peer into one future of human-computer interaction. REFERENCES. 1. Kay, A. and Goldberg, A. (1977) Personal dynamic media. IEEE Computer, 10 (3), 31-42.
Designing Electronic Books Gene Golovchinsky, Cathy Marshall, Bill Schilit FX Palo Alto Laboratory, Inc. 3400 Hillview Avenue, Bldg 4 Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA +1 650 813 7361 {gene, marshall, schilit}@pal.xerox.com Keywords electronic books, e-books, information appliance, interaction design, user interface metaphors, pen-based computing, work practice, digital libraries. INTRODUCTION
Science fiction introduced the idea of an electronic book; some early prototypes showed the potential of such devices (Kay and Goldberg, 1977); now we have the technology to implement these ideas (Lewis, 1998; Schilit et al., 1998). Still missing, however, is a principled look at interaction design and features that make electronic books useable and useful. This workshop will bring together practitioners, researchers, and designers to explore the future of electronic books with an emphasis on HCI issues. WORKSHOP GOALS
The goals of this workshop are to increase awareness within the HCI community of various aspects of user interface design for e-books, to discover the range of appropriate applications for e-books, to identify research themes related to e-books, to visualize the “E-book of the Future,” and to foster interaction between academia and industry.
interaction and user interface design. The following sections present some issues to be discussed at the workshop. Work practice and e-books
People work with books and documents in many different ways. How will e-books fit into existing practices, and how will they change them? Which activities will benefit from such devices, and which are better left on paper? Features of e-books
E-books can accommodate best-seller novels, term papers, corporate reports, and digital libraries. Do e-book features depend on the document genre? Which features are appropriate for which tasks? Can we identify design guidelines for electronic books? User interface metaphors
Is the book an appropriate metaphor for an electronic book? Does familiarity with the book outweigh some of its limitations? Can we identify other appropriate metaphors? Can we unify features of computers and books in a consistent and predictable interaction style? The effect of form factor on interaction
Figure 1: Electronic Books (Softbook™, Everybook™ and XLibris™) RESEARCH ISSUES
A new generation of electronic books (Figure 1) is about to hit the stores, bringing with it a new way of interacting with computers, a new way of interacting with information. Getting the user interface right is critical to the success— commercial and research—of these devices. We would like to apply the expertise of the HCI community to understand the work practices e-books support, and to inform
The hardware form factor and the software user interface of electronic books complement each other is subtle ways to produce a coherent and predictable interaction style. Yet several different form factors have been proposed for e-books. Can we describe the relationship between the form factor and the software interface? CONCLUSIONS
Electronic books pose a unique design challenge to the HCI community: the tight integration of hardware and software interfaces demands a multidisciplinary approach. Our goal is to examine the design space of e-books and to peer into one future of human-computer interaction. REFERENCES
1. Kay, A. and Goldberg, A. (1977) Personal dynamic media. IEEE Computer, 10 (3), 31-42. 2. Lewis, P. (1998) Taking on New Forms, Electronic Books Turn a Page, New York Times, July 2 3. Schilit, B.N., Price, M.N, and Golovchinsky, G. (1998) Beyond Paper: Supporting Active Reading with Freeform Digital Ink Annotations. In Proceedings of CHI98 (Los Angeles, CA, April 18-24), ACM Press. 249-256.
