Designing a Physical Aid to Support Active Reading on Tablets

Abstract

Tablet computers and portable eReaders are gradually becoming the preferred platform for the consumption of textual materials. However, although these technologies are powerful, it is widely acknowledged that print documents better support the advanced active reading tasks necessary to gain a deep understanding of a text. While prior work to address this issue has aimed improve digital eReaders by either leveraging familiar physical affordances or by extending paper's capabilities with digital tools, in this paper we propose a juncture of these two approaches. We first present a formative study that captures the needs and requirements of users during active reading tasks with tablets. We instantiate the findings in the design of a simple physical aid to support active reading: a smart bookmark. We then define an interaction space for this device, describe a set of interfaces designed to facilitate active reading and close with a user study that assesses the potential of the bookmark device and interaction techniques.