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Reading E-Books Takes Longer Than Reading Paper Books
Hugh Pickens writes "PC World reports on a study showing that reading from a printed book — versus an e-book on any of the three tested devices, an iPad, Kindle 2, and PC — was a faster experience to a significant degree. Readers measured on the iPad reported reading speeds, on average, of 6.2 percent slower than their print-reading counterparts, while readers on the Kindle 2 clocked in at 10.7 percent slower. Jacob Nielsen had each participant read a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Each participant was timed, then quizzed to determine their comprehension and understanding of what they just read. Nielsen also surveyed users' satisfaction levels after operating each device (or page). For user satisfaction, the iPad, Kindle, and book all scored relatively equally at 5.8, 5.7, and 5.6 on a one-to-seven ranking scale (seven representing the best experience). The PC, however, did not fare so well, getting a usability score of 3.6."
Way to mention the results aren't actually statistically significant:
(Emph. mine)
Novelty, too I guess. Most people have used paper books their whole lives. I'd be interested to see the tests in 20 years of kids who have grown up with ebooks as their primary source of reading material and how they get on when they're handed a real book.
Maybe I'm just being obtuse here, but it wasn't clear to me if they read the same story on all of the platforms, or just had each person read the story once and the testers chose the platform for them.
This is pretty significant. If you're going to have me read the same 30 pages over and over again, I may slow down due to boredom, or I may skim the pages and the progression appears to have increased.
Books should be read carefully and slowly. What's the rush?
Not being frivolous, but as far as I can tell, the users were new to reading ebooks, but presumably not so with paper books. If you were to turn the study round, and test people who were familiar with ebooks but not with paper, you might get a very different result, especially on the general satisfaction. On the rare occasions when I read a paper book these days, I find it very irritating that I can't flip pages one-handed, larger books are actually hard to hold one-handed, I have to remember to place a bookmark and be careful not to lose it, because the damn thing doesn't automatically open back up to the last page I read, etc etc. Of course paper-book people are so used to these limitations, they don't actually notice them.
Oh no... it's the future.
I think this depends how you measure it. During my last vacations i have read about 20 books all stored in my ebook reader. If i would have taken the time to buy/fetch new books every time from a bookstore, i would have read (on average) much slower. Having an automated bookmark for every book also saved a lot of time. So, it depends on the way of measuring :-).... as usual.
CU, Martin
Have you ever typed a document in, carefully checked for the numerous errors that a spell checker will not catch only to have the errors JUMP out at you once they hit print, only to go back, fix the errors only to have them jump out at you on second print or even third? I have my guesses as to this phenomenon, but I've observed it in myself and others time and time again. Sometimes when I'm programming and cannot find the problem I'll highlight the area and suddenly see the errors, so my guess is simply having the medium in your hand in print or on a different colored background without glare as on a monitor can cause you to connect better with the reading material and find the errors or comprehend things faster.
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
It looks like they just handed an ereader to people who weren't necessarily familiar with them.
My reading speed when I first got my reader was about the same as paper, probably a little slower. As I got used to it, I read faster and faster. After 2 years, my reading speed and comprehension on an ereader is much higher than it ever was with paper.
Also take into account the fact that it's much easier to hold a reader than a paper book, and I don't ever have to hunt for a bookmark.
You've encountered seven point scales (often called Likert scales: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale ) in the past. [Please select the best answer]
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Somewhat disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Somewhat agree
- Agree
- Strongly agree