So Many Interfaces, So Little Time: The user experience of ebooks in an Academic Context

So Many Interfaces, So Little Time: The User Experience of Ebooks in an Academic Context

Daniel Tracy (@dtracy2)Information Sciences and Digital Humanities LibrarianUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Background

• Locally: investment in ebooks, but some prior evidence of disinterest by distance students.• Issues in research• often abstract in treatment of preference for “ebooks”, or using one platform

or reader as a proxy for ebook reading in general even though the ebook environment in higher education is much more heterogeneous, but some evidence that platform usability and affordances affects usage (Olney-Zideand Eiford, 2015).

• usage studies often translate use to satisfaction or desire without accounting for lack of choice.

• “using” ebooks vs. “reading” print books (Appleton, 2004; Staiger, 2012)• ebook user types: book lovers, technophiles, pragmatists, and printers

(Shrimplin, et al, 2011, 2012)• How big of an issue is avoidance? How do users make do? How can

we make their workflows and actual uses easier?

Questions

• What workflows do users have for ebook reading for their academic work?• How do people deal with problems in ebook interfaces?• What do they do when their preference for one format conflicts with what is

available?

• How do these issues affect distance students vs on campus students?• What makes for good ebook or e-reader design with these things in

mind?

Context: Academic vs Pleasure Reading

• Focus on context of reading and tasks.• Less interest in discipline, which may affect overall rate of uptake of

and attitudes towards ebooks but seems to have less impact on the range of ways people use ebooks.• Academic reading here may have aspects in common with other kinds

of work-related reading, although there are some differences in terms of the nature of requirements.

Context: Population

Graduates students at the School of Information Sciences• Library and Information Science, Information Management• Various disciplinary backgrounds and trajectories• On campus and distance students• Good mix of people highly attached to print and those eager to adopt new

technologies• Opportunities to see workflows of people who might be enthusiastic about

ebooks, but also people who have to use them even though they don’t like them.

Context: Collections

University of Illinois: large R1, ebooks in every flavor• big packages• title-by-title• many academic OA titles in catalog (i.e. from OAPEN, Knowledge

Unlatched, OERs)• for information sciences call number ranges, 38+ platforms with at least one

related ebook, with >90% accounted for by 12 platforms, >50% by 3 platforms.

Context: Range of Platform Models

• Find book, download desired chapters or whole book. Read offline in e or print out.• Book in browser with moderate DRM, varying seat caps. Limitations

on downloading and printing sections may break up some chapters.• Book in browser with heavy DRM. Printing/downloading nearly

impossible.

Methods

• Qualitative dive (62 participants)• Ebook “diaries” tracking uses of ebooks, and times ebooks were avoided• Interviews, focus groups

• Follow-up survey to all students in the program (162 participants)

Behaviors

• Avoiding (choosing not to use): 1/3 participants chose not to read an ebook at least once—either going for a print copy, another title, or just opting out. Avoidances accounted for 1 in 6 diary entries.• Half of avoided ebooks were e-textbooks.

• Abandoning (after starting to use): in 7.5% of diary reports on using an ebook, students stopped reading the book early because of usability problems.

Behaviors

• The “quick dip”: best use for the browser interface• 36.9% of uses were 15 minutes or less

• Downloading and (rarely) printing: 17.4% of use cases included a download; only 3.2% included printing.• Overall similar use cases: timeshifting, extended reading, highlighting,

annotations. • Distinguished by preference for difficult reading (printing) and using multiple

times (downloaded copy).

Behaviors

• Used multiple e-derived formats: 20% of use diaries• Use AND read

• Co-use with print: a print copy was used before, after, or at the same time as the ebook copy in 20.2% of use diaries. • Print came first more often than the ebook did in diary reports.

Interface, Formats, Devices

• Isolation and control of text vs. appreciation for maintaining the page• Portability is king, browsers are of limited (but real!) utility• Ebook users face a stack of interfaces, not one• Browsers, file formats, devices, apps on devices• Nobody wants to use a publisher/platform specific app• People found Adobe Digital Editions (used for DRM-controlled “checkouts”)

frustrating + the DRM download process is confusing• Participants who had Kindles liked them for pleasure reading, but did not

want to use them for academic reading.

Collapsing “Use” and “Read”

• People will increasingly “read” and not just “use” ebooks even if they don’t prefer them• But they don’t always need to (“use” isn’t bad)• If they can offload reading to their preferred combination(s) of device and

app. – Key to p/e being treatable as sufficiently “equal.”

• Usability and DRM limitations have highest impact on limiting engagement when the user wants to read, not just use. That is, they prevent the deepest kinds of engagement.

• Biggest drivers to print copies of titles: long-term re-use and difficult reading. [lots of buying textbooks even if there is an e copy]

Ebook “Convenience” Is Overhyped

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Ebooks

Print Books

How frequently is this format convenient?

Always Sometimes Rarely Never

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Ebooks

Print Books

How frequently is this format reliable?


*From survey.

Participants are Mostly Pragmatic for Academic Reading

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

I prefer ebooks over print books

I prefer print books over ebooks

How frequently is a format preferred over the other?


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

If there is a print book I need to use, I'll try to track down an ebook instead

If there is an ebook I need to use, I'll try to track down a print book instead

Willingness to track down alternate format?


*From survey.

DRM-Driven “Personalization” Undermines far more Valuable “Individuation” of Workflows• DRM, besides copyright control, is often meant to track user behavior

for analytics to then “personalize” the experience, but this is a big problem for users.• People want to get ebooks into their preferred reading environment

(specific software/app and device combination), or sometimes environments.• Don’t want to have to relearn how to use an ebook with every new

platform/publisher.• Want all their texts in a consistent place.

• Portable formats not tied to online use or to specific software is key.

Distance Students: Contradictions

• Like previous survey: for academic reading: don’t use print a lot differently from on campus students, but use ebooks less for academic reading (maybe even more pronounced in terms of never using them).• Closer to par on pleasure reading but still fewer ebooks and more print books

than on campus.

• Much stronger stated preference for print over ebooks than on campus students, and more willing to act on that preference to actually track down a print copy rather than use an ebook.

• Yet: more likely than on campus students to see ebooks as convenient, reliable, and easy to use.

Design Considerations

• Web interface design: do what the browser is good at, then let the reader get out (via download). It is a stepping-stone, not an end-point. • This may be especially important for open educational resources.

• Multiple formats: epub + pdf is a good baseline for accessibility + support for common reading behaviors and need for distinct pages.

Design Considerations

• The ereading space is already cluttered. Don’t make it more-so. Don’t make a new app that is just for your digital library or publishing content.• Developers of everything – web interfaces, apps, devices – could

improve search.• Keyword searching is handy and a value-add of ebooks, but insufficient –

proximity searching would be a huge help.

Service Considerations

• Avoid DRM-platforms for ebook purchases when possible, especially for monographs.• Highlight good apps for the downloadable formats offered by ebook

platforms, especially if is a format that users are less familiar with (i.e., epub). • But consider not promoting platform-specific reading apps.

• Discoverability and access is key, but don’t give usability and the needs of users the short shrift—it is easy to lure people with content, but if students (and others) can’t use it or give up we are failing.• Open access is important but what can users do with their access is

also important?

Thanks!

Selected References• Appleton, Leo. 2004. “The Use of Electronic Books in Midwifery Education:

The Student Perspective.” Health Information & Libraries Journal 21 (4): 245–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2004.00509.x.• Olney-Zide, Molly, and Laura Eiford. 2015. “Confessions of a Late Bloomer:

Use and Acceptance of an E-Books Program in an Undergraduate Library.” Serials Librarian 68 (1–4): 307–17.• Revelle, Andy, Kevin Messner, Aaron Shrimplin, and Susan Hurst. 2012.

“Book Lovers, Technophiles, Pragmatists, and Printers: The Social and Demographic Structure of User Attitudes toward e-Books.” College & Research Libraries 73 (5): 420–29. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-288.• Shrimplin, Aaron K., Andy Revelle, Susan Hurst, and Kevin Messner. 2011.

“Contradictions and Consensus — Clusters of Opinions on E-Books.” College & Research Libraries 72 (2): 181–90. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-108rl.• Staiger, Jeff. 2012. “How E-Books Are Used.” Reference & User Services

Quarterly 51 (4): 355–65.