Impact of the Use of a Touch-based Digital Reading Device in Immersive Reading Hirohito Shibata 1 , Kentaro Takano 2 , and Kengo Omura 1 1 Research and Technology Group, Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd., 430 Sakai, Nakai-machi, Kanagawa, 259-0157, Japan 2 Graduate School of Information Systems, The University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu, Tokyo, 182-8585, Japan Abstract This paper describes experiments to evaluate the impact of the use of a touch-based digital reading device in immersive reading. The first experiment compared the performance of proofreading between that using paper documents and that using a touch-based reading device. Results showed that participants detected more errors when reading from paper than when reading from the digital device. During reading, participants interacted with text such as pointing to words or brushing over sentences more frequently when reading from paper than when reading from the digital device. This suggests that interaction with text plays an important role in proofreading tasks. To verify this hypothesis, in the second experiment, participants proofread documents with constrained interaction with paper. Results showed that participants detected more errors when reading with text interaction than when reading without text interaction. Considering these results, we discuss practical implications to improve the usability of digital reading devices. 1. Introduction Reading devices including e-book devices and tablet PCs with e- book applications have gained wide spread use recently. A number of experiments have been conducted to evaluate these devices, but they evaluated the devices during reading for leisure such as reading novels or magazines [1–4]. Few studies have been evaluated the effectiveness of reading devices in work-related reading except for several analyses of reading to answer questions [5] and reading for discussion [6]. Recently some reading devices have been used in office work. To discuss the applicability of reading devices in office work, we must investigate how these devices affect reading performance or reading processes for work- related reading. Regarding the support of work-related reading, devices to support active reading, which includes critical thinking or learning, have been proposed [7,8]. However, most development efforts have focused on proposing design principles and new functions of systems. It is important to know how their use affects reading performance and reading processes quantitatively in comparison to the use of paper documents. Reading for leisure is characterized as reading during which readers often turn pages one-by-one from the start to the end. However, reading for work involves diverse tasks. It is often performed across multiple pages of a document or across multiple documents of multiple media [9,10]. Readers often move back and forth between pages, skim documents, and compare information from multiple sources. Additionally, they often annotate documents while reading. In such reading, the usability of handling documents such as moving and arranging documents, holding documents, and turning pages becomes an important factor when reading [11]. Regarding the mode of handling documents, current reading devices provide user interfaces of various types. Roughly speaking, they are divisible into three types. The first one uses buttons to select commands. The second is a pen-based interface: users use a pen to input commands or apply digital ink. The third one is a touch-based interface: users input commands or apply digital ink with fingers. Among them, the third is widely used in the office work because such devices are easy to use and most allow multimedia presentation. This paper examines the impact of using touch-based reading devices in work-related reading. To clarify the motivation of this research, we begin with description of our experience. After the release of iPad in 2010, one author started to read academic papers with an iPad. However, he found it difficult to read papers using an iPad. When he touched the display panel, the documents were often moved or expanded against his wishes. He had to touch documents carefully so that the presentation of documents would not be changed. He realized that he often pointed to or brushed over the text with a finger while reading and the restriction of these actions made him uncomfortable. Based on this experience, we inferred that these actions played a cognitively important role in understanding documents. For example, people can impress a certain word by pointing to the word. By pointing to two different words, they can compare information of different parts easily. By brushing over the text, they can control the speed of reading so as not to skip words unconsciously. We designate these actions herein as interacting with text, which differs from document manipulation such as moving documents and turning pages. Considering these points, we have felt wonder that digital reading devices would not promote such interaction with text and that the reading performance would be deteriorated. To answer this question, we aim at examining the effect of interacting with text in work-related reading. As a first step, we examined reading by which readers frequently interact with text while reading and compared reading from touch-based reading devices and reading from paper in such reading. 2. Experiment 1: Paper vs. Digital Devices Reading by which readers frequently interact with text while reading is apparently cognitively demanding reading. We think that the more a document becomes difficult or the more readers must understand the document deeply, the more readers frequently interact with text. In our earlier experiment, we explored various types of reading and counted the frequency of interacting with text, which revealed that readers interacted frequently with text in cognitive demanding reading such as ISSN 0097-966X/13/4401-0045-$1.00 © 2013 SID Invited Paper 6.4 / H. Shibata SID 2013 DIGEST • 45