked? Is it by lorry, motorcycle or car? Or at foot? If I was informed it was 580 km, I would then know *exactly* how far it would be, regardless of veichle used.

[lunixer]

My problem with locations is that I can't cite them for a paper in school-have to go to the library and find a paper book for that.

My other problem with the way they display location is the bar along the bottom. So, they have an arrow pointing at a spot on a bar. They also have the bar grey to a certain point, which is normally far beyond the arrow. I have never been able to figure out what the arrow means and the grayed-out part of the bar. They both move as I read a book, but at different paces. When I place a bookmark it puts a box in the bar, but frequently before either the arrow or where the gray part of the bar is. Does anybody get what I mean?

Also, considering how useless the bar and the location number both are, I would love to be able to erase them from the interface and get another line of text. I use the most condensed font in the smallest size, so it might actually fit. But I do like the percent read- I always just look up the number of pages on wikipedia before I start a book, and with that I can keep myself oriented.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by Bikeridr

I've read this thread with interest.
Firstly I found the "locations" awkward or strange. Now I see that it is a perfect (electronic) adaption to (paper) pages. You get an absolute reference, no matter of size and/or formatting of the book. 2001 words and 3 letters into the book is still 2001 words and 3 letters regardless of the font being big bold size 17,2 or small unbold size 8.

This just isn't true, but the reasons have been posted so much, I'm not gonna rehash them.

Page numbers in an eBook relates to me the same way as if I ask someone how far it is from Oslo to Trondheim and they answer "9 hours". It gives me nothing. How would I know the driving skills and average speed of the person asked? Is it by lorry, motorcycle or car? Or at foot? If I was informed it was 580 km, I would then know *exactly* how far it would be, regardless of veichle used.

Since I actually read words and not markup I can't see, that's exactly how I feel about locations.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by lunixer

My problem with locations is that I can't cite them for a paper in school-have to go to the library and find a paper book for that.

My other problem with the way they display location is the bar along the bottom. So, they have an arrow pointing at a spot on a bar. They also have the bar grey to a certain point, which is normally far beyond the arrow. I have never been able to figure out what the arrow means and the grayed-out part of the bar. They both move as I read a book, but at different paces. When I place a bookmark it puts a box in the bar, but frequently before either the arrow or where the gray part of the bar is. Does anybody get what I mean?

Yes. I've noticed the same thing about the marker lagging. I don't know why it does it, though.

The grey is the unread portion.
The pace could be jumping on heavily formatted sections of a book. I've seen a table display hundreds of locations on a single page.

[sirmaru]

This is the second thread I've seen here on locations. A lot of folks object to them.

Their solution is easy: return the Amazon Kindle WiFi within 30 days for a no questions asked refund. Why complain, just send it back.

Personally, I find locations far more accurate than pages in a pBook. They get you to the EXACT WORD you've last read. Pages numbers cannot do that.

In addition, locations project an exact percentage of the book read at that location. That helps in guaging one's progress in a book.

If any universities choose to make Kindles the standard eReader for their students, then citing book titles and locations is the most EXACT way to show their sources. If they still use pBooks, then Kindles should not be used in those universities as textbooks.

I used to use a Sony PRS-900 for reading eBooks. They use page numbers corresponding to the pBook page numbers. However, one page number can refer to as many as TEN SCREENS of print. Placing bookmarks that way does NOT get you to where you left off in the book. It is especially misreading if one uses their eReader and the PC application.

In contrast the Kindle locations are SYNCED from PC application to eReader. One always gets to the EXACT WORD where one left off if using a bookmark.

[TheKindleWorm]

Personally I like locations and have no problems using them.

I am surprised that out of all the things which could bug people about the Kindle, locations as a topic just keeps coming up. It seems such a minor thing ...

... Maybe because on the whole people are satisfied with their Kindles, maybe this is why minor gripes are becoming such big issues?

And seriously (to the people who've suggested it) are people really going to send a Kindle back because they're irritated by locations?!?

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by TheKindleWorm

Personally I like locations and have no problems using them.

I am surprised that out of all the things which could bug people about the Kindle, locations as a topic just keeps coming up. It seems such a minor thing ...

... Maybe because on the whole people are satisfied with their Kindles, maybe this is why minor gripes are becoming such big issues?

Or maybe what's a minor issue to you isn't minor to everyone?

Seriously, I think when we see this many people complaining, it's wise to consider that maybe it isn't a minor issue and they're not all just silly people over-reacting.

I read about a study done of ebook readers overall and page numbers was #6 on the list of 36 requested features.

And seriously (to the people who've suggested it) are people really going to send a Kindle back because they're irritated by locations?!?

Yeah, that's an odd response to give Amazon's customers. Nothing is perfect, and customers shouldn't be asked to pretend it is.

Customer complaints give useful information to assist in improving a product's quality and sales. No need to take it as a personal insult, as if someone's calling our baby ugly.

I did a ton of research over months before I decided on a Kindle. Locations and file management were the two things on the minus column.

I chose it anyway, thinking that, since Amazon's goal is to make the Kindle the most user-friendly and "disappearing" e-reader, and since these things can be fixed with a software update, they will do so eventually, in response to all the complaints, just like they did with collections. I still think they will, eventually.


Either way, like I said, I don't get the need to belittle complaints or requests that I don't share. I don't care about the browser, but I wouldn't go answering threads with complaints about it as if my being satisfied should be enough for them.

[TheKindleWorm]

Just to clarify, Piper, because I probably didn't express my post as well as I should have I'll admit I meant to say that it seemed such a minor thing to me personally but I wasn't suggesting that people were being "silly" or "over-reacting" (no where did I use these terms) and I wasn't trying to belittle anyone. I did say I was surprised by the reaction there has been to locations.

The main point I was trying to make was that I didn't think that people would return a Kindle (as has been suggested) just because the location feature bugs them.

And actually I hope Amazon do give the option of pages too because you'd think it would be easy to implement and it will clearly please a lot of people. So fingers crossed that it's all resolved.

[sirmaru]

All the Sony eReaders implement pages and they are nowhere near as accurate as the Amazon locations to get to the place one leaves off.