What is an ebook? An interaction point of view. The evolution of the interaction mode of the book at the dawn of the first successful ebook, how to understand it and how to design for it. Lecture made at the University of Pisa

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

2. What is a book?

4. “ 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

5. “ 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

6. “ 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

7. “ 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

9. The definition of book is already quite
fuzzy
fuzzy
fuzzy
fuzzy
fuzzy fuzzy

10. Photobook

11. Gamebook

12. Popup books

13. “ You cannot open a book
without learning something.
- Confucio

14. What is a book, really?

15. An interaction view:

16. 1 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”

17. 2 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
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

18. 1 + 2 Let’s think for a while of the
book as a cognitive object
perceived as a single item
that satisfies a promise
through reading.

19. Ok, but…
what about content?

20. a

22. Storytelling

23. ...or just a guide.

24. Two basic narration interaction modes:
Attitude
+
Knowledge

25. Sequential
experiential / educative
PASSIVE
“Tell me something”

26. Associative
inquisitive / creative
ACTIVE
“Let me choose”

27. The new coming
of the ebook

28. Why didn’t ebooks
really work before
Kindle?

29. Hitchhiker’s Guide
to 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”

30. Star Trek’s
PADD
“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.”

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

32. book =

33. content +

34. physical support!

35. ebook
‣ screen resolution
‣ reflection & illumination
‣ weight

36. Kindle’s interaction paradigm
is simple

37. open/close
previous page next page
read

38. (additional complexity)

39. open/close
turn page
read

40. ...or is it?

42. Don’t forget: habit
shapes behaviours

43. The reading paradigm
left-right (“western languages”)
top-bottom
gestalt

44. The touch age

45. Touch devices
introduced a new
interaction paradigm

46. Skeuomorphism

47. Let’s look around...

48. BBC

49. The Economist

50. Financial Times

51. The New Yorker

52. Time

53. Interview

54. Type Specimen

55. book/turn + web/scroll

58. The book
that isn’t a book

59. Flipboard
Social Magazine

60. Zite
Social Magazine

61. Pulse
Social Magazine

63. Formats

64. 2000 2007
mobi azw
‣ PalmDOC ‣ PalmDOC
‣ “HTML” ‣ “HTML”
‣ Amazon DRM

65. 2007 2011?
2.0 3.0
‣ XHTML1.1 ‣ HTML5
‣ CSS2 ‣ CSS3
‣ May optionally support
scripting

66. “This specification does not mandate
specific rendering behavior” (2.0)
“Reading Systems with a CSS Viewport
should support all CSS constructs
included” (3.0)

67. 1999 2012 2022
4.01 5.0 Candidate
‣ The web as we know it. ‣ Video
‣ Audio
‣ Animations
‣ Visual effects
‣ Semantics

68. “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)

69. Yes or No isn’t enough!

70. Baker

73. Francesc Trovar
Spain

74. Davide Tarasconi
Italy

75. Benjamin Law
Hong Kong

76. Timbuktu Team
Italy

77. Florian Franke
Germany

78. ‣ WebKit engine
‣ html5 (multimedia)
‣ minimal admin debris
‣ opensource (commercial use)
‣ book:// identifier protocol
‣ Hpub simple packaging

79. ‣ Everything you can
do on the web.
WebKit ‣ Safari, Chrome,
Android, iOS,
Blackberry, WebOS.

80. ‣ Nothing new,
HTML5 & nothing different, no
new knowledge.
Hpub ‣ Just ZIP it.

81. ‣ Minimal UI.
No admin ‣ Everything is book.
‣ Everything is in
debris control of the author.

82. ‣ Identify book.
‣ Locate & download.
book:// ‣ Update.
‣ Link between books.

83. URI = Uniform Resource Identifier
Web-compatible “ISBN”
book://example.org/path/book/page.html#paragraph
PROTOCOL PUBLISHER BOOK PAGE PARAGRAPH

84. How to use Baker

85. 1 Design 2 Package 3 Publish

86. 1 Design 2 Package 3 Publish
ACTIONS
‣ Think
‣ Write
‣ Design
TOOLS
‣ Paper
‣ Photoshop
‣ HTML editor

87. 1 Design 2 Package 3 Publish
ACTIONS
‣ Read Hpub format
‣ Organize files
TOOLS
‣ Zip

88. 1 Design 2 Package 3 Publish
ACTIONS
‣ Register
‣ Submit
‣ Wait
TOOLS
‣ Mac
‣ Xcode

89. “ Typography is the art of
creating and setting type with
the purpose of honoring
the text it sets.
- Pascal Klein
Thanks to Matteo Balocco

90. The overall
user experience

91. read
Most ebook devices

92. read annotate

93. buy read annotate

94. find buy read annotate
Kindle + Store
iBook + Store

95. find buy read annotate
discuss quote

96. borrow
lend
find buy read annotate
discuss quote

97. borrow
lend PRIVATE
find buy read annotate
discuss quote

98. SOCIAL
borrow
lend
find buy read annotate
discuss quote

99. Each one is a potential service / app
borrow
lend
find buy read annotate
discuss quote

100. Your own idea

101. Minimum Viable Product

102. TEST TEST TEST

103. Teamwork.

104. 2 × 2 suggestions

105. for Designers
1. don’t assume an interaction paradigm
2. gestalt (closure) is critical

106. for Publishers
for Authors
1. don’t forget the whole user experience
2. the book experience is social - in its own way

107. “ Complicare è facile,
semplificare è difficile.
Per complicare basta aggiungere,
tutti sono capaci di complicare.
Pochi sono capaci di semplificare.
- Bruno Munari

108. Davide ‘Folletto‘ Casali
intenseminimalism.com
@folletto
folletto@gmail.com
Laurea Magistrale in Informatica Umanistica
Università di Pisa, 20 may 2011
infouma.di.unipi.it