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Introduction to Reid - the iPhone document reader
Screen 1 - Highlight Mode
Reid was designed to maximize the readability of the content. The results of usability research were used to guide each feature, and at times choices were made to sacrifice aesthetic appeal for better performance. Some of these choices and the scientific research that guided them is discussed below in the section on the science behind Reid.
Reid provides three basic modes for reading documents. The first highlights individual words and the highlight moves through the document at the speed you set. This provides a cue to help you keep pace with your selected reading speed. Some people find it more comfortable to read above or below the moving highlight rather than reading the highlight itself.
Screen 2 - Word Flash Mode in Landscape
The third reading mode simply shows the document without any of the assisted-reading features. This mode allows the reader to manually scroll through the content at their leisure.
The following sections will describe the application and how to use it to meet your needs.
Screen 3 - Main Window
The opening screen of Reid (shown in Screen 3) displays several document sources. The first option is a document itself, a Help document that explains the basic functionality and provides some text to experiment with the various features.
The second option, "Free eBooks", connects you to Minion's server providing a collection of free content ranging from classic literature to current events.
The third option, "Google documents", allows you to log in to your own Google Documents account and download content you've stored there.
If you quit Reid while you're in the middle of reading, you'll notice that when you return, there's a fourth option on the main screen (under the lines for the help document, free eBooks, and your Google Document account). This provides a shortcut to resume reading your most recently read document. Whatever you were reading last is still stored on your iPhone, so it doesn't require a network connection to resume reading. This allows you offline access to whatever you're currently reading.
If you choose the Help Document, it will open the document immediately. The other two options (free ebooks and your Google documents account) are sources of documents, so they will send a request to the server and then display a list of content available from that source. You can then choose one of those documents for reading.
When a document opens for reading, it will start in whatever mode you have configured. When you first start, it will open in highlighting mode with all the settings configured to average default values.
The buttons in the bottom toolbar (shown in screen 4) provide the following controls (from left to right):
Screen 4 - Toolbar
Screen 5 - Speed Control
The Start/Stop button allows you to pause and then restart the progress of the moving highlight or the words in word flash mode.
The Speed button pops up a slider that lets you set the speed (shown in Screen 5).
The Font Size button pops up a slider that sets the font size.
The Contrast button pops up a slider that sets the background color to provide more or less contrast. Maximizing contrast makes the background white. This will make the highlight disappear (since it's white too). Many users find having a slightly grey background makes for the most comfortable reading.
The Position button displays the percentage of the document read. Tapping the button pops up a slider that sets the position. The slider can be used like a scrollbar to move through the document and reset your reading position.
Screen 6 - Settings Window
The Settings button opens a configuration screen (shown in Screen 6) that allows you to set the following:
The reading mode can be set to highlight, word flash, or plain.
The reverse polarity switch changes the color settings so the text is white and the background is grey/black. In this mode, the contrast control on the main reading screen will still control contrast in the same way. Maximizing contrast will make the background black. Slightly lower contrast will make the background dark grey that allows the black highlight to appear.
The font setting opens another screen which provides several choices for font. The default setting is the sans-serif Verdana font which has been shown to provide very good readability, but many users prefer other font styles.
When you're done with the settings screen, click the Done button in the upper left to return to the reading screen.
We have many additional features planned for Reid and we'll be adding them as fast as we can. Some of these are aimed at improving the readability of the documents you read and some are designed to improve the basic usability of Reid. They include:
If you have specific suggestions or particular needs that Reid could address, please let us know at support@minionapps.com.
Loading your own Documents and eBooks
Screen 7 - Login to
Google Documents
If you choose the Google documents option on the first screen, a screen will appear which allows you to log in to your Google document account (shown in Screen 7). Tap in the username box to make the keyboard appear. Tap the "Remember Me" box to have your username and password stored on your iPhone so you won't have to enter them again. Note that your username and password are stored on your device, not online, and the interaction with your Google account is done directly with the Google servers using their interface. Neither your login information nor your documents stored in your Google account are ever sent to Minion or anyone else; these online queries are directly between your iPhone and Google.
After logging in, Reid will send a request to Google for a list of documents you've stored in your account. It will display them in a list just like the main screen and the free ebooks list, allowing you to select a document. That's all there is to it.
The documents you store in your Google Documents account could be anything from contracts you have to read for work to ebooks you've selected yourself. The selection of free ebooks that Minion has made available is fairly limited. This was done intentionally because our connection to your Google Documents account makes loading your own ebooks so easy. If you want to load free classics for yourself, here are some steps to get you started:
Currently, Reid supports "document-type" files. This means HTML, text files (TXT), Microsoft Word documents, rich text (RTF) and others that the Google service will consider a "document". It does not include spreadsheets, images, or PDF files. However, there is a method for viewing PDFs in Reid through Google's Document service.
If you don't already have a Google account or if you haven't set up Google Documents on the Google-Mail account you already have, just go to the
Google Documents page at Google to get started.
All the reading modes and configuration settings in Reid are based on research in the fields of usability and readability. Much of the readability background and specific feedback on the design of Reid came from Dr. Lauren Scharff, in particular her research into how font and foreground/background color affect readability. Her work in quantitatively assessing the performance of highlighting and RSVP in terms of reading comprehension and retention is ongoing.
In addition, there is a great deal of literature in the fields of usability and psychology which are pertinent in the design of reading systems. One which provides a concise background in the fundamental science is the chapter on Small Screen Interfaces in the book HCI Beyond the GUI edited by Philip Kortum (Amazon link).
The development of Reid provided many situations where usability and aesthetics clash. For example, in the presentation of a document's text, black text on a white background provides the highest constrast (which is good for readability in general) and is an aesthetically-pleasing clean display. However, readability studies have shown that while maximizing contrast is important, reading speed and comprehension are higher and fatigue is lower when the background is slightly off white. In fact, some of the studies by Scharff found that readability was maximized with color combinations that were somewhat ugly from a purely aesthetic standpoint. Reid allows the user to set the background shade to a comfortable contrast and, if preferred, reverse the polarity to display white text on a dark background. This gives the user the control to adjust to their preferences while still guided by fundamental usability research.
Another example of the tradeoffs between design and usability was in the use of the sliders to control speed, font size, and contrast. In the original design, all of these controls were on the Settings screen in order to minimize the clutter on the reading screen, but users found it more convenient to be able to adjust these settings on the fly. Moving the sliders to the reading screen provided real-time feedback on the chages in font size and contrast and allowed the user to tweak the speed without bouncing between the reading screen and the settings. Also, basic display of the sliders was governed more by usability than aesthetics. Compare the screenshots below:
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On the left is the speed control slider in an original implementation. The slider appears over the text and has a nice polished appearance from an aesthetic standpoint. However, the lack of contrast between the slider and the text background hurt its usability, especially among users with low vision. The second iteration displayed the same slider in a box with a plain white background. This looks blockier and not nearly as slick as the version with the transparent background, but the white box provides higher contrast and makes the position of the slider component much more clear. Especially for low-vision users, the benefit of having the component stand out from the background is worth sacrificing the visual appeal of the prettier version. Many users have trouble with sliders on the iPhone, not just in this application but in many others (e.g. position or volume sliders in the audio player). For that reason, these sliders were designed to respond to taps which change the position rather than only by dragging the position bubble, and we include plus/minus buttons at the top and bottom to allow users to fine-tune their settings when they are having trouble fat-fingering the sliders.
Throughout the design of Reid, this kind of tradeoff was made in order to maximize the usability of the application and make it most useful for both low-vision readers who need these adjustments simply to be able to see the content and for speed-reading users who can maximize speed and minimize fatigue.