Information Technology Reference
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to be equally provided by computer technology in the near future? What character-
istics of paper are unlikely to be successfully addressed by computer technology in
the foreseeable future? To answer these questions we will provide a brief survey of
main results from the literature that studied workplace practices of using paper.
In their seminal work The Myth of the Paperless Office [131], Sellen and Harper
identified main activities that paper supports in knowledge work: Paper supports
reviewing documents, amongst others because paper documents can be flexibly an-
notated and commented. Although it might appear counterintuitive, paper is also a
key part in authoring processes. Even though people typically use a word processor
for composing documents, authoring also consists of reading, planning and think-
ing, which is facilitated by paper. Finally, the use of paper documents proves to be
supportive for collaboration and organizational communication. Reading is a key
element of all these activities.
We systematize the main reasons why paper supports knowledge work so suc-
cessfully along six key aspects. The survey shows that with respect to display quality
and mobile use, the advance of paper is diminishing. However, paper offers specific
advantages that current technology does not provide in this form. This includes easy
navigation, intuitive annotation, flexible organization of information in the physical
space as well as strong support of collaboration and mutual awareness.
Image Quality
The quality of the image which is presented to the reader is undoubtedly an im-
portant issue for reading [23]. High resolution, high contrast, little flicker, and a
sufficiently large size of the display all are crucial aspects. Only a few years ago,
the comparison of image quality between a good paper print and a good computer
screen clearly resulted in favor of paper. Empirical studies showed that reading from
screens was slower than reading from paper (even though this did not necessarily
negatively affect comprehension rates, at least with short texts) [23].
In the meanwhile, display technology has dramatically evolved, and today's
state-of-the-art screens provide much better image quality than some years ago. On
the one hand, the screen real estate which is available at a usual office workplace
has significantly increased. Nowadays it is not unusual to have a screen as large as
27 inch or two smaller screens that feature an even larger overall size. These screens
can display not only a single entire page of a document, but even multiple pages
simultaneously in a readable size. This display size might even be too large and
overwhelming for some users, as reported by Morris et al. [99]. On the other hand,
resolution and contrast are constantly increasing. Many displays provide a resolu-
tion of 150 dpi or more. Displays of modern smart phones provide the resolution of
even more than 300 dpi, which is comparable to print resolution. It is only a matter
of time when larger screens start featuring similar resolution. Moreover, novel dis-
play technologies, such as e-paper and OLED, allow for very high contrast, similarly
to paper.
Hence, screens are currently measuring up to paper in terms of image quality.
While the reading experience of e-books may still be worse than the reading ex-
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