Why don't scrolling eBook UIs work?

Why don't scrolling eBook UIs work?

At the moment there's a choice to be made when reading eBooks on tablet devices like the iPad - either you choose a book page type interface or a scrolling one like a web page.

It comes as a mystery to many why reading a book chapter as a scrolling page is any different than a blogpost or a newspaper article, which are both often more comfortable to read in a non-paginated way than attempts to paginate them.

The answer is related to length and the type of content. An article or post is often something you skim through and is short. Scrolling is ideal for this. However, as soon as we try reading a book chapter things become trickier. To read the equivalent of ten or twenty printed pages is not the same as reading what might have been less than half a printed page.

To understand this, let's look at what happens when we read a printed book:

(1) there is a void at the top and bottom of each page where it begins and ends
(2) the position of paragraphs and text is static, so we can flick through and find that paragraph we just realised was important and want to re-read
(3) each page of a book has a page number and those that don't (e.g. when you have full-page images) are a little disorientating and we always feel better when we see the next page number, because they orientate us

Now compare this to a scrolling ebook:

(1) there are no little endings or pauses when we reach the bottom of the page - something we might have seen as an inconvenience in the 'old days' but in actual fact might be essential in some way to reading
(2)  the position of text is constantly changing its position as we scroll. This constant changing causes our eyes to lose their place unless we are very careful and concentrated (but this is a tiring thing to be when we just want to read)
(3) there is usually little indication of progress aside from a bar and it isn't a good navigation tool or very informative

What's the answer?

The obvious answer to get around these things seems to be to emulate the printed page, and this is exactly how most modern ereaders and apps approach the problem. However, it's not the only answer.

Paging through a document can actually be quite laborious both visually and physically on an electronic device, while scrolling is a simple and familiar action from websites. This leads to the conclusion that it is the layouts handed to us by the web that are more of an issue for books not the scrolling itself. We therefore need to rethink how we get the necessary pauses and orientation back into the book and merge the print and digital worlds without either falling back on skeuomorphism or surrendering to the web's given layouts.

What happens if we don't rethink layouts? eBooks risk emulating the reading experience of books rather than extending it.

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