Gestalt, Interaction & Tech of the touch ebookThe strange case of Dr. Ebook and Mr. Device

What is a book?

“

- Random House Dictionary / Dictionary.com

1. a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.2. a number of sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc.3. a division of a literary work, especially one of the larger divisions.

“

- Random House Dictionary / Dictionary.com

1. a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.2. a number of sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc.3. a division of a literary work, especially one of the larger divisions.

“

- Random House Dictionary / Dictionary.com

1. a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.2. a number of sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc.3. a division of a literary work, especially one of the larger divisions.

“

- Random House Dictionary / Dictionary.com

1. a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.2. a number of sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc.3. a division of a literary work, especially one of the larger divisions.

fuzzyfuzzyfuzzy

fuzzyfuzzy

The definition of book is already quite fuzzy

Photobook

Gamebook

Popup books

“

- Confucio

You cannot open a book without learning something.

What is a book, really?

An interaction view:

We are conditioned by portion sizes: by default, we try to finish our food portion.Rolls B.J., Morris E.L., Roe L.S. (2002) “Portion size of food affects energy intake in normal-weight and overweight men and women”

1

Closure: the mind’s tendency to see completeness of forms from an incomplete stimuli.Wertheimer M., Rock I., Palmer S. (early 20th century)Gestalt Psychology

2

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

21 + Let’s think for a while of the book as a cognitive object perceived as a single item that satisfies a promise through reading.

Ok, but… what about content?

a

Storytelling

...or just a guide.

Two basic narration interaction modes:

Attitude +

Knowledge

Sequential

experiential / educative

PASSIVE

“Tell me something”

Associative

inquisitive / creative

ACTIVE

“Let me choose”

The new coming of the ebook

Why didn’t ebooks really work before

Kindle?

Hitchhiker’s Guideto the Galaxy

“A screen, about three inches by four, lit up […] a large red button at the bottom of the screen and words began to undulate across it. At the same time, the book began to speak”

Star Trek’sPADD

“Consisting of a large touchscreen display and minimalistic manual interface or control panel (generally only one or two buttons), the typical PADD is used for a variety of functions.”

“

- Groucho Marx

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

book =

content +

physical support!

ebook‣screen resolution

‣reflection & illumination

‣weight

Kindle’s interaction paradigmis simple

previous page next page

open/close

read

(additional complexity)

turn page

open/close

read

...or is it?

Don’t forget: habit shapes behaviours

The reading paradigm

(“western languages”)left-right

top-bottom

gestalt

The touch age

Touch devices introduced a new

interaction paradigm

Skeuomorphism

Let’s look around...

BBC

The Economist

Financial Times

The New Yorker

Time

Interview

Type Specimen

book/turn + web/scroll

don’t forget closure!

The book that isn’t a book

FlipboardSocial Magazine

ZiteSocial Magazine

PulseSocial Magazine

Formats

mobi azw‣ PalmDOC

‣ “HTML”

‣ Amazon DRM

2000 2007

‣ PalmDOC

‣ “HTML”

2.0 3.0‣ HTML5

‣ CSS3

‣ May optionally support scripting

2007 2011?

‣ XHTML1.1

‣ CSS2

“This specification does not mandate specific rendering behavior” (2.0)

“Reading Systems with a CSS Viewport should support all CSS constructs

included” (3.0)

5.0 Candidate‣ Video

‣ Audio

‣ Animations

‣ Visual effects

‣ Semantics

4.01

1999

‣ The web as we know it.

2012 2022

“User agents are expected to support CSS” (5)

“The term expected in this section has the same conformance implications as the RFC2119-

defined term must” (5)

Yes or No isn’t enough!

Baker

Francesc TrovarSpain

Davide TarasconiItaly

Benjamin LawHong Kong

Timbuktu TeamItaly

Florian FrankeGermany

‣WebKit engine

‣html5 (multimedia)

‣minimal admin debris

‣opensource (commercial use)

‣book:// identifier protocol

‣Hpub simple packaging

WebKit

‣ Everything you can do on the web.

‣ Safari, Chrome, Android, iOS, Blackberry, WebOS.

HTML5 &Hpub

‣ Nothing new, nothing different, no new knowledge.

‣ Just ZIP it.

No admin debris

‣ Minimal UI.

‣ Everything is book.

‣ Everything is in control of the author.

book://‣ Identify book.

‣ Locate & download.

‣ Update.

‣ Link between books.

book://example.org/path/book/page.html#paragraph

BOOKPUBLISHERPROTOCOL PAGE PARAGRAPH

URI = Uniform Resource Identifier

Web-compatible “ISBN”

How to use Baker

1 2 3Design Package Publish

1 2 3Design Package Publish

‣ Think

‣ Write

‣ Design

ACTIONS

‣ Paper

‣ Photoshop

‣ HTML editor

TOOLS

1 2 3Design Package Publish

‣ Read Hpub format

‣ Organize files

ACTIONS

‣ ZipTOOLS

1 2 3Design Package Publish

‣ Register

‣ Submit

‣ Wait

ACTIONS

‣ Mac

‣ Xcode

TOOLS

“

- Pascal Klein

Typography is the art of creating and setting type with the purpose of honoring the text it sets.

Thanks to Matteo Balocco

The overall user experience

read

Most ebook devices

read annotate

buy read annotate

find buy read annotate

Kindle + StoreiBook + Store

find buy read annotate

discuss quote

find buy read annotate

discuss quote

lendborrow

find buy read annotate

discuss quote

lendborrow

PRIVATE

find buy read annotate

discuss quote

lendborrow

SOCIAL

find buy read annotate

discuss quote

lendborrow

Each one is a potential service / app

Your own idea

Minimum Viable Product

TEST TEST TEST

Teamwork.

2 × 2 suggestions

1. don’t assume an interaction paradigm2. gestalt (closure) is critical

for Designers

1. don’t forget the whole user experience2. the book experience is social - in its own way

for Publishers for Authors

“

- Bruno Munari

Complicare è facile,semplificare è difficile.Per complicare basta aggiungere,tutti sono capaci di complicare.Pochi sono capaci di semplificare.

Davide ‘Folletto‘ Casaliintenseminimalism.com@follettofolletto@gmail.com

Laurea Magistrale in Informatica UmanisticaUniversità di Pisa, 20 may 2011infouma.di.unipi.it