Reading an Ebook takes more time than reading a paper book!
According to a recent study published online, reading a book written on paper takes less time than reading the same novel on a Ebook. Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group took a test with 24 users who were given a short story by Ernest Hemingway to read on each device. The iPad users were 6.2 percent slower than the users who were reading a standard paper book while the Kindle 2 was 10.7 slower.
The study also revealed that all digital supports have a usability score of 5.6-5.8, of course the P.C did even worse, with 3.6. The Kindle 2 was scored down due to the less-crisp gray-on-gray letters, the iPad is too heavy, the devices lack the true pagination but they did like the fact that the iBook application indicates the amount of text left in a chapter.
One of the conclusion of this study is that people like more Apple’s products than Amazon’s kindle. And if the iPad is not available, then they’d rather read a good book written on paper.
So there still are old fashioned book fans out there!
This is an interesting article, but 24 users who are unfamiliar with eBooks does not seem like a satisfactory sample size to me.
Also, the Kindle/iPad isn’t about reading fast. It’s about the ease of use and accessibility of books. People who are not able to read regular books because disabilities or poor eyesight now have access to millions of books for the first time in their lives. And people find themselves reading more books than ever. I’d take that any day over “fast reading”.
Sorry, but if this is a site that claims to be providing news I think you need to be a bit more discerning of where your content comes from. This “recent study published online” is not newsworthy. When you find something like this published in a peer reviewed scientific journal then feel free to report it. This is nothing better than throwing a poll onto a blog. And what is with the Kindle bashing at the end? That was totally irrelevant to the post and sounds more like an iFan getting in a dig. If this is just a blog then forgive my desire for you to report on actual news stories, but consider changing name if that’s the case. Random Stuff From Websites Provider maybe.
Oh, and if you couldn’t tell I am a proponent of eBooks and eReaders with “grey screens” and find I read much faster. If you’d like I’ll publish a study online with myself as a test subject and you can post an article about it when I’m done. 99.5 percent of me prefers Kindle to iPad (I do like the gimmicky way you can turn pages on the iPad) by the way and I read 13.4 percent faster in case you want to get a head start on the article.
A “recent study posted online”? Where? and a whole 24 people? wow.. out of the MILLIONS who use an iPad/Kindle/Nook every day, 24 people who have never used a e-reader device are a GREAT sample. And was this a repeated, test, or a one-shot deal?
As it stands, these results are unproven, and unreliable, just here for the writer to get their name in print rather than a real, well written, well researched article.
A link to this supposed study would have been nice. Now I’m off to find it on the web if I can, to find out if it’s as stupid a study as it appears to be from this report. Reaching such a conclusion based on 24 users who may have no experience using either device is silly. In that short of a sample reading they’ll likely be distracted by the newness of the situation, they’ll be unfamiliar with how to use it, and they won’t know how to configure it best for their needs. This particular user reads noticeably faster on my Kindle 2 than I do with paper books.
When did reading fast become a requirement for comprehension?