The arguments and issues brought from the previous chapter are proposed and discussed in this chapter. First, the characters of physical books in the three phenomena consisting the acceptance theory are discussed because they are thought as the factors of presence between books and participants. Second, the mechanism of presence and how presence might be performed are discussed. Finally the design implications for e-book reader and interaction designers are proposed.
5-1 The Character of Material Books
The purpose of this thesis is tracking the contexts of interactions to find the presence.
Chapter four exhibits the important phenomena and the contexts. In the following sections, the character of material books in the three main interactions, social interaction, reading and collection, is proposed and discussed.
5-1-1 Books are the paragon of future
Gifts are commonly understood as something represents social relationships,
personal memories or benedictions (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2008). The artifacts which are given from the participants’ friends are taken as the representations of their past experiences, relationships and signification (Dant, 1999), such as bookmarkers, postcards and photos. However, beyond the features above, books have a unique property which is distinguished from other meaningful artifacts: expectation.
According to chapter 4-3-1, the paradigm model of expectation, it shows that books given from others not only represent the wishes but also the paragon. It makes books become an expectation in the future, not just normal books nor any other objects.
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Figure 5-1 the character of books as a gift in social interaction
〔Quote-8〕
“…He gives me books as birthday presents every year. In the previous years, he always gave me books about art and design. One year, I suffered many hardship with my family. I felt confused and frustrated about myself. At the birthday of the
tough year, he just gave me a special book without any word. It was about how to deal with troubles and frustrations.”
( Participant E )
5-1-2 Books are self recorders and triggers
The context of satisfaction found in 4-2-3 describes that participants are satisfied in the reading courses. The following question is that how it goes and records?
Participants always associate their experiences with the reading feedbacks while reading. They used to projecting their own life experience into the contents of book like putting their desires into some certain plots and empathizing with the characters of the books. It is to say that reading is a two-way process between self pouring and self parting. On the one hand, ideas which cannot be realized are deposited by participants into books. On the other hand, participants seek for possibilities from books to make their ideas in practice. It is a personal and private experience for each
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participant that they have no willing to share with others. Some of the participants pointed that they hope these specific feedbacks which are produced via personal experience can be kept from other people. It can be named a kind of experience monopolization, or considered that people pour themselves into books, the
“ensoulment of books” as well (Nelson & Stolerman, 2003).
The books become very important in this process that they play the role with double faces: the recorder and the trigger. In this process participants enjoy the textures of papers and they are indicated by fingers. In the same time, their emotions are changed with plots which are revealed by every flip ups and down. These traces, which are proposed in chapter 4-1 artifact model such as creases, stains, sweat and fading pages are recorded and become the experience triggers to enhance the next reading experience.
〔Quote-9〕
“…it‟s a book with positive power. When I felt disappointed, all I need to do is reading this book to calm down. It‟s very useful.”
( Participant C )
Furthermore, these traces also affect the reliabilities of participants. Depending on the interviews, most participants prefer reading in the physical books because abundance of physical books can provide superior reading experience than others. A participant mentioned that while searching for the medical information of her jobs, the published books and periodicals have priorities and digital information are her secondary concern.
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〔Quote-10〕
“…maybe I love this story too much. Especially in some marked parts I usually read them again and again to feel deeply. So, if a book is marked densely, it means that this book is read again and again.”
( Participant K )
“The pages of books are wrinkly because of my sweats. The pages become more and wrinklier with the coming of the end.”
( Participant K ) From the discussion above, it is known that the physical books use the material properties to enrich people’s reading experiences. Through these processes,
participant’s mental boundary is enlarged and the traces which conserve the personal experiences become the triggers for the next reads.
5-1-3 Books are the silent expressions of self
The coordinate map which is proposed in chapter 4-2-2 illustrates the performances of the threshold and the attitude of the possession. It is considered that possession is a way for self expression in the real world. The participants identify themselves with selection of different artifacts (Csikszentmihalyi, 1981) and build the image to express their lifestyles and values. In other words, the possession means that these artifacts belonged to someone are parts of the owner. Similarly books' materiality reveals their owner's character and cultural authenticity (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2008). The
furnishings, arrangements and decorations of participants are the expressions performed under their unconscious preferences to display the real self.
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〔Quote-11〕
“the favorites…represent yourself. If one day some guys come to your place, they might realize you deeply by seeing what you have in your book shelves.”
( Participant K )
“…these inferior books are arranged to the corner…to hide. I think some specific stuff, such as DVD and book, are expressing your taste. Of course people wish their tastes are accepted with others…I think the stuff are a kind of mediation to interact with other people.”
( Participant K )
“You can find that these books (photo) are not publishing in these days…They seem to be there for a long time. So you know these books are his collection. I mean, I‟m not sure it is a common rule, but you can judge or understand a person from his books. It is a direct and best way to realize the other side of him. ”
( Participant K ) 5-1-4 Brief Summary
The meanings of the three performances discussed above are considered as the related factors of the presence. However, what we care about is the relation between presence and interactions. How the presence is produced and organized among the interactions is discussed in the following step.
5-2 Where is the presence?
After realizing the character of physical books in reading, collection and social interaction, the more important issue is that where is the presence? The mechanism of presence among the three interactions is shown in the figure 5-2, which is also indicated the stratums of interactions. It can be observed that the whole structure is consisted by three concentric circles from the inside out. The innermost circle
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represents reading interaction, which is concerned the closest relationship with ego in this research. The middle circle represents the interaction of collection and the outer one represents the social interaction.
Figure 5-2 the Presence Model
There are two forces in this model, which are sourced from social interaction and reading, compressing each other from inside and outside. The force inside is driven by reading interactions, which leads people to the process of pouring themselves into books. On the other hand, the force outside is imposed by others’ evaluations, social communities or culture habits. The presence, as the definition of this thesis, is shaped and “extruded” between the two forces above and finally it is performed at the span crossing from the end of reading interaction to the end of social interaction. This presence model is inspired from Condition Matrix of Glaser and Strauss (1967) and it can demonstrate the changing of presence.
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Figure 5-2 which provides a basic and theoretical understanding of presence mechanism emphasize that presence is sourced from the contexts of social
interaction and reading. It can be thought that in social interaction and reading stages, people are not conscious of presence. Until going through the process of “acceptance theory”, they will aware the presence and take these books as “particular beings” in the “possession” phenomena. It also implies that every book in people’s book shelves has its own presence, but it can’t be aware without any simulative clue. The culture probe, which is introduced and applied in chapter three, is designed to help
participants find the books with high presence.
Figure 5-3 the Presence Model with Artifact Model
Meanwhile, this presence model can be combined with the artifact model proposed in chapter 4-1 as Figure 5-3 above. Figure 5-3 is the result of combination with artifact model and presence model. The artifacts involving with the interactions between books and people are labeled with different lengths. It means the position and duration of the involving artifacts. In addition, it can help designers understand the relationship between artifacts and people among the interactions. For example, if
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designers focus on the certain reading interactions, they will find that the personal decoration and bookshelf have nothing to do with people. If they want to develop the interactions with communities, the post-it can be ignored. In short, this model
distinguishes the importance of artifacts.
Another noticeable issue is the presence of ebook after realizing the presence of physical books. Based on the findings in chapter 4-3 and chapter 5-1, the physical books can be thought as “physical carrier” and “abstract content” apart. People contact and respond with “abstract contents” by interacting with “physical carriers”, so it is to say that the “physical carriers” are not only printed with contents, conserving the traces of use, but also recording people’s emotions. Furthermore, the physical carrier and the abstract content in physical books are bounded together; that means, the book, which interacted with the user, is getting different from other “same books”;
it can be thought that the book becomes privileged and monopolized.
Figure 5-4 the relationship between carriers and contents of physical books
However, the physical carrier and abstract content are separated in ebooks. Although it allows people reading the abstract contents with different, non-specific carriers, such as laptops, smart phones, tablets, it also lost the unique, contextual, connecting relationship between physical carrier and abstract content. How do people read,
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respond emotions, reflect traces and pour themselves when they realize the carrier is not the only one for the abstract content? It might be called as “lost of
self-commitment”.
Figure 5-5 the relationship between carriers and contents of ebooks
5-3 Design Implications
After the discussion about the context of acceptance theory and the mechanism between presence and interactions, the design implications are proposed for e-book-interaction and e-book-reader designers in the following phases.
5-3-1. E-book Must Be Personalized
Participants consider that they are possessed with “their books”, that means, the books are not any book but their books. They take kinds of strategies to make their books differ from others’ “same books”. However, it cannot be distinguished from others’ e-book because most of the current e-book-services take e-book as a “digital file”. The new e-book interactions should be opened for users to meet their desires of self-projection and self-division.
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Figure 5-6 the concept sketch of traces
a. The Traces Should be Carved and Reflected
People’s reading habits are various and complex that they can reflect their owns loyally. These traces which are produced during the reading courses make books meaningful and unique. For example, the common feature of physical books is the folding corner thought as “something important here” or “where I have read”. Besides, if people keep reading the certain pages, these pages will become wrinkly and the edges of these pages are also smudged. The new e-book interactions and readers should represent these exquisite and minute traces (figure 5-6) to enhance the presence and richness of reading experience.
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Figure 5-7 the concept sketch of collection
b. The Collection Preference Should be Appeared
In the chapter 4-2, the various performances are discovered and revealed the different treatments based on “the threshold” and “the attitude” of people. Some people cherish their books as the treasure but some as the stacks of printed papers. It is important that the new e-book service should allow users to collect as their wills which has been applied in many entertainments like online games instead of
arranging these books monotonously (figure 5-7). In short, high control and freedom are necessary for user in collection.
5-3-2 The Representative Materials Should be Supplied
No one denies that digitalizing reduces the waste of resource and eliminates the storage spaces. Yet, just as the artifacts often help to articulate distinctions among cultural communities, the books’ material forms also have functioned as markers of social class, signaling wealth and taste (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2008). For example, everyone agree that digital music like mp3 format is popularly shared, listened,
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transmitted and copied nowadays. But still, there are a lot of collectors infatuated with vinyl records and discs distinguish their tastes from the public. Hence, the
representative material is suggested that it might be the cover, or a part of the book (figure 5-8) as a proof of users’ ownership in the real world.
Figure 5-8 the concept sketch of substantiation
5-3-3 The Connection with Other Users Should be Enhanced.
According to the chapter 4-3-3 and chapter 5-1-2, it is known that traditional
interactions between books and people are personal and private. In addition, lacks of convenient and efficient communications are found which might make the participants have no proper way to share their thoughts with others. However, most of the current e-book-services do not focus on the interaction among reading communities. If the superiority of digital technology are developed, the e-book will not only become a information storage but a emotion and experience carrier to connect with others.
63 5-4 Brief Summary
In this chapter, the character of material books and the concept of presence are proposed, including their properties and mechanism model. According to the discussion above, the material books are not only the carrier of information but the reflection of users themselves, and the presence is sourced and shaped from the forces of social interaction and reading process, and performed in the Possession phenomena. The presence model also shows the duration and affection of artifacts which are used in the whole interacting context. Finally, three design demonstrations of ebook are exhibited the potential possibilities of the “design for presence”.
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