A contrastive study of E-book and paper-book reading behaviors: The case of the JinYong Reader

摘要

Contrasting with paper-book, E-book has the advantage of taking great amount of information and the accessibility of hyper link. According to the researches which compared the reading behaviors on paper-book to screen, reading on different media cause different reading behaviors (Dillon, 1992; Noyes & Garland, 2008) [1] [2]. E-book reader is going to integrate the advantages of paper-book and e-book to become a main vehicle of knowledge. Our study take JinYong reader for example, hypothesize that e-book reader would cause different behaviors from paper-book. And if e-book reader would become the main vehicle of knowledge in the future, then it must have equivalent legibility and usability to paper-book. Experiment 1 is a usability test. We recruited the users who take a lot of time on reading to test the function of JinYong Reader, for example, basic operation, highlighting, note taking, and dictionary. The users took mental workload and usability questionnaires after each task. The results show JinYong Reader's slow reaction time, unclear feedback, ease of crash, and ambiguous navigation. We make suggestion for lower crash rate, simplifying the corresponding of button and function, and reducing finger shelter in the discussion. Experiment 2 asked users to read novels separately on e-book reader and paper-book in natural condition, compared their reading behaviors on paper-book to JinYong Reader. The users accepted subjective visual fatigue scale, NASA-TLX mental workload scale, and reading comprehension tests after reading. The result shows the difference on reading speed and subjective visual fatigue between paper-book and JinYong Reader is significant. According to our results, the usability and legibility of paper-book is still better than e-book reader. However, e-book reader provide hyper link and is more convenient to carry information. Also, the disadvantage of JinYong reader does not always happen on the other e-book readers. With the high developmen- of technology, the traditional Chinese e-book reader's evolution is still in prospect.