Designing a readable e-book

Altering the on-screen design of text makes a huge difference to the ability of users to retrieve information from web publications. Ruth Wilson updates us on a project looking at what styles and techniques make an e-book readable.

Recent movements towards student-centred, resource-based learning in UK higher education have seen increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) for curriculum delivery, with initiatives such as Heron, Project Phoenix and Eurotext improving the flow of course material to students.

The internet, in particular, is proving a popular platform for the publication of learning and teaching resources, its interactive environment seeing the arrival of new guides, tutorials and textbooks every week. Students are increasingly turning to these digital resources as a first port of call when seeking material to support their studies.

Morkes and Nielsen1 have demonstrated that users' ability to retrieve information from web publications can be improved by up to 159 per cent by altering the on-screen design of the text. It is probable that the usability of existing and future electronic books could be much improved by applying guidelines for best practice in respect of on-screen design based on a critical examination, and subsequent extension, of their work.

With the People's Network, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) and the University for Industry aiming for seamless access to online material, it is timely to pay attention to the internal design of the resources themselves so that, once accessed, the required data can be retrieved as quickly and easily as possible.

Guidelines for electronic publications
Eboni (Electronic Books On-screen Interface) is a new, 18-month research project funded under the Jisc DNER (Distributed National Electronic Resource) Programme for Learning and Teaching. Based at the Centre for Digital Library Research, 2 University of Strathclyde, it aims to develop a set of recommendations for publishing educational works on the web that reflects the needs of academics and a diverse population of students throughout the UK.

Eboni will identify and compare the various methods which have emerged in the publication of learning and teaching material on the web in order to determine the most effective way of representing information electronically, aiming to maximise usability and information intake by users. An evaluation of texts by an appropriate mix of key stakeholders, including education professionals from higher education and the National Grid for Learning and students from a range of disciplines and backgrounds, will be utilised to develop guidelines for best practice in the publication of (non-journal) educational material on the internet. This will enable the needs of an emerging higher education community of readers and creators of digital content to be met more satisfactorily.

The guidelines will also be applied to texts on portable e-book readers (such as Gemstar's new REBs, or Franklin's eBookman) and a palmtop, to determine their applicability to small screens on hand-held devices.

The work will be carried out in conjunction with Strathclyde University's Digital Information Office, which aims to develop and promote standards in this area, the inter-institutional Clyde Virtual University project, which jointly creates and manages electronic material across Glasgow, and the National Grid for Learning in Scotland.

Styles and techniques
Specifically, Eboni aims to:

• evaluate the different approaches to the design of learning and teaching resources on the web, and to identify which techniques/styles are most successful in enabling users to retrieve the information they require;
• identify and report on the individual requirements of academics, students and NGfL professionals in learning and teaching on the web; and
• compile and promote a set of best practice guidelines for the publication of guides, tutorials and textbooks on the internet for the UK higher education community.

It is important to note that the set of guidelines that emerges from the evaluation process is not intended to establish a strict uniformity of interface for all learning and teaching resources on the web, but rather to encourage use of those styles and techniques that are found to be most successful in terms of usability.

Methodology
A detailed methodology for Eboni is being developed, and details will be available from the project website as they become available. However, a broad outline of the method by which we will arrive at the set of best practice guidelines has been established. Eboni will conduct a survey of the range of teaching material available on the internet, select key texts that are representative of various subject areas and design techniques, develop a methodology for evaluating these texts, implement this methodology using HE students and education professionals as subjects, and analyse the results, producing a set of guidelines for best practice in publishing educational material online. Thus, there are four main phases:

1 Selection of material. A survey of the range of teaching material available on the internet will be conducted, identifying, classifying and finally selecting resources according to use of techniques such as:

• hypertext;
• tables of contents;
• navigation icons;
• search mechanisms (for searching within the text);
• indexes;
• graphics; and
• specific features of HTML such as frames, tables, coloured text and lists.

In addition, the texts to be evaluated will cover a number of subjects, and students from each area will be sought to participate in their evaluation.

2 Selection of participants. It is anticipated that 80-100 paid subjects will be used to evaluate these texts, mainly drawn from the HE population at the three universities in Glasgow.

3 Experimental phase. All users will be involved in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the experiment:

• quantitative feedback will be sought by asking users to search selected material for specific information and to participate in memory tasks. Success in answering questions correctly, time taken to complete tasks, ability to recall information and (depending on facilities available) covert observation of users' behaviour will be taken into account in interpreting this feedback;
• qualitative feedback will be sought via questionnaires and interviews immediately following the quantitative phase, and will aim to record users' subjective satisfaction with the experience of reading the material. Consideration will also be given to employing 'think-aloud' techniques to record users' thoughts as they read and use the texts.

A literature review of the requirements of students and academics on the web will form the basis of this experiment, which will be refined once it is piloted on a small group of subjects.

4 Measurement of results. Both quantitative and qualitative feedback from tasks, questionnaires and interviews will be analysed to determine the overall usability of each text, and this analysis will form the basis of the guidelines for the design of learning and teaching material on the internet. Data will also be analysed on a comparative basis, to identify differences between the needs of the representative user groups participating in the experiment.

The methodology used to evaluate the usability of selected texts will be piloted on a small group of around 10 subjects. This will enable the project team to identify and fix any problems with the experiment before the full-scale evaluation begins.

User involvement
The results of the evaluation will feed directly into the draft set of guidelines and users will be involved once again, towards the end of the project, in testing the effectiveness of these guidelines, their responses being used to identify any major design problems, suggest improvements and guide revisions.

The user communities addressed by Eboni will be directly involved in the experimental phase of the project, ensuring not only that their needs are assessed but also that they form the basis of the set of recommendations produced at the end of the project. They will be students in each of the subjects selected in Phase 1 of the methodology (including undergraduates, postgraduates, mature students and distance and part-time learners) as well as:

• education professionals including lecturers and tutors;

• professionals from the National Grid for Learning.

Accessibility will be involved, and Eboni's recommendations for publishing learning and teaching material on the web will accord with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 3 which explain how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities, and the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's User Agent Guidelines 1.0, 4 DISinHE 5 and the Towel Project, 6 which aims to find solutions to problems encountered by both visually impaired and sighted users when using the web, are also being monitored.

Current state of research
At the time of writing, Eboni has just entered its fourth month. During this time a Project Manager, Director and Research Assistant have been appointed and begun work, a Steering Committee and Management Group have been established, the project plan has been drafted in full, and the project website has been set up. 7

An initial aim of Eboni was to conduct a survey of the range of teaching material available on the internet, identifying, classifying and finally selecting resources according to techniques used (hypertext, tables of contents, etc), type of resource (lectures, tutorials, textbooks, etc) and subject. The results of this survey are available from the project website in the form of a small catalogue, which aims to provide a 'snapshot' of the online learning and teaching resources being produced by UK HE institutions. 8

From this collection, key texts will be selected which are representative of various subject areas and techniques employed. These texts will provide the material for evaluation, and guide the development of a methodology for evaluation, the next major goal of the project.

The guidelines
Eboni expects to publish the final set of best practice guidelines for producing educational material on the web in December 2001/January 2002. These will be sent to relevant organisations, targeting publishers of electronic material, similar or related programmes, libraries and museums involved in digitising collections and interested parties in the HE community in general. In addition, they will be available from the project website, together with an example of a text on which they have been implemented.

Eboni welcomes feedback at all stages, and interested parties are invited to join the project mailing list. 9

References
1 Applying Writing Guidelines to Web Pages. 1998. Available: www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html .
2 Centre for Digital Library Research. Available at: http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/.
3 W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Available at: www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/.
4 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's User Agent Guidelines 1.0. Available at: www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/.
5 Disability Information Systems in Higher Education. Available at: http://www.disinhe.ac.uk/.
6 Towel: Real World Mobility on the Web. Available: http:// www.man.ac.uk/towel/.
7 http://eboni.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/.
8 http://eboni.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/ebooks/
9 open-eboni@mailbase.ac.uk

Ruth Wilson is Eboni Research Assistant at the Centre for Digital Library Research, University of Strathclyde.

© The Library Association
Last updated: 15 December 2000