Evaluation of e-Readers: A Preliminary Analysis

Evaluation of new consumer goods, particularly electronic, are often done from the perspective of analysing the latest models, comparing their advantages and disadvantages with respect to price. This style of evaluation is often performed by one of a few product experts on a wide range of features that may not be applicable to each user. This study instead used a scenario-based approach to evaluate a number of ereaders, mimics a user interested in a new product or technology with a limited budget. The objective is to evaluate from a purchasing perspective the quality and usability of ereaders available within that budget range. The e-readers evaluated were operated in multiple ways, which suggests that the interface design should cater for users with different levels of experience with technology. The results of a large user study with over 70 participants, shows that the popular brands do not necessarily produce the best products in terms of e-readers. We found that navigation within books to be the most significant differentiator between the eReaders in our scenario based evaluation process.