Jeff Barberio and Juliet LaDieu
Carnegie Mellon University
BookPlus Digital Reader
Look and Feel
In developing our design, we analyzed many aspects of the book reading experience that make reading enjoyable. The first aspect that is an important part of the book reading process is to have some way to see how far into the book a reader may be. Therefore, our design incorporates a 4 LED indicator that allows the user to see how close they are to completion in 25% increments. Next, our design considered the look and feel of a book. Different cases or skins can be attached to the reader to allow for customization. Cases featuring popular characters, such as Harry Potter or Spiderman, would be available for purchase and would attach to the reader via Velcro. The reader will be sent with a default plain leather cover. Finally, the screen for our design would try to emulate a book by being a softer white-yellow color typical of a book page with an anti-glare coating for outdoor use.
Functionality
While developing our design, there were numerous features that we felt were essential to making the investment in a digital reader worthwhile. The functionality is broken up into three categories: social collaboration, internet tools, and display features.
For social collaboration, our reader will feature a Collaboration Dashboard where friends can save their favorite quotes and send them to a friend’s Dashboard. New messages will be sent to the device once it is turned on. Also, the Dashboard can save the reader’s comments about different paragraphs or characters and share them with others. The user can bring up a list of groups that are reading the same book and then ask for permission to join the group or to join the current discussion. The UI will show the number of members and how many are currently active. The collaboration is limited to people with BookPlus digital readers. The network is not accessible from the outside world. There is a soft keyboard similar to the iPhone for typing. Also, the author or publisher can sell a version of the book with embed links to a “hidden features” section containing thoughts from the author, the author’s bio, deleted chapters/text, revisions, or information about the characters and story locations in the book. The user can also buy a special edition of a book series and be able to link between the various books using characters or locations.
Our device would have internet access to enable multiple features. First, the user will have the ability to access the web for book reviews. In addition, our reader would allow for instant word lookup by providing access to an online dictionary and encyclopedia.
Finally, there are several display features that will enhance the reader experience. Here is the list of features:
• Stylus to write notes and highlight text
• One-button page flip
• Toolbar options – Clock, Chapter title, Page number, Estimated time to finish book
• Font options – user control for size, author/publisher to select style
• Bookmarks – allow user to place multiple bookmarks and flip back to them
• Beach-proof case sold separately
• Reader will save last page viewed by user and will restart at that page
• Day and Night settings for the screen to adjust for various light levels
• The text is searchable
