Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

What are the most important aspects of Reading?

 Ask this question and people conjure up the most intricate things -

1. The feel of the paper. 
2. The smell of the book. 
3. The setting of the type. 
4. The flow of the words.
5. The beauty of the font. 

What about turning pages?

• It is so easy that it is not a bother.
• It’s present on every page and still invisible.  
• It is so quick that it doesn’t break the flow.
• The hands don’t really have to move – just one finger letting go and the other catching.
• It is felt fleetingly and yet not really noticed.
• We can time it just right and start reading again even before it is complete.

When reading a book we turn the page hundreds of times.  

Why then do we not notice the elegance of the page turn?

• Perhaps because it is so mind-numbingly straightforward. 
• Perhaps because it is the same across almost every book.
• Most of all because it is as simple as it could possibly be and not any simpler.

Which brings us to eReaders and the Page Turn.

How do eReaders handle the page turn?

It varies so wildly that you learn to appreciate the simplicity of a book.

The Kindle Page Turns gets an A-

Whether you hold the Kindle in your left hand or the right or both your thumb is always resting on a Next Page button.

1. A little push and you’re done.
2. The large length of the buttons is ideally suited – small hands or big your thumbs will always be resting on the page turn button.
3. The Kindle 1 had the accidental page turns problem – a huge issue, and now solved in the Kindle 2.
4. The eInk refresh speed is the spanner in the works - making the page turn a .5 second affair.
5. The latest Kindle 2 update does make page turns a bit faster.

It’s worth noticing that -

1. It takes as much or perhaps even a little less effort to do a page turn on the Kindle (as opposed to a book).  
2. Once eInk is faster you will not have the problem that physical books do i.e. for paper book page turns the new page is not fully visible until the page turn is complete.
3. The number of page turns for eReaders are 3-4 times because you have less words per page and you turn after every single page.  

The last point is really important – Page Turns in books are important. In eReaders they are absolutely crucial.

The Sony Reader Page Turn is a C

Here’s what the Sony Reader Touch lets you do for page turns -

Option 1: Use the Buttons

1. These are placed close to the bottom. 
2. That means either grip it close to the bottom (which is not as comfortable) or you grip it comfortably on the sides and move your fingers down, press Page Turn, and then move back (which involves tiny bits of effort and time). 
3. Buttons are on the left side so one-handed reading with the right hand is a bit awkward.

Option 2: Use the Touch Screen

1. The first problem is its not a simple tap. 
2. You have to swipe and you have to put enough pressure. 
3. It’s a lot more effort than using a button or a simple tap.
4. If you do a right-handed swipe you have to move your finger to the right and then touch down on the screen and swipe it forward (it’s changeable and yet the default shouldn’t be this difficult).

It’s easy to say that perhaps we’re being picky - It’s just a little bit of effort to move your finger. It’s just a fraction of a second longer. 

• Well, when you’re turning the page 1,000 times it adds up.
• When you have to hold the Touch awkwardly, as you have to with one handed using your right hand, your hand tires in an hour or two.
• When the touch gesture doesn’t work every 5th time you’re reminded that the page turn exists.

There will be hundreds of thousands of people, each reading dozens of books, and for each book there will be 500 to 1,000 page turns.

It might seem terribly unfair to pick on the implementation of page turns in eReaders. However, consider the impact -

1. We’re talking about each person doing 10,000 or more page turns per year.
2. Even cutting .25 seconds means you’ve saved each person 41 minutes.
3. Across a million eReader owners that’s 680,000 hours.

All just by making page turns a quarter of a second faster.

Page Turns on the iPhone – A+ and C

Even eReaders on the iPhone make the same mistake the Sony Touch does i.e. you can’t turn pages with a simple tap – you have to swipe instead.

Even on the much more responsive iPhone touch screen it’s annoying.

There are however a few iPhone eReaders that manage to improve on the excellent and elegant page turns that paper books have - 

• How? By including an auto-scroll feature.
• Even better you can change the speed of the scrolling.

The Auto-Scroll solution for Page Turns is something all eInk eReaders desperately need to implement.

Closing Thoughts – Making Page Turns Better

If we are on the topic of improving usability how about some more suggestions for the Kindle -  

1. Why can’t eInk screens be refreshed half by half i.e. why not the option to refresh the top half while we are reading the lower half - That would eliminate the delays wouldn’t it? Make it an option and see how users react.
2. Why can’t eInk screens have an Auto-Scroll feature with user changeable speed?
3. Shouldn’t the Menu and Home buttons be placed differently? Perhaps a long button on the back (where your fingers rest) – a button for each on the left and on the right side.
4. Shouldn’t there be Previous Page buttons on both sides?
5. Wouldn’t the 5-way cursor be better placed between the next page button and the screen?
6. Shouldn’t there be a 5-way cursor on the left?

Really wish that eReader makers would spend more time on the most vital aspects of reading.

A typical eBook involves 500 to 1,000 page turns – The effort put into improving the Kindle’s page turns (or any other eReader’s page turns) will be well worth it.

Filed under: kindle Tagged: | ereader design, path of least resistance