I mostly read ebooks now, but my main issue w/kindle and similar readers is that a lot of my retention is spatial. E.g I remember where physically something is in a book better than where in a reflowable document something is.
Sticking to a single, fixed size reader and avoiding changing font sizes helps solve some of that, but it's not quite the same.
I have had the same problem. Especially because going back a page on a Kindle can cause a reflow so words aren’t in the same position.
Have you had any luck turning on progress bars on your reader? Hasn’t helped me yet but I know I have a very good intuition on physical books for how far through the book a concept was. I can often just move directly to the area and then scan forward / backwards.
Not as much as I'd like. I think losing the tactile idea of physically how far into a book something is loses a signal.
On the other hand I think there are potential opportunities there in more strongly visually signalling position in ways you can't with physical books (e.g. by strongly visually signposting locations in various ways), that I wish someone would experiment with.
Comments
I mostly read ebooks now, but my main issue w/kindle and similar readers is that a lot of my retention is spatial. E.g I remember where physically something is in a book better than where in a reflowable document something is.
Sticking to a single, fixed size reader and avoiding changing font sizes helps solve some of that, but it's not quite the same.
I have had the same problem. Especially because going back a page on a Kindle can cause a reflow so words aren’t in the same position.
Have you had any luck turning on progress bars on your reader? Hasn’t helped me yet but I know I have a very good intuition on physical books for how far through the book a concept was. I can often just move directly to the area and then scan forward / backwards.
On my Kindle or iPad I find this hard.
Not as much as I'd like. I think losing the tactile idea of physically how far into a book something is loses a signal.
On the other hand I think there are potential opportunities there in more strongly visually signalling position in ways you can't with physical books (e.g. by strongly visually signposting locations in various ways), that I wish someone would experiment with.