Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
perience of topics on paper,indexE-book reader in the near future, image quality
is likely to cease being a unique asset of printed information. This leads to an as-
sumption that in the future, reading will be done more frequently on screens than
today.
However, a large body of research shows that image quality is not the only factor
that is crucial for reading and other knowledge work processes. For instance, Dillan
[23] summarizes a large number of empirical studies and concludes that the most
obvious difference between reading from paper and reading from screen is the ease
with which paper can be manipulated. In the remainder of this section, we will
address these affordances of paper, which go beyond the issue of image quality.
Navigation in Documents
People read documents only rarely straight from the beginning to the end. Often they
read a document only partially or they need to make connections between different
parts of a a documents. Navigation in documents is therefore an intrinsic part of the
reading process. By its physical nature, paper helps us easily and flexibly navigate
through documents [131, 23, 110]. Empirical results show that navigation through
a paper document is more implicit and more tightly interwoven with reading than
navigation through digital documents. Due to the tactile nature of interaction with
paper, many activities can be carried out with little to no visual attention. For in-
stance, when turning pages the thickness of a document is used as a physical cue for
estimating its length and the remaining number of pages. Moreover, people make
heavy use of both hands for searching and skimming through the document. This
allows for interleaving navigation with other activities, for instance flipping pages
while writing with the other hand.
Due to the static layout of paper documents, information is fix with respect to
a physical page. O'Hara et al. [110] show that users acquire incidental knowledge
of the location of information by reference to its physical place on the page, which
helps them find this information later on. In this respect, digital document formats
that feature a fix layout (such as PDF) are preferable to formats that reflow text to
fit the current width of the window (such as most Web pages do).
Handwritten Annotations
Opposed to what we intuitively understand by reading - deciphering words and
phrases and ultimately meaning - writing is a substantial element of reading pro-
cesses. Sellen and Harper [131, p. 82] point out that in knowledge work, reading
occurs with writing more often than it occurs without. In a diary study, the partici-
pants combined reading with writing (taking notes or making annotations
2
)inmore
2
We define an annotation as an amendment to an existing document that is conceptually sepa-
rate yet contextually related. It adds an additional layer of information to it leaving the original
document unchanged. In contrast to an annotation, a note has none or only a weak contextual rela-
tionship to an existing document. Most often, annotations are made on top of an existing document,
while notes are taken on a separate, initially empty sheet of paper. We will not always clearly dis-
