design an e-reading experience

On the HCI CONNECT event last Friday, we worked on a design problem with the employers. The design topic was "designing an e-reading experience".

With all the good things technology can offer us on an e-reader (one device with tons of books, easy access to online book resources, etc), the challenge is how to make the reading experience on a electronic device enjoyable. I'd been thinking about one question through out that 50 minutes session: "What do we like about the traditional books?"

The word came up to me is "Freedom", freedom of use.

I can read a book anywhere: in bed, in chair or even in bathroom. I can read it with any body pose. When I don't want to read it, I can throw it anywhere. It's easy to write a note on the book. It's easy to browse through a book with a finger.

So probably the device should not be that fragile. It may be just a simple piece that you can bring or throw anywhere. It should be light. It should not be a laptop. You can easily take down a note, make a bookmark. You can easily browse through it to find where the author talks about Africa pygmies. The way you interact with the book content, should be easy and natural enough.

Another point I want to make is: Most of us were thinking about simulating the experience of reading actual books. But we don't really need to if we can have a different but also enjoyable way for reading, or even we have a better way for reading.

Think about the time when people invented paper and printing. people changed from reading on bamboos to reading on books. The paper book was lighter, easier to hold and easier to publish. That's fairly different from the bamboo reading experience. The people who invented books were not really thinking about simulating the reading experience on bamboos.

I can imagine reading on a bigger size iPhone would be much more enjoyable than on the Amazon Kindle. I guess the display quality really matters. Multi-touch can also help creating more natural interactions. So it's possible that the next book reader will be from Apple.